One of my resolutions this year (#10) is to participate in Sockdown 2014. It technically goes from August to August, but I’m aiming to participate from January to December. Hopefully, I will keep it rolling after that. As soon as I started knitting, I wanted to learn to how knit socks because it seemed so cool – I still think it is so cool! Five sticks and a really long piece of string = socks. So neat!

Each month sockdown has one or two techniques, two designers, and a mystery sock. You can pick any one you want, and there are a lot of options there. This month the two techniques are lace and intarsia and I went with lace. I picked Anna by Barbara Richardson. It’s knitting up nicely! I mainly work on it while I sit and watch our oldest at jiu jitsu at night and then late night when everyone else is in bed. Gotta fit it in whenever I can!

I am aware I’m a day late for Work in Progress Wednesday – let’s just gloss over that and I will explain why I’ve had big plans but have been stumbling a bit tomorrow. 😉

Three of the goals on my 2013 list are knitting related, (knitting 12 pairs of socks in a year, finishing this blanket, and knitting 13 Tiny Owl Knits patters for those of you following along at home). It doesn’t matter that I totally suck at knitting sweaters or that my guage is so often painfully much too big or much too small. When I started reading knitting blogs I was sure I’d be a brilliant knitter as soon as I could knit complicated socks. By that logic, I’m extremely brilliant because all I knit are complicated socks. Socks with colorwork, socks with lace, socks with cables, all if it! Attaching arms on a sweater, not so much, but complicated socks I can do.

I finished one pair of socks for Wee One #1, one pair of socks for my girl Sammie, one for Wee One #2’s godmother and a pair of baby socks for my friend’s new baby that I didn’t post about. Onward!

These are the ones I made for Wee One #1. The pattern is called Winter Lace Socks by Barb Brown Designs. I made them in Knit Picks Comfy Fingering in Jalapeño. He loves them and wears them to bed!

I’m most excited about these babies, they’re going in the mail tomorrow to my kitchen soul mate and sister from another mister, Sammie. <3 The pattern is called Socks of Kindness (so fitting for her). I’ve made them once before in a bright blue for Wee One #2’s senior kindergarten teacher. So so pretty. It was her birthday last week and so far this year I’ve bene negative two weeks on getting things in the post on time. At least they get there, right? These ones were knit up from Knit Picks Felici Sport self-striping in Marsh.

These are a Christmas gift that has still yet to leave the house. Terrible, right? I know, I know. In my defense the recipient has not sent ours down either haha. Hilariously, I made these as one of the first Christmas knitting projects! They are for Wee One #2’s godmother, the pattern is called Basket Case Socks and these were knit in Knit Picks Comfy Fingering in Peapod.

These little cuties are sooooo adorable, they’re painful to look at. I made a pair in pink for Sammie’s baby girl in the fall and they look just as cute in blue! The pattern is called Garter Stripe Baby Socks and I made them from very pretty yarn my sister sent me for my birthday. Nikkiiiii, what yarn is this?!

Yesterday I started a dishcloth on size 6 needles after only making socks and working on my puffs (for this) on very small needles and I felt like a vampire slayer. Not that size 6s are at all big, but most of my sock needles are toothpick-like so regular needles see huge.

I’ve been doing a pretty good job of knitting up my hexi-puffs from the leftover sock yarn at the end of each pair. I’m up to 234 now! I have listed in the sidebar and on my project page on Ravelry that I need 400 but it might be a whole lot more than that. Once I hit 400, I’ll lay them out and see if that’s even close. It’s going to look so sweet when it’s done I don’t even care how long it takes. Just look at this one!

Now…which pattern to choose next?!

P to the S – Valentiney insanity kicks off this weekend!

