The Electric Devons

I did it -- I finished my first Wollmeise socks and my last socks of the Sock Innovation Knit-Along with a bit of the month to spare.

Now I didn't do spectacularly well with the knit-along -- I only completed 3 of the 15 socks patterns -- but I didn't find the group until August last year and then wasn't willing to put my other knitting on hold to keep up with it (there were Christmas gifts in the works after all).  Then the moderators of the group decided to start doubling up the patterns to do 2 patterns a month and there was no way I would have kept up with every pattern anyway.  So I haven't knit them all, but I wanted to make sure I finished one of the last 2 patterns before it was over:

Pattern: Devon by Cookie A.
Yarn: Wollmeise Sockenwolle 80/20 Twin - Lavendel (We're Different)
Needles: US 1½ - 2.5 mm Addi Turbo Lace
Completed:  May 22, 2010

I'm really pleased with them and they fit beautifully, even though our summer-like weather means I haven't done anything more than simply try them on yet.  The Wollmeise yarn is really an amazingly bright purple and you certainly can't beat the yardage -- even after a longish pair of socks I have about 200 yards left!  I did find that the construction of the Wollmeise yarn made it more splitty than yarns like BMFA Socks That Rock, but it wasn't a major problem for this pattern at least.

Unfortunately, I think the sock success means that my Nonpareil sweater won't be done this month.  I haven't completely given up hope yet and I've been working on it with renewed determination, but the signs (and the amount of seaming needed) aren't good.  Who knew it could take so long to knit things like a sweater collar piece?

Sock Innovation with Wollmeise

I've been moving along with my Devon socks (from the Sock Innovation book) and finally have some photos to prove it.  I finished the first sock and I'm more than halfway through the leg of the second.  Since there's plenty of yardage in a Wollmeise skein (about 510 yards!!) and I rarely come close to running out of yarn for socks for myself anyway, I knit these according to the pattern with 4 repeats which results in a somewhat longer leg.   

But, since it's spring and there's plenty of rain moving through, these photos were taken inside and don't really do justice to the actual color.  Maybe once both socks are finished I'll be able to get some better photos of them with natural light.

In the meantime I'm in pretty good shape to get them finished and posted to the knit-along before the end of the month, but I'm hoping to work in some time for finishing my sweater, too, so there is the possibility of getting distracted.  I'm looking forward to having them finished and being able to wear them to see what the famous Wollmeise feels like after some wear, though.

Knitting the Stitches

I've been amassing too much stash and with a new year comes a new Stitches Midwest and more yarn temptation.  We haven't booked anything or scheduled any classes yet, but at least Xandermommy and I are still planning to attend.

Most of my Stitches Midwest 2009 stash

But months ago, when we started talking about it again, I made the rule that I wasn't allowed to go back this year unless I knit some of the yarn I bought there last year.  I did start my Nonpariel sweater back in February and made a lot of good progress on it, but it's been stalled for a few weeks since it reached the seaming stage.  I am trying to make myself finish it by setting a goal for the end of the month, though.

In the meantime, I felt the need for a simpler project that was easier to travel with and had an easily memorized pattern.  Since my stash is almost entirely sock yarn, socks were an obvious answer.

Miss Babs Yummy in Wisteria and Yummy Toes in Bruin

Hoodie Revisited

I think it was sometime in February that my sister admitted that my nephew would likely never wear the sweater I knit him because with the tight fit over his head they were afraid they wouldn't be able to get it back off of him.  Since the sweater itself was sized more in the hopes of fitting him sometime between now and September and it was just the neck that seemed too small for him, I took it back with plans to cut the neck and rip out some stitches and try to get some more space without unraveling it completely.  I completed the surgery in the end of February, but it wasn't until this weekend that we saw them again and had a chance to see if it would ever be wearable or if he'd already outgrown the rest of it.

I ended up removing most of what looked like the colorful insert behind the v-neck by cutting a stitch at the center of the garter stitch edge and carefully unraveling just that color until I hit a point where I wasn't sure I could go any further without a disaster.  I wove in the extra ends that were produced and I'm hoping the applied i-cord will help stabilize the portion of the neck that wasn't part of the neck before.

