15 posts tagged “fo”

Coriolis and other animals

May 21, 2008
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Yesterday I finished the Coriolis socks, and I love them. They match rather than mirror, because I forgot to read the 'second sock' bits of the instructions, but I don't care.

I used a modified version of Cat Bordhi's modified icord bind off, continuing the stitches from the spiral 'seam' into the icord. It's a bit wasted because the tops curl out, but it seemed the right edging to use - I tried single rib, but it didn't really go with the rest of the sock, and I didn't want a too-fancy edging. I'm wearing them now, and they're very comfy. The spiral does slightly restrict stretch in putting them on, but not too much, and they're fine once on.

In other knitting news, I finished the red mini-cardi and frogged it - the back flared out, and I just didn't like it. I don't know yet what the yarn will be reborn as.

I've also frogged the BMP riverbed socks. There were too many mistakes, and it had been neglected for too long. Their successor is already in swatch, though, so the general plan is still active.

Finally, I've started spinning up some BFL, but I'm planning to write that whole project up in one go, so no more details yet.

Oh, and I've got two knitting/spinning dates coming up in the next few days, so there will probably be more to write about soon.

Red and/or socks

Apr 28, 2008
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(Grr. Wrote long post, lost it. CBA to rewrite, so abbreviated version follows...)

Picture 1: mini cardigan in handspun red-and-pink two ply. Much nicer as two-ply than either of the plies as singles, although I bought more fibre because I'll probably need to spin some more to finish.

Picture 2: Ralph's tantalising socks, FO. Gorgeous pattern, interesting construction, yarn much better knitted up than I thought it would be. He likes them, too.

Pictures 3 and 4: the utterly fabulous whirlpool toe (pulled flat in picture 3). This is for the spiralling Coriolis from New Pathways, and the yarn is the red and pink sock yarn that Frax and I bought at the Knitting and Stitching Show to share, and which we finally split this weekend. It's lovely yarn to knit with, much softer and less scratchy than the blue and purple (now mostly a clapotis) which I bought at the same no-name stall. Like the Opal in the tantalising socks, this is true variegated, with short stretches of colour that don't stripe or pool, and I like it much more than most hand-painted yarn. I've been planning to use this for Coriolis ever since I first read the book, and I'm now neglecting the mini-cardi (which I've been knitting for less than a week) because I'm so eager to get to the increases :-)

FO and holiday knitting

Apr 5, 2008
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The wisteria socks are finished. I've renamed them 'dissertation socks', because the spinning and the knitting of these has been very much bound up with the dissertation I've been writing since the beginning of the year, and because I finished them yesterday, on deadline day (having handed in two days earlier). I'm wearing them as I type, and am enjoying them greatly - I do really like the contrast between the two yarns (thicker three ply in the cuffs, thinner navajo ply in the main sock), and I don't care that the stripe sequence somehow realigned itself during the heel.

And now I'm going on holiday for a week, and need to decide on holiday knitting to take with me. The purple cable cardigan is going, although I don't know how much of it I'll do - it's a bit big for role-playing knitting (I henceforth coin an acronym: RPK). And Juno isn't too big, but is too chart-following. I'm taking it, but I probably won't knit it in-game.

The obvious solution is to start a new project! I am going to knit socks (Bartholomew's tantalising socks, to be precise) for the GM, which might make him feel more kindly towards me knitting in session, and is bound to mean I get all kinds of GM favours. So I've told him, anyway ;-)

So three holiday projects - two largeish ones that I've already started but still have loads to go, and one new one which could itself easily occupy me for the week and is small and simple enough for RPK. Hooray for holidays!

Socks!