Today, I’m linking up with Freshly Pieced, Yours Truly, 3 Four and Under, Free Pretty Things for You, The Trendy Treehouse, Ginger Snap Crafts, Rae Gun Ramblings, My Girlish Whims, Southern Lovely, Clean and Scentsible, Milk and Cuddles, JAQS Studio, Family, Home & Life, The Life of Jennifer Dawn, Uncommon Designs, and Polka Dots on Parade

I finally casted on my second pair of socks for Sockdown September! I just started them last night and I’m making decent progress. I think with this weekend’s little road trip (more on that when we get back) I will finish these babies off. I’m making them as a surprise for a old friend who reads my blog so I’m not telling, other than to say I hope to get these on her feet by the first week of October.

The way Sockdown works is pretty simple really. First of all, if you’re asking WTF, Sockdown is a knit-a-long (KAL) within the Sock Knitters Anonymous group on Ravelry. Essentially, every month a bunch of us try to knit as many pairs of socks that fit under the same guidelines as possible. We post cast on and bind off information and of course all the stuff in between. Every month the guidelines are 1) a set ‘technique’ (though it’s not always technically a technique) like for example socks designed for men or a specific color or cables or something like that. 2) there are a couple of featured designers each month, whose patterns you can knit and NOT follow the technique rule (obviously it’s more fun if you try to find a pattern by the featured designer that uses that month’s technique) aaaaand 3) every other month there is a mystery sock pattern, the mystery being that only one part of the pattern is released at a time as a ‘clue’ and no one really knows what it looks like!

One other rule that I really like is that you actually have two months to finish each months’ socks – as long as they were cast on in the proper month. So for example, as long as I cast on all of my September socks before September 30, I have until October 31 to finish them! At first I thought this might get me trapped in always being a month behind and then never getting a chance to catch up but Sockdowns go from September to September and August is considered a vacation month, you can finish July’s project in time.

Why? Well, other than the fun of a KAL and the public pressure to actually finish my socks in a timely manner, there are prizes! They are drawn for the day after the deadline (so September’s prize will be drawn for on November 1). So fun! Of course the more pairs of socks you finish by each deadline, the more times you are entered in the draw!

The Sockdown challenge for September is just to knit in red. This yarn is Nova Sock Print in 411, I bought it from a cute hobby shop in the woods in Ontario before we left.

Now! Onto my finished socks! These babies, my Zephyr socks, were my first ever Sockdown socks. Knit in a beautiful yarn by Alisha Goes Around, called Panoply of Peacocks Fingering in ‘Parted’. I ordered it from The Loopy Ewe and I seriously recommend them to anyone. They are a wonderful shop! Physically, they are in Fort Collins in Colorado. The next time we are in Colorado I’d love to take a drive up there!

These socks were knitted for my littlest little! I have enough yarn left for plenty of puffs for my blanket too!

I did it!! Look! My sister won like 14, but whatever, I got one!

So with the Ravellenic Games behind me for another two years, the desire to knit my face off is still in full force. Thankfully my life is actually pretty conductive to that, so away I went casting on and finishing a pair of cute baby socks for my girl Sammie. Well, they’re for her baby duh, but that baby isn’t finished cooking yet. That gives me more time to knit other cute things for her!

But those socks are finished, May, where’s your work in progress?! These lovies were cast on shortly before the Games started and I set them aside to work on my puffs. The puffs are habit forming!! After I finished the pink baby socks, I immediately used the rest of the yarn to make puffs (I only got two out of what was left) and these socks are not even done yet and I’m already thinking about the puffs I will make with the leftover yarn. Here are Miss Wee One #3’s almost finished wee socks!

No lie, she is currently wearing the finished one. She wanted to wear the one that’s still on the needles, but eventually decided the one without the pokey things would be just fine for today. Don’t you eat cereal while watching My Little Pony on Netflix with one woolly sock on – in California in August?!

Sidebar: Our cousin’s girlfriend showed me Coursera a little while ago! Have you seen this?

I will be taking Networked Life, Model Thinking and Greek and Roman Mythology this term (they are all 10 weeks long) and then Nutrition for Health Promotion (6 weeks) in January. I’m excited that each of the courses I picked all award a certificate of completion if done well!