And the result is.... wearable!  My sister was able to get it on him with very little fuss and he was smiling as soon as he was wearing it and grabbed one of the cuffs and started sucking on it right away again!  The hood is more decorative as it's still small for his 95th percentile noggin, but I'm not sure how much he would put up with wearing a hood anyway.  The body and sleeves obviously aren't so baggy like they were at 4 months old, but they didn't seem too snug yet.  So I'm hoping he'll be able to get at least a little bit of wear out of it before he outgrows it now.  And since I don't have any pictures of him trying it on I'll have to try for pictures if he does wear it again when we see them next.

Then, since I didn't use up much of the variegated skein for the sweater and he enjoyed sucking on his sleeves so much, I decided to use the rest of the yarn for a fun toy for him.  And so the Star That Rocks was born.

In Progress

Lightly stuffed w/toy inside for noise

I gave it to him this weekend and he seemed to enjoy playing with it and tasting it.  It's not stuffed very tightly so it's nice and soft and the stuffing muffles the bell inside so it's not very loud.  And later I heard that it worked well as a pillow while he was sleeping for the car ride home.  Awww!

Sproingy Yarn

Day Seven: What a Yarn -- Blog about a particular yarn you have used in the past or own in your stash, or perhaps one that you covet from afar. 

Again, I can't pick just one, but I'm finding that I do really enjoy working with yarns like Blue Moons Fiber Arts Socks That Rock, Colinette Jitterbug, and Claudia Hand Painted Yarns -- yarns that are tightly plied or made with a tight twist, I think?  Since I'm not familiar with spinning I'm not quite sure how to describe them, but I think a lot of people familiar with yarn might know what I'm trying to say.  They don't split easily and you don't really see the individual strands of fiber, but still seem to have quite a bit of squish to them.

Colinette Jitterbug

So far the socks made with this type of yarn seem to hold up better -- they've held their color well and don't get as much of a fuzzy halo.  And while I thought they might make socks feel more stiff or thick, they've become squishy and comfy when worn.

Now I'm looking forward to trying some Wollmeise yarn, which looks like it has an entirely different texture.  It looks very tightly twisted, too, but seems to have thinner individual strands?  And it's tightly twisted into very firm skeins, so it's hard to tell how squishy the yarn might feel when knit up.

Wollmeise 80/20 Twin

Oh so many yarns to experiment with, so much time swallowed up by a day job!

Remembering Toasty Socks

Day Six: Revisit a past F/O -- Bring the fortune and life of a past finished project up to the present. 

I had only been knitting for a couple of months and finished a handful of projects when I offered to knit some socks for my husband.  I wasn't using him as a guinea pig for sock knitting -- I had already made a pair of socks for myself using a semi-solid yarn and the Socks of Kindness recipe/pattern, then made another pair for myself with busier yarn in plain stockinette using the same basic construction.  But when Sariebeth gave me some sport weight yarn in blue jean colors I thought it would be perfect for more manly socks.

Now I'm fairly sure he didn't really want socks, but didn't want to say no.  I knew that with the thicker yarn he wasn't likely to wear them in shoes anyway, so they would just be there to keep his feet warm around the house.  Again, I followed the basic construction I learned for the first pair, but with ribbing on the cuff to help keep them from slouching.  They fit him pretty snugly, but they fit!

And miraculously, I even had enough yarn.  At the time I didn't have a good gauge for how much a pair of socks would take, but I managed to knit him a complete pair from 225 yards of sport weight.  Whew!

So where are they now?  On his feet!  Well, not right this instant, but they're in his usual rotation and even after well over a year they still look great!  No holes, no felting, not even any visibly worn spots.  They're never worn in shoes, so I'm sure that accounts for part of the great wear, but even being worn around the house on carpets and bare floors hasn't really caused any visible fuzzing.  (They're also in the dirty laundry so I don't have a current photo to share.)

As far as I'm concerned that's some impressive longevity for an early pair of socks, and a great durability review for Claudia Hand Painted Yarns Sport Weight.  And I'll happily claim beginner's luck.