Everybody Need Socks

These feet belong to an American Girl doll. Cute socks, eh? They were made by a friend of mine. This is what you can make with your leftover sock yarn.

Speaking of sock yarn. I'm back on the wagon. The Knit From Your Stash wagon that is. Went to Yarndogs to beef up my needle collection and came home with another ball of sock yarn. By the looks of things next year I'll have to do a KFYSS and knit up all the sock yarn the KFYS resulted in -- or SFYS for all the fiber I've purchased in lieu of yarn. Oh and while I'm at it I should do a KFYB for all the knitting books I've acquired.

So what have I been up to? Well,...I got sucked into the MS3 vortex. I dug out some nice laceweight wool/alpaca blend from jaggerspun and bought beads. I swatched, cast-on, knit through 1/2 of clue 1 and frogged the whole thing. I did the swatch w/ US4's and it looked fine, but when I started the pattern it was looking as good. The yarn over's weren't defined enough so I took a trip to the frog pond and dropped a couple needle sizes which looks much better. I've started clue 2, but here's a picture of clue 1:

I'm not in a hurry, clue 6 will be posted tomorrow. From clue 5 on the design is asymetrical. I don't know what I want to do about that so I'll knit through clue 4 and see how things are looking before I decide. Instructructions for symetrical options went up today. Being on the slow side kinda defeats the purpose of the "mystery", but it sure has its advantages.

Help, I've fallen

and I don't want to get back up. Those of you who read this blog will know that I buy yarn with reckless abandon. New yarn brings with it new possibilities. Of course, old forgotten yarn tends to do the same thing when brought to new light (or out of the stashroom). This year however I joined Knit from your Stash 2007, where I will buy no new yarn (with a few exceptions) and will "shop" the stash. I have, up until this month stayed true to KFYS...only adding sock yarn and various "gifts". But then I tripped and fell over my wallet at the "all you can carry" sale at Full Thread Ahead. Hence this addition to the stash -- and not one stinkin' ball of sock yarn:

7 balls of bamboo/silk, 3 super sks of sea silk. I hang my head in shame...NOT. This is yummy yarn! It was well worth falling off the wagon -- heck, jumped off was more like it (I even got my daughter to come with for extra "arms" -- I didn't need them though). And yes, those are new Longaberger baskets too -- if you have to know, bought direct from the Factory Store in Ohio.

Ah well. It was fun while it lasted. I'm not saying it's over now. I'm not sure when the next purchase will be. I have no plans to return to a yarn store anytime soon. The deadline lifts after TKGA in Oakland this September, and I am allowed 1 slip up. So far this is it -- no exclusions.

Evidence

Found this picture in my camera. It's dated 4/27 which means it was taken the day after the last guild knit night that I went to. Now, as I recall this is not in violation of the KFYS 2007. You see the cotton was "gifted" to me by one other guild member who was clearing out her stash. And the other -- while it was a purchase, some yummy bamboo -- was paid for with my b-day Commuknity gift card -- so that's a "gift" too.

Y'know, it's not hard to work around the rules here. As long as I'm getting gifts -- birthday, mother's day, pity party (left my job), celebrations (found a new one) -- there are many opportunites to shop, not to mention the sock yarn. So since that night at guild I've purchased the following: 3 balls of feza fiona -- which I cannot even recall (scary huh, this is a true sign of a very big problem) from Continental Stitch, 1 ball feza dazzle also from CS -- wonder if this goes with the other feza?; 1 sk kollage enchanted, 1 sk collinette isis from Yarndogs (odd, that's all?); 2 sks gems merino SOCK yarn from Purlescence; and a gaggle of sks 6? 9? 13? of more SOCK yarn from Knit Picks -- it's the 70/30 merino silk solids they have now...which I got in order to do these.


Sorry for the lack of posts last month -- I was busy with one thing or another...so busy that my blog'iversary just blew buy, I mean by. Yeah, okay so I'm a big fan of retail therapy. Anyways, the blog is 2 years old and this year I've knit 3 pairs of socks, a jacket, a shawl and a vest and another hat for Elana. Remember Elana? She was going thru chemo last year for bone cancer -- who's now got a clean bill of health -- what a trooper that girl (and she loved that last hat).

I'm knitting...I'm just not finishing lately -- I don't even know what's on the sidebar -- hmm...so what have I been busy with? The girls mostly and these:



Clockwise starting with the pink one they are: bazooka, mocha latte, icing, macaroon, toffee, ricotta, jr mintz, werther, bun bun and in the middle, cookie. They are our webkinz and we loves them all.






We mostly play with them online here.

Or we play with them in the real world. They are very hard to find in California. They've been big in the east coast for awhile, and anytime anyone gets a shipment around here they disappear. We're still looking for a horse, a cow and the black and white cat (who comes with an online yarn sofa complete with knitting needles -- guess who wants that?).

Fancy Silk Socks

Yarn: Regia Bamboo -- 50/50 Bamboo and superwash wool. Fancy Silk refers to the pattern name -- a la Nancy Bush from the book Vintage Socks. 5 months to knit a pair of socks. Longer than usual because I ripped back the first one from mid-foot to before the heel. You can't see from the picture here (hint -- you can always click on my pictures to get the full size) but there's a vertical lace in the rib that needed to land along side the foot -- I missed the first time and didn't realize it until halfway through the foot.

Stash Reduction: 2 balls (I know, I know socks don't count...)

Now I get to pick out another pair to start. I bought a bunch of patterns at my LYS from this designer. So maybe I'll knit one of those...since the stash diet I seem to have an endless supply in sock yarn, go figure...in the meantime Wendy Knits (see link on sidebar) put a picture of her fridge a few weeks back. I've always thought refrigerators were interesting, so here's mine. Enjoy!

Ribwarmer

Looks more like a vest made from one of those woven mexican blankets. I dug deep into the stash for this project. Some self striping Noro wool blend bought for a ribwarmer. 6 sks. I used a variation that allowed me to knit the two fronts and join them to knit the back in one piece! It's a bit long though. There are several things I think I'd do to make this more...um...wearable; 1) shorten the armhole depth; 2) round out the turns for the fronts and back (like the original pattern); 3) short-row some bust-darts. This would make it more bolero-style and I may even do it sometime soon in a wool silk! It was a bit stiff coming off the needles and it definitely improved once I had it washed and blocked. Very fun to knit -- esp with the striping!

stash reduction: 3.5 sks.