I have been knitting a lot more lately, and I even managed to finish sock one and get about 1/4 of the way done sock two on this pair – let’s ignore that it’s been two weeks since my last WIP Wednesday. Homeschooling and visitors and exploring and all that good stuff gets in the way of knitting, you know! Also, I had to rip the first sock back 3 or 4 times after I turned the heel. Total Nightmare. However, this second sock is well on it’s way to being done by next Wednesday so I can finally send it off to the birthday girl (whose birthday was in April)!

Do you love my new knitting basket and the so cute it hurts notebook? I know, right? I go the basket when I was out thrifting with Vanessa and the kids on the weekend (I should do a post on their haul they made it home with, I’m impressed with their choices), and the lovely notebook was a gift from my girl Emerald. She picked it up for me when she was in Hong Kong (ooooh, fancy pants – thanks Em)! The pages are lovely and each section is done in a different color, the best part though is the back cover, it says ‘where troubles melt like lemon drops’. Ha! I love random stuff from Hong Kong (that’s another post I should do soon, she brought back a lot of cool stuff).

Annnnyhoo, I sincerely hope these socks are done by next Wednesday and I’ve casted on for my fifth pair of socks for the year. With a goal of 12 pairs of socks this year, I’m already a pair behind if I want to knit one per month. Maybe I’ll knit a pair of ankle socks in there somewhere!

Today I’m linking up with Work in Progress Wednesday, Whatever Goes Wednesday, and Welcome Wednesday

This week I casted on for Sock #3 of 2012 – Bintje. Super super pretty. They’re meant to be knee socks, but we’ll see what happens. Ha!

The cuff on these socks is so neat!! I had seen it in other patterns before, but truthfully I had thought it was more complicated than it actually is and I had skipped it every time I saw it and knitted a normal cuff. I know, super lameo. This year however, along with my resolution to knit a pair of socks every month (I’m on my third pair right now, so far so good), I’m going to follow the patterns I picked out last year and actually knit up this year’s socks as the patterns tell me to. I’m glad I did, look how cute!!!

Essentially, you knit 6 rows, then you knit a row of k2tog, yo – giving you a row of holes, then you knit another 6 rows. I’ll take pic of that on the second sock. Then you fold it over so the holes are the middle and the yarn overs between the holes form the little ridges you see. You can either sew down the top of the cuff or do it the way the pattern says, which I did thankyouverymuch. You pick up stitches at the very beginning and knit them to the last row of the cuff, of course you have to do this when you’re actually on the last row of the cuff, but it was fairly simple. All sock knitters can pick up stitches because we have to when we do the gusset anyway, right? In the third picture you can see the inside seam where I did this. Maybe when I get to the second sock I’ll make a video.

I also chose to use slightly thicker sock yarn (Stroll Fingering hehe fingering instead of Stroll Sock) on 2.5mm needles instead of 2mm needles so the sock would be a little denser than other socks. They’re for someone in a wettish coldish area who reads my blog so that’s all I’m going to say, though that’s probably all I needed for say for her to know they’re for her. Sigh.

There is a lot going on around here in the next couple of weeks and then we depart for a serious adventure that I have no doubt I will fill you in on in horribly painful detail once it begins. I hope to have at least the second sock started by this time next week!

I’m participating in Work in Progress Wednesday at Freshly Pieced!

As you know by now, I’m a pretty monogamous knitter. If I have more than one project on the go, I will forget about other projects and they’ll never get done. Although there is the exception right now of my Beekeeper Quilt, which is more of an in-between projects project than an actual always-on-the-go kind of project. Other than that, I’m an extremely loyal knitter.

However.

