A quick vacation

In the spirit of timeliness, I'm forgoing a few FO posts to blog about more recent events.

In a rather spur-of-the-moment decision, we spent Labor Day weekend up north at the grandparents' cottage near Kalkaska, MI. We brought our friends Phil and Maureen along and had a great time. The weather was awesome all weekend. On Saturday we drove up to Tahquamenon Falls and got some great photos.

Sunday we drove into the tiny little town of Alden, MI just to show Phil and Mo Torch Lake, one of our favorite vacation destinations. Torch is one of the best lakes in the country. I forgot if it's 2nd, 3rd, 4th or whatever, but it is really, really beautiful. There are tons of $1,000,000+ homes on the lake and it's always jammed with people.

After visiting the lake we puttered around in the kitsch shops and I found some local yarn! Stonehedge Fiber Mill is located in East Jordan, MI, which was actually not very far from where we were staying. Unfortunately I didn't find that out until we got home, otherwise I would've visited. The yarn is surprisingly soft, but I wasn't too impressed with the color selection. Lots of bright solid colors, not many heathers. Although, after checking out their website, it looks like that was an issue with stock and not supply.

I also started two new socks on the drive up. My wife and I have a deal, she drives to where we're staying and I drive around once we get there. So, I got about 5 hours of knitting time. We left at 6:30 on Sunday, so it got dark halfway through our trip home.

These are simply 2x2 ribbing and they will be for my wife. She's been bugging me for another pair of socks and I thought this yarn would be perfect. It's Knitterly Things Vesper and it's only about 387 yards, perfect for little socks. I went with a 2x2 rib since the last pair of socks I knit in stockinette for her didn't both fit the same. She says one is tighter than the other.

I also started a pair of Shur-tugal (no idea how to pronounce that) socks for myself. These are knit with Socks That Rock - Mediumweight, which I wanted to use to know whether I like it or not. I have some birthday money to spend and if I like it, I may get some more. I chose this pattern because I thought the heavier yarn and larger needles would counteract the pull of the cables, but now that I'm into it, I'm worried they'll be too big. I shall try them on tonight and find out. I like the cable pattern and I really like the special "double-tail" cast on. Check it out for yourself.

FO: Orange Pooled Socks

Pattern: my own
Yarn: handgefaerbt.com Merino Extra Fine in Little Zentaur
Needles: Knit Picks Options, size 1
Started: May 6, 2009
Finished: August 19, 2009
Ravel It!

Whew! Finally a finished project. I haven't had one of those since... **rifles through the archives** ...Well, I haven't had one of those blogged since... late April! At last count I have four (4!) unblogged finished projects. The addition of some sock blockers should alleviate that congestion.

The Socks

I started this pair of socks way back in May before I went on vacation to Florida. My plan was to knit (mostly) on them while I was away and blog/tweet about it. The pattern I chose was Mad Color Weave, and I actually did manage to knit quite a bit on them while I was away. All the rain in Florida while we were there helped. It wasn't until the last few days of vacation that I tried them on to find I couldn't get them past my heel. The pattern just didn't have enough stretch.

Disheartened, I packed the socks away and knit on another pair the rest of the way and on the flight home. It wasn't until that project stalled that I picked these back up. I didn't have the heart to completely frog the sock, so I left the cuff and restarted in my own pattern. I continued the 3x1 ribbing down the front and back and expanded the two stitch cables at the sides to every four rows instead of every two. Other than that, they're regular cuff-down, heel-flap socks.

The Yarn

I ordered this yarn for my birthday last year and finished the socks nearly a year later. I love the colors and the way they pooled on these socks. One thing that bugs me about yarn dyed like this is the white spaces between the color changes. But the way these knit up, the white does not distract. I also have a feeling the two socks would have matched if not for most of the first cuff being knit with frogged yarn.

