Happy Halloween!

Our little bumblebee, Fiona, is not very excited but the rest of us are! Happy Halloween!

Grasshopper #1

Here are a few photos of the first Knee High to a Grasshopper sock. They are soooo comfy to wear. I'm nearly 1/2 way to the heel on sock number 2. I can't wait to finish these socks!

distracted...

O.k., I know I don't have a big excuse for not blogging as regularly lately, but the real reason is ... ravelry! I feel like a little kid who can't stop playing with a new toy - it is amazing! I am a far cry from getting all my stash, projects, etc., entered in but I am so enjoying sharing ideas with others who share similar interests in patterns or other outside interests. And I just keep gathering projects to the point where my head is about to explode from trying to figure out what I should make next!

All that inspiration being said, my knitting progress has been slow. I finally finished my first Knee High to a Grasshopper sock (April sock from Rockin' Sock Club) and I just love the way it fits. I'm so glad I decided to knit the size small with larger needles. I think the next larger size just would've been way too baggy around the ankles and up the calf. Plus, with the smaller needles the fabric was knitting up like cardboard and I really wanted something slightly spongier and prettier.

I decided to go with the addi turbo size 1's. I bought one lace needle this time for the top of the sock and it is working like a charm. They only had a size 32" length at the store, and I was too impatient to order a 24" over the internet, but I still went with it and am so glad I did. It is making the lace knitting go much faster than before.

I plunged into the 2nd sock right away and have started it over 3 times. It just didn't look like the 1st one and I couldn't figure out what was wrong. Well, while knitting at my daughter's swim meet tonight I realized that it is because I messed up the initial increases on the first sock! I must've increased every row instead of every other row, so now I have to frog back to the beginning and do it "wrong" again so I will match my first sock! I like it better the way I did it anyway. Somehow It looks less pointy and seems shaped more like my foot. I just don't look forward to starting it over for a 4th time! Urgh!

Well, that's it for now. Sorry no pics but I will post some of the first finished sock soon.

Knee High to a Grasshopper

I started the Knee High to a Grasshopper sock - the April 2007 mailing of the Blue Moon Fiber Arts - Rockin' Sock Club. I opted to make the size small sock. The pattern offers 2 options - a knee-high sock (which requires purchasing an extra skein of yarn) or a shorter sock. I chose the shorter sock, primarily because I didn't want to have to buy more yarn, but also because many others who have knit the knee highs say that they don't stay up, etc.

I swatched and ended up getting gauge using size 0's. So I went out and bought addi turbo circulars and got to work. The toe box immediately looked tremendously small but I kept going. I could get it on my toe but admittedly it was a little tight.



I followed the directions and started increasing for the gusset when I was about 3" from where I wanted the end of the sock to be. It was still a bit snug, but many people said that they liked it that way so I kept going.




Well, by the time I finished the heel, I was pretty disappointed with the fit, so I decided to frog the entire thing and start over. A week of knitting down the drain! But at least that's better than being unhappy with a pair of lovely socks that don't fit. I wish they'd listed in the pattern instructions the suggested dimensions of the sizes but I think I'm going to knit the same size small over again using the next larger size needles.

Ta, Da!

I finished the Petals Collection Bird of Paradise Socks! I only made one noticeable mistake (that I have found, anyway!). I was knitting at a very exciting part of my daughter's swim meet and dropped a few gusset stitches off my needle when I wasn't paying attention! When I picked them back up I somehow overlapped one over the other but didn't notice until I had knitted several more rows and thus decreased several more stitches, so I would've had to frog back quite far to fix it. Usually, I go back and fix such a mistake, but in a way I kind of liked having a reminder in the sock of that moment in time! So, I left it in! Otherwise, knitting them was fairly uneventful and now they are done.



Once again, like my first pair of Sundara's socks (which I will try to post about sometime soon) they turned out a little tight in the instep eventhough I picked up one extra stitch on each side of the heel flap. So, next time I knit one of Sundara's patterns I think I will pick up a few more stitches along the side of the heel to allow more ease (I think she likes a nice tight sock). But they are rather comfy and I think I will get a lot of use out of them.

Now I am off to start the Blue Moon Fiber Arts' Rockin' Sock Club Knee High to a Grasshopper sock!

What I did for my summer vacation

I meant to post this earlier. We had such fun making these videos. Does my hair look like Sting's or what?!?

Dyeing with goldenrod and overdyeing with kool-aid

As we drove home from our summer vacation in northern Michigan several weeks ago, I stared forlornly at all of the blooming goldenrod in the fields we passed. I was just aching to pick some and take it home and try dyeing with it. But our car was already so full of junk and so I hoped that I'd just find some when we got home.

So, when we drove down our alley at home I discovered that it grows almost everywhere! I tried it out on some superwash yarn I bought at my lys (I was too impatient to wait for undyed sock yarn to come in the mail so I just bought 2 skeins of Dale of Norway Baby Ull in the off white shade). I think it will make fine sock yarn.

I first mordanted the yarn using an alum mordant. I then made the dyebath by soaking the blossoms in a pot of water overnight and then steeping them for about an hour or so. I put the blossoms in bags made from panty hose so I didn't have to filter out the dye bath very much. The dyeing directions I followed said that for the lighter, less "dirty" shades of yellow to steam the yarn in the dye bath for only about 10 minutes or so. Even still, the color was awfully bright (sorry, no pics this time). It seemed like a repeat of the mullein dyeing but at least this time I was equipped with some packets of kool-aid from the pantry (and some food coloring too).



I was very happy with the results this time. I overdyed the goldenrod dyed yarn with 3 shades of kool-aid/wylers/food coloring. I overdyed with blue food coloring to get the deep aqua color. For the orange I overdyed using a cherry lemonade flavor (or maybe it was watermelon strawberry - I just can't remember!). And I got the lime green colorway just from using lemon-lime kool-aid. The skein on the right was how it looked after dyeing and I rewound the skein on the left to see what the colors would look like mingled together. I need to think of a fun sock pattern to knit to bring out the colors.

My other thoughts are that it might look lovely to dye with goldenrod and then overdye with indigo. So, I made another batch of dye and stuck it in the freezer. It will be a good project for when the endless winter starts to get to me.