Struggling with Poppies

It's not certain that the Poppy Fields socks will be completed before the next Woolgirl Oz Club kit arrives.  These socks have been a struggle for me, which means I'm not always in the mood to pick them up when I have knitting time.  It also means I can't take them with me to knit when I'm traveling -- they require spreading out several pattern pages at a time, concentrating on what will go where, and in several cases so far, ripping out a good chunk and reworking something.

Size US0 needles and sport weight yarn gave me a much smaller gauge than the pattern recommended, so I had to frog the toe and start over with US 1½ - 2.5 mm.  Once my gauge was corrected I had to guess at the size based on foot length/shoe size with no given circumference, which is not my favorite (since the length of my foot doesn’t really affect how wide I want my socks).  I opted for the smaller size for a snug fit.

Poppy stems before the heel

The snug fit is good, but as you can see it makes for an interesting ridge where the stockinette toe shifts to the purl background for the pattern.

Blocking with Wires

I decided to invest in some blocking tools and outfitted myself with some interlocking foam mats, blocking wires, and T-pins.  I know I shouldn't need any of those things, but I'm hoping they help me to get on with blocking some of the knits that really need it in a more timely manner.

Having never worked with actual blocking equipment before, I decided to go simple and block my recently completed scarf.  It wasn't a piece that technically needed blocking, although it wasn't perfectly straight along the edges and seemed like it might benefit from it.  (More Stitches Midwest 2009 yarn successfully used, by the way!)

Somewhat curvy edges

Straighter blocked edges

1) First impressions: blocking can take an annoyingly long time to do no matter what equipment you have!  I didn't time it, but it probably took me a good 45 - 60 minutes and 6 blocking wires to get the scarf pinned out and relatively straight.  Maybe (hopefully!) it's something I'll eventually get better and faster at with practice.

Something to Give

I am a selfish knitter in that I still knit a lot of things for myself.  I know what I like, I can try things on as I go, and I know which mistakes will bother me and which aren't worth worrying about, which means it's usually pretty easy for me to knit for me.

I do really enjoy knitting for other people, too, but it's more of a gamble.  Other people won't always tell me if they don't really like something or if it doesn't quite fit and maybe don't understand that I'd rather try to fix it for them or replace it than see a hand knit item go unused.  Some people are more matchy or finicky dressers than I am, too.

So when Halos of Hope put out a request for hat donations for chemo patients in advance of Stitches Midwest 2010 on the Ravelry boards, it sounded like a great opportunity to knit something fun and bright that someone somewhere would like (and presumably choose for themselves from a stash of donated hats).

I decided to try out some cheerfully bright sock yarn that I bought at Stitches Midwest 2009.

The happiness of the Ixia colorway

Stitches Midwest 2010: Yarn Purchases

I'm just not quite with it yet this week, so I don't really have new project photos to share or stories rattling around in my head.  But since we were focused while we were still at Stitches, I do have photos of some purchases.  For today, I'll just let them do their own talking.

Fiddlehead Mittens kit - Greens

dipped infinity scarf kit -Blues

We were at Stitches

There was some unintentional blog silence while Xandermommy and I were at Stitches again this year. We just got caught up in things and actually spent very little time in our room other than when we were sleeping. We were on the go a lot and rarely near a computer and didn't even spend a lot of time knitting!

We did end up with a nice room at the end of the hall that was very quiet, which was definitely nice, and we ended up with views like this:

Saturday night

Sunday Morning

Although most of our view was more like this:

Still with a view of Ikea

And after our daily visit to the market on Saturday, the view inside the room was a bit like this:

Combined Stitches Midwest 2010 score!

Not quite the pile we had last year, but certainly nothing to sneeze at.  We were well within budget the first couple of days, even if we might not have quite ended that way when we packed up and headed for home.  We both found things we were specifically looking for and plenty of things that jumped out at us when we saw them.

And it was nice to get home around 5 PM this year, since we both had to roll out of bed and get to work this morning.  Back to the normal schedule that doesn't revolve around constant exposure to knitters and yarn.