July Socks - Finished in July!

July has been a success sock club-wise - I finished the socks last night at about 11pm, so just within the month's deadline.

I've been stashbusting recently, and was not sure what pattern to use for the regia colour silk I had in my stash. After some searching on Ravelry for patterns good for self-striping yarns I settled on Broadripple, with a few tweaks to make it work for the thinner yarn I was using.

I cast on 64 stitches, and for the ripple pattern used K3 yo K3 ssk k2tog K3 yo K3, leading to a slightly different ripple, but the same overall effect as the original. It's a nice easy knit, with a nice rhythm to the pattern. They're ravelled here.

Stripe-tastic!

I haven't decided yet what August's socks will be, but hopefully i'll choose soon so that I have most of the month to get them done!

April sock club - finished

So I've been away for a little while.. and there's a jolly good reason for that! I've been a little too busy with wedding planning, and actually getting married to blog my crafty stuff. That's not to say I haven't been crafting, I just haven't been reporting it!

So here we go...
You've seen the start of April's socks, and they were finished ehem.. not in April, but mid-way through May (there are no May socks, but you never know I might catch up and still manage twelve pairs in twelve months).

The socks started out for me, but when asked what she wanted for her birthday, my lovely friend Laura replied that she wanted something I'd knitted, and so the socks became slightly smaller than planned, and became a birthday present.

Here are the socks on the morning we were picking Laura up the morning before the wedding...

And here are the socks on Laura, on her birthday, a few days later!

I'd say we have a happy customer :)

I'll be back to blog the shawl, the wedding and all my other ongoing projects very soon!

April sock club

Due to knitting the wedding shawl (it's finished! - piccies soon) and spending time organising the wedding and sewing the bridesmaids dress along with many other things (such as a full-time job..) the March socks took a lot longer than they ought to have done. They were not finished in March, but on the 21st of April...

Because of the big overrun of March's sock club I didn't even start April's until Saturday, but here is how the sock was looking on Sunday morning

The yarn is bamboo sock (80% merino, 20% bamboo) from fyberspates, and has a lovely sheen to it :)
The pattern is Hedera from Knit.Sock.Love by Cookie A.

I'm thoroughly enjoying the pattern so far, and had the chart memorised by about the third row in..
These socks are for me, and are quite refreshing that there's no real deadline associated with them, and they aren't part of the uber wedding planning fiesta that's going on in my life at the moment. All in all they're quite refreshing...

February sock club - the finished article(s)

I'm happy to say that February's "emergency" socks were finished well within time, and their new owner is very happy with them. Here are his feet enjoying their new stripy coverings:-

Peculiarly, though the socks did not start out the same at the toe, and the same number of stitches were used for each sock, they ended up almost matching by the cuff! Some strange magic of the heel I guess..

I think next time I do stripy, or patterned socks I will give the afterthought heel a try.


March's socks are now underway (though going slowly, as I have a big project on the needles at the moment - to be revealed soon). I'm afraid I can't show you March's sock progress, as the socks are a present so must be kept secret, but once they have been handed over to their new owner all will be revealed. All I'll say for now is that they should be Legen... wait for it....

February sock club - Mark II

So after the fail that was Stalagmite, I set myself a much simpler challenge for the rest of February's sock club - to knit my first pair of toe-up socks.

I was given some lovely Opal Sport for Christmas and decided that some self-striping yarn such as this would be perfect to use for emergency birthday socks for Chris! I could just knit in simple stocking stitch and thus speed through. In the last week I have completed the first sock, but found the heel a bit slow as i'm so used to going the other way..

I followed the instructions here, with the numbers of stitches in the chart here, having cast on and increased to 72 stitches. I started with 8 stitches at the toe, but accidentally made the socks too long for Chris, so picked some of the toe out to compensate, then kitchener stitched it up again.

The one problem i've found so far with knitting toe-up is that when it comes to the point where you join the heel flap to the main body of the foot by slipping stitches from each section and then knitting them together, the join is quite loose, and not so neat as picking up stitches in the top-down version. I'll take some pictures to demonstrate once both socks are complete. I'll see if tightening my stitches up in that area of the sock makes a difference.. The problem is not major though, and I'm on target to have both socks done by the end of the month, so sock club was rescued!

February failure

February's socks were chosen by my other half, to be birthday socks. He liked the stalagmite pattern in Knit. Sock. Love. and so I set out to make them for him. I had to use the pattern for the larger size, but still thought I might have enough yarn. I didn't.

I got about 80% of the way through the first sock, which took from the 1st of Feb to the 13th, when I decided I really ought to check I had enough yarn for the second sock. I was already well over half way through :(

Unable to buy more of the same yarn I'm going to have to rip these back. I might make the same socks but in a small for me.. even with all the cables there'll still be yarn left over.

The cables in these socks are beautifully intricate, and did require some concentration. I'm really not looking forward to ripping out all my hard work, but it was enjoyable to knit, so I'm sure I'll enjoy knitting it again!

Of course the sock failure, ravelled here, meant I was down a birthday present for Chris, so I promptly started some new February socks, to be posted soon.

January sock-club

So for January's sock club I chose a pattern from the lovely book Knit.Sock.Love. by Cookie A that my brother got me for Christmas. I chose Pointelle as my first project, after much thought over a drink at knit-night. The socks are ravelled here. I followed the pattern as written, even down to needle size. Luckily so far all of CookieA's socks i've been able to just pick up the needles she suggests and get knitting.


The socks are mirrored so the pattern twirls its way up each leg in the opposite direction. The beautiful lace in the pattern is somewhat lost in my yarn choice. I had this Araucania Ranco in my stash and had been waiting to use it for something. I enjoyed playing with my shiny new ball winder that i'd got for Christmas to turn it into a nice cake of yarn.

I enjoyed this pattern so much that I will probably knit it again but in a solid primary colour where all the pattern of the sock will show up much more clearly. See here for how much clearer the pattern is when a solid colour is used.

CookieA's socks are always so well thought out, and I love the way that the ribbing for the cuff flows seamlessly into the main pattern of the sock (not shown well in my photos). The diagonal line pattern even continues onto the heel flap, blending this seamlessly in with the leg of the sock. Expect to see a lot of Cookie's patterns in future months!

I hope to become more adept at sock photography (and knitting photography in general), in fact i'll need to if i'm going to post about all of the socks in my self-imposed sock-club.. I wonder whether my SADlight would be good for removing the need for flash photos?

I'll post about February's sock exploits very soon, and all the other crafty things that have been going on.

Inaugural post!

Spurred on by the blogs of friends and how this allows me to keep track of their crafty pursuits, I thought it was about time I jumped on the bandwagon. I plan to use the blog to keep track of my knitting, crocheting, sewing, baking and other crafty pursuits. Hopefully friends around the world will enjoy keeping an eye on what i'm up to.

This year is promising to be a busy year for crafting, so seemed an ideal time to start. So far this year I have:-

Made a lovely pair of slippers for my friend Laura (pictures to follow)

Learnt how to handpaint yarn to beautiful effect at the fyberspates studio in Wantage at the lovely Liz's Hen Do.

Made a dress to wear to a wedding.

Started my own self-imposed sock club, inspired by Yarn Harlot's sock club of the same name. Where she picks out all of the patterns and yarns at the start of the year, pairs them up and then chooses one at random at the start of the month, I don't have enough of a sock yarn stash!! I'm choosing as I go along, but do have plans for March and April already. January was a success (post to follow), and February has been a bit of a fail so far, due to realising I wouldn't have enough yarn for the giant man socks.. I'm most of the way through an emergency alternative sock though, and have tried toe-up for the first time.