Feb 27, 2008
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These are the (finally!) finished Shadow and Ghost socks (from the Cheshire cat pattern at Purlescence). They're a late birthday present for female-friend-R (in honour of her grey-Ghost-cat and her black-Shadow-cat), who seemed pleased with them and impressed at the cleverness of me (even though I explained that it's entirely Alice Bell who's clever; I'm just following instructions ;-)

I'm plotting lots of other socks, several of which are inspired by New Pathways: Bartholomew's Tantalising Socks for partner-R, who turns out to like the handpainted red and green Opal I ill-advisedly bought on holiday last year, hoorah; Coriolis spirals for me from the red and pink sock yarn that Frax currently has custody of, and especially the Clematis vine socks, with vertical stripes, because I agree with Cat Bordhi: two-handed knitting is coooool.

Goth space invader socks

Which brings me to my 'new' project. It's not new at all, really. I cast on for BMP sometime towards the end of November, and almost immediately sent the project into hibernation awaiting me getting around to learning to knit continental - dropping and picking up the yarn every other stitch was driving me potty. But now I've finished a project I'm allowed* to start another, and since I've now learnt continental (knit stitch, anyway; I still have to look up how to purl, and my muscles haven't learnt it yet), I've now properly started making gothic space invaders :-) The contrast between the purple and the black isn't perfect, but I figure over the whole sock it will become more obvious. And I really like how they look so far. The Knitwitches yarn is lovely, and knitting one yarn with one hand and the other with the other is loads of fun.

*This doesn't, of course, mean that I only ever have a certain number of projects on the needles - I might easily start yet another before I finish the next, but I'll worry a tiny bit about my attention span and lack of finishing ability. If I've just finished a project I don't need to worry ;-)

I'm actually plotting another sock project, which I might end up casting on for before these are done, but that's a matter for my next post...

Spinning and reading

Feb 23, 2008
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Two ply wisteria

This is the result of the Caribbean fibre I bought from Freyalyn's Etsy shop :-)

It's two-ply, about 324m and about 200g. Unfortunately (for me), I chose this to make for Katie, who gave me my wheel - I checked that she knits when she gave me it, and promised to spin her something. It's lovely and I wish I was keeping it, so I hope she likes it! Haven't yet figured out how to deliver it, since I don't want to do it in person.

The first two skeins (one and three in the picture) are more blended and less candy-striped than the second two, which is noticeable to me, but I don't think it's too bad, and it taught me some things about how to treat colour, which I'm considering with my current spinning project, which is the Wisteria colourway from the same dyer.

Hands on Spinning (Hands on)

In other spinning news, my Amazon package finally arrived yesterday, with two new spinning books in it. Hands On Spinning is more basic than I was hoping - large chunks of it deal with things I've more-or-less taught myself already - but does feature useful discussion of drafting methods, one of which - long draw - I've put into practice with the Wisteria.

Wisteria in progress

Talking of the Wisteria, here it is, fibre and two bobbins of singles. It's lovely :-) When I've spun the remaining fibre, I'll three-ply it and probably make socks - it'll be a bit thicker than fingering, I think, but I'm hoping it will work for around-the-house socks anyway. Of course, I reserve the right to see the finished yarn and completely change my mind and do something else with it, or just keep it around to stroke.

Depending on how this lot (which is 100g, half my supply of this fibre) works out, I might navajo-ply the other lot. I'm not especially keen on stripes in general, but I'm interested in the technique, and I'm interested in comparing what the two different yarns from the same fibre look like. I might even knit them in the same thing as an interesting experiment in colour. This thought, and indeed much of how I'm thinking about the colours in this fibre, is influenced by the Twisted Sisters Sock Workbook, which I've been flipping through. I haven't read all of it yet, and I think it's going to be mostly inspirational rather than instructional, but it's got me thinking about things to do with colour. And it's very pretty indeed - lots of good photos. It hasn't toppled the crown of New Pathways as my favourite sock book, but I'm glad to have it.

Clapotis is finished!

Jan 8, 2008
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Clapotis

Lots to report

Jan 2, 2008
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This will be another of those monster posts where I haven't posted for ages, and I throw it all out in one post :-) Actually, not quite all: there's a spinning-and-knitting FO that I haven't photographed yet, and a knitting WIP that has a half-written separate post, so I'll save its pictures to go with that. But in the meantime...