I currently have two pairs of socks on the go because after being just a few rows into the Flying Arrows I’m making for the principal of my kid’s school, I was reminded that a wee little person I care about was about to turn one. The connection is weird and totally fueled by the internet. She’s my dear friend’s fiancee’s best friend’s kid. Yeah, I know. She’s way sweet and her mother and I are eerily similar so I set to work on finding the perfect sock pattern right away. The only trouble with socks for little people is it doesn’t take long for them to grow out of them. Sometimes, the kid grows out of the socks faster than it took to knit the damn things. Sooooo, legwarmers it is!! Plus bright pink legwarmers on chubby little legs is so freaking cute it hurts. You know it does.

So here is the one finished Flying Arrow sock. It’s actually a pretty quick knit and I haven’t had to rip it back at all. Score for me.

This is how far into the second sock I was before I tossed it aside to cast on for something wee and pink and cuter.
This basket of deliciousness is what will be taking up my evenings this week. I settled on Socks for Mary Janes, but because of the whole ‘babies grow way too fast to knit them cute stuff’ issue, they are going to be legwarmers. With no heel to turn and no toe to decrease to, I really have no excuse on these taking long to knit up. They really need to be knitted up this week because, yeah I have stuff to do! That stuff may or may not include posting a whole lotta recipes and crafty tutorials burning a hole in my hard drive – and it may or may not include this other basket of deliciousness. My Knit Picks order came in the same week that I finally caved and checked out the yarn store out here in the woods. Well, technically it’s actually in the closest ‘city’ to us (and I use the term city really, really loosely). They have a lot more nice yarn than I thought and I managed to hold back and only pick up 4 balls. Go me!!

In this post, I’m participating in three WIP Wednesdays; Freshly Pieced, Tami’s Amis and Musings from the Fishbowl.

Of course it’s socks, right?! I’m about to start a few sockless projects believe it or not! For now though, I’m knitting up Nemesis socks from Knitty for my Dad for Father’s Day. I’m almost done sock one. It’s amazing how little time it actually takes to knit a sock compared to how long it takes me to physically finish one. Kids, life, going to the beach, cooking, cleaning – I know, I know. This is officially a first world problem, yes? Sorry. Anyhoo, my Dad will be here any minute to stay for a couple of days, so away we go with some pictures of his sock!

Sadly, I was a little wobbily in the pattern on the foot. :/ However, I am very happy with the rest of the sock and I still have the second one to go!

The yarn is Stroll Sock Yarn in Terrain Twist. The pattern used 450 yards, and these balls are 231 yards so I got two and am hoping to use the left overs for a sock yarn blanket because I’m a big fat copy cat and I think they look really cute. The heel on this sock is lovely, but not so dainty, it’s definitely a unisex sock!

I am in love with this pattern. I really loathe knitting from a chart, and as much as I loathe the process I think it’s especially worth it for these socks.

I am weaving in ends on a blanket that originally I had planned to post as a finished object on Friday, but I’m thinking now about knitting another carbon copy of it and then knitting (or sewing) them together. It’s been done and shelved for almost two months now but after taking it out again and taking photos of it, I think it should be bigger. Much, much bigger. It’s a wedding-turned-first-anniversary gift, so bigger is better yes? That makes it a work in progress then, doesn’t it? Here she is!

Thoughts? Big enough for the newlyweds to snuggle under at least, right? <3

In this post, I’m participating in three WIP Wednesdays; Freshly Pieced, Tami’s Amis and Musings from the Fishbowl.

This is my 5th Work in Progress Wednesday and while we all know I post other weeklies (Marriage Monday has been going on since last summer), this weekly specifically really calls attention to what you managed to (not) get done in a week. I mean, yes I have three kids that I enjoy spending a lot of time with, and yes my husband has turned me into such a serious neat freak I can’t knit or sew or…well anything, until the house is clean, and yes, I cook everyday and bake almost everyday, but I’m not really thinking about any of that when Wednesday rolls around and I am posting about a single 3/4 done sock – that I started LAST Wednesday.