These are the Cheshire Cat socks from Purlescence, and I'm knitting them - as will be obvious at a glance to anyone who knows her - for friend-R in honour of her grey cat Ghost and her black cat Shadow. The other sock will have the colours reversed, so the illusion cat is grey :-)

I haven't done illusion knitting before, and it's lots of fun, but it's suffering from new spinning energy, of which more later.

Knit Picks Harmony wooden interchangeable needles

To the right are my lovely, lovely new Harmony wooden interchangeable needles, a Christmas gift from partner-R. The yarn in the bag is a clue to the half-written-post WIP I mentioned above.

The top picture to the left, the skein, is a spinning FO, my best yet. Shetland wool, lilac and "natural black" (I can't decide if this is grey or dark brown). It's only about 140m, so not enough to do anything much with, so I'm saving it to be an accent in something knitted with another yarn.

The bottom pic is a spinning WIP, and I'm still getting better every time, so this is thinner and more even than the above. I'm not sure yet what I'm going to do with it, but I might ply it with some light-ish grey I haven't yet spun

And finally, the piece de resistance! At a party at Bopeep's place on Christmas Eve, one of her neighbours offered to give me a spinning wheel. I half thought she was joking or drunk, but it turns out she wasn't :-) The bobbin is my first attempt at wheel spinning. Not very even yet, but much better than my first attempts at spindle spinning.

And of particular note is that I took the wheel home about 6.30 this evening, covered with dust, and in many different bits (the parts visible in the picture were eight pieces, I think), and with only help from a guide to the parts of a spinning wheel from Joy of Handspinning, I worked out how to put it together and get it working. It's lovely. I don't precisely have room for it, but even partner-R admits it was fate :-)

Dyeing and felting

Aug 11, 2007
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I mentioned the other day that I had a dyeing-and-felting project on the go, but I didn't want to talk about it until I had given it to the intended recipient, not that I think she reads this blog, but just in case. I finished it this morning, and then gave it away this afternoon, so now I'm free to write about it :-)

Cream irish wool

This is what I started with - undyed cream wool that I bought in Northern Ireland last year on holiday. I don't really like cream as a colour (and certainly not for something to wear), so I was always semi-intending to dye it, and when my mum asked for a bag for her birthday (although she didn't ask with the intention of me knitting her one), it seemed like the yarn's time had come.

Greens and blues for Mum

I followed the instructions for food colouring dyeing on Knitty, using the cold pour method: soaked the yarn for about five hours in a pan of water and vinegar, and then spread it out on the table on top of greaseproof paper. I diluted one bottle each of blue and green food colouring with half a pint of water each, and started pouring and smushind the colours to get variegated sea-green colours. Then I wrapped it up in the paper, put it in a baking tray, and into the oven for two hours at about 110C. When it came out the liquid left in the tray was all clear, so the dye had exhausted, and when I washed it (after letting it cool down!), no dye came out. It took about three days to dry, so I was desparately impatient by the time I was finally able to wind it into balls :-)

Blue and green dyed wool

I was happy with how it looked in the skein, hanging up in the bathroom to dry, but I was even happier with how it looked in the ball - all the colour-changes that looked sharp in the skein mellowed in the ball and it was absolutely gorgeous :-) Still is, in fact, because I've still got one ball to use!

I stupidly didn't take photos or measurements of the pre-felted bag, so a description will have to suffice. I used a provisional cast-on till I had about 20 cm, knit a few rows, then picked up stitches on the short edges and released the cast-on stitches so I was knitting in the round, knit about 20 cm, and cast off just under half the stitches, leaving four stitches on a stitch holder for the i-cord strap, and knitting the rest to make the flap, with garter stitch borders, and decreasing stitches at either edge towards the end of the flap so it's curved rather than rectangular. Then I knit the i-cord strap (which seemed to take forever; I love i-cord, but god it's slow), leaving the end free to allow for the strap length to be adjustable.