Anyhoo, let’s show some love to these socks, for my Uncle Peter’s birthday, called Jules. They’re actually a pretty quick knit. Pretty much all of this knitting was done over three short sessions while watching Law and Order at night. 😉

This is a close up of the waffley pattern in the leg of the sock. I think they’ll be extra warm because they look like thermal underwear!

So! I’ve carved out a piece of my nightly schedule to get more done around here, craft-wise. If I don’t, Wee One #1’s curtains will never be sewn and I will not get this amazing blanket done by July. I haven’t even touched it again yet because there are birthday socks in the way!

This is the heel of the sock. I adore socks with a slightly patterned heel. Especially if it’s not painful to knit!

My goal this week is to have at least finished these socks, if not finished these socks and started on the next ones. I need some pressure lol. I’m always a fast knitter in December!

In this post, I’m participating in three WIP Wednesdays; Freshly Pieced, Tami’s Amis and Musings from the Fishbowl.

I’m really loving this whole WIP Wednesday thing. It’s been a month now that I’ve been participating in these three link ups and it’s been a fun and motivating way to keep up with my ideas.

Work in Progress Wednesday is supposed to be just that, works in progress! However, since this is generally the only day I post about my projects, I’m posting my finished objects too! You’ll live, right? Great!

My No Tears Socks (pattern on Posh Yarn) are finally finished!!! Just in time too! Wee One #2’s Godparents will be here this weekend. I think he’ll really like the cable and that it’s not too fussy for a man’s sock but it’s not so boring either because he appreciates the work that goes into a nice sock. 🙂 We’re all really excited to see them and I’m excited to show you what we’ve cooking and baking for their visit. Fun!!

Since I just finished his sock last night, I’ve only just cast on today for my new sock, Knit Picks’ Palette in Navy.

My new Knit Picks order came in at the end of last week and I’m so excited to dive into it. Wanna see? Of course you do!!

I piled it onto the kid’s easel to show it off! This pile (3 balls of Knit Picks Palette in Navy for the socks I just mentioned are not pictured) will be knitted into; 3 pairs of socks, 1 hat, 12 facecloths, and a pair of mittens! I can hardly wait to get them all knitted up.

There is one other work in progress I don’t have good photos of! Hopefully by July, it’ll look like this! My sister made one for our parents and I looooove it. I’m making it as a wedding turned happy first anniversary gift! Mine is coming together in a green apple colour. Its made in triangles, you need 49 squares to make a decent blanket, and there are four triangles per square (duh) – so yes that’s 196 triangles! Whaaaaat?! My first triangle took a whole day (it’s pathetic I know, but I’ve got three wee ones running around and a kitchen calling my name lol), and my first triangle had a glaring error in it. Awful, glaring, beacon of light style error. I trucked on with the next triangle and made the same error – always towards the end where the bigger leaves are. Originally, I thought of just making smaller triangles, up to the point where I wasn’t messing up, but then my dear friend Talea (who I can’t link to because she is ‘between blogs’ right now) pointed out that the smaller triangles wont make a perfect square (sigh) and I’d need approximately eleventy million more triangles to complete the blanket (double sigh).

Sooooo, after I’ve finished a few months of birthday knitting, I’m going to attack this blanket head on and find the error in the pattern (maybe I wrote it down wrong??). If I want it finished for the middle of July (let’s set a July 15 deadline), and it takes me a day per triangle, that’s July 15 minus 196 days is 19 days ago. Hmm. Hahaha, so maybe I’ll make a smaller blanket! I will do some math and try to bend the time-space continuum and get back to you next Wednesday!

I know they’ll love it though, and my husband spent a lot of time with this cousin growing up and I’m especially fond of her parents so we do spend a lot of time together. 🙂

I’m still waiting on the skully fabric to make curtains for Wee One #1, and since his room is currently green and white with a weird brown border I have no doubt those curtains are going to set off a desire to paint the room. We’ve been here for 4 and a half months and while everything has a place and our routines are pretty firm in this new life, other things (like decor) are still coming together!