Then it was into the washing machine in a tied-up pillowcase, with a load of jeans. One cycle on 'fast wash' at 60C to see how quickly it was going to felt, then three cycles on 'heavy soil' at 60C. It still wasn't quite as felted as I'd hoped (not felted enough to cut and trust it wouldn't unravel), but the feltedness didn't change much between the last two goes, so I don't think it would have done much more.

Drying the finished item was much, much quicker - just a couple of hours. I steam-ironed it into oblivion, and then poked a hole for the end of the strap, using increasing sizes of needle, and tied the strap into the hole with a simple knot. I considered various sorts of fastenings for the flap, but didn't come up with any I liked enough, so I left it for Mum to pick her own fastening (we agreed on a wooden toggle, which we'll buy next time we see each other and I'll attach then; in the meantime if she needs to fasten it, she'll use a safety pin). She seemed pleased with it, and amazed at the contrast with the scraps of original cream that I used to tie the parcel.

So, I declare my first dyeing and felting project to be a success! I'm now forming plans to dye the undyed grey wool I got at the same time in shades of red-purple-blue, only with twice as much food colouring for darker colours. And I'm trying to decide what ti do with the rest of the green...

Nautie

Jul 15, 2007
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Nautie

I love this pattern. It's so cool, and so simple and so interesting, all at the same time. I love the icord tentacles, and I love the spiral method.

Holiday, knitting

Jul 14, 2007
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triskell cable socks in cornwall

Just back from a week in Cornwall, and I did photograph the triskell cable socks, or rather, asked R to. This is the view from our front door, and I know it didn't come out in the photo, but some of the blue in the background is sea as well as sky. (Sorry the socks themselves are so dark - the photo was taken from inside facing out, so the lighting's funny.)

I've had a couple of requests on Ravelry for the pattern for these, so I'll try and get round to finishing writing it up and post it.

I took Wisp with me, but didn't even touch it - bored already! My other holiday knitting plan was much more open-ended: my sock yarn stash and patterns for socks and for toys...

St Austell, our local town, had a wool shop. Just a little one, and mostly containing either boring crappy acrylic-mix or stuff like Debbie Bliss that I've seen in the flesh before and can get easily online. I'd gone in for some stuffing for toys, which they had, and they also had a very small amount of sock yarn. Nothing I can't get easily online, no, but things I hadn't seen in the flesh before... In recovery from the expense of the Lorna's Laces you see above, I bought one skein of Trekking XXL in tweedy blues, and one skein of Opal handpaint in dark greens, reds, purples and blues (I nearly got the other Opal colourway as well: flame-coloured reds, yellows and oranges). But I'm not allowed to cast on with them until the Favourite Socks book arrives (although that leaves me with no current project that isn't stalled or not yet ready to go OTN).

So, stuffing for toys. Did that tell you what I knitted on holiday? I like making toys from sock leftovers - I once made a dinosaur for J from leftover Curious Yarns sock yarn. In Cornwall I made Nautie from leftover Lorna's Laces Valentine and purple Cherry Tree Hill, and started Norberta from leftover LL Rainbow and a no-name dark green. I love Nautie - so much fun to knit, and looks really cool, but I'm not sure about Norberta; I think my gauge is off, because she's not as rounded as she should be - more sleek than chubby - and her spine was way too long. The spine is cool, though - looks like a Pride rainbow :-) And I don't like the garter stitch. So I might not bother finishing her. Photos of both Nautie and half-Norberta to come.

Next on the planning list is a Cthulhu hat to be first player marker for Arkham...

Coriolis and other animals

Red and/or socks

FO and holiday knitting

Socks!

Spinning and reading

Clapotis is finished!

Lots to report

Dyeing and felting

Nautie

Holiday, knitting

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15 posts tagged “fo”

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