My fingers turned orange whenever I knit on these, and they put off quite a bit of dye when I washed them. The yarn was super soft to work with and the twist was interesting. I don't know enough about yarn to explain it, but it wasn't your typical sock yarn. I'm not sure how well it holds up as I have not yet worn these socks and I won't until the fall. I reserve my knit socks for wear with jeans in the cold months. I'm not one that can pull off fancy colored socks and sandals.

Final Verdict

My only disappointment with these socks is that I didn't use as much yarn as I could have. One of the drawbacks of knitting from the top down. I tried to employ my digital scale and guess at how much yarn each part (leg, heel, foot) would weigh, but I ended up with 48 grams of yarn left over.

Otherwise I love these socks. I love the color orange and try to incorporate it as much as I can within reason. These will be perfect peeking out from the bottom of jeans this fall. I also love the fit as I guessed correctly on foot length. These will not be bunching up at the heel. All-in-all a solid pair of socks.

Grafting the toe

Almost done with sock number two. I like to graft really loosely and then come back with a needle to snug things up, stitch by stitch. I'm thinking about making some sock blockers from cardboard. Maybe I can use those as a template for some wood ones. FO post this weekend hopefully.

A brief update

It was really nice to knit at lunch today. I needed it, it's been a hell of a Monday. This is the vacation sock I started back in May. The originally intended pattern didn't work out, so I switched to a much simpler one that's mostly 3x1 ribbing. I love the way it's pooling.

Now that I have a new phone from which I can take pictures and blog, perhaps I can get some shorter updates posted here more often. No promies though :)

A little verse

For want of a sock blocker, an FO was lost.
For want of a FO, a photo was lost.
For want of a photo, a blog post was lost.
For want of a blog post, blog mojo was lost.

Gauge issues

I just tried on my nearly finished Typhoon socks (pictured in the post below) and sadly realized why they're pooling differently. You see, I started the sock on the right with a large circular needle and magic loop months ago, and knit the sock on the left using DPNs over the past few weeks. Since the needles are the same size, I naively expected to get the same gauge. I guess that's one in the lesson column for a) not leaving projects half done for months and b) making sure to knit all parts of a project exactly the same way.

Also, since this skein of yarn was extra large and I wanted to use as much as I could, they're the tallest socks I've ever knit. Which is tall enough that theyreally probably should have calf shaping. But, ugh, I don't have the patience to figure that out.

Now I have the unfortunate problem of deciding whether or not I want to frog them completely and reknit, or just live with what I have. I'm fine with the pooling/striping being different on each sock. The left sock is a bit tighter overall, but I can still get the socks on. What concerns me most is the tightness around the ankle and top of the sock. I'm not sure if blocking would loosen things up enough or if I need to find new gauge.

What made it easy to get these finished was a lot of mindless knitting during a grad ceremony, car rides and playoff hockey. I don't have much more of that coming up this summer. I know I'll prefer something more interesting to knit, so even if I do frog, the yarn's most likely going to sit there.

Socks Aplenty

I've pretty much given up on my Red Wings sweater for now. Construction difficulties combined with warmer weather have forced it to the hibernation pile. What I've really been working on lately is socks.

I finally finished by Beyond the Sea Socks (FO post forthcoming) and picked my Typhoon Socks off the WIP pile. I'm knitting them toe up from opposite ends of a large skein, and you can see how they're pooling differently. 


Typhoon Socks

I made lots of progress on these this weekend when I sat through a two hour graduation ceremony. I wanted to work on these since they are simple stockinette. I didn't take note before I started, but I probably did about two-thirds of what you see on the left sock. 

It was the first time I've knit in such a public place. I was nervous to start, but once I did I was glad; it made the time go by much more quickly. The only 'casualty' was dropping my bag of yarn behind the seat in front of me. There's not much room in between rows and I'm a big guy, so I had to wait until the end to retrieve it. It didn't keep me from knitting though!

I've been trying not to buy much yarn after the huge lot I purchased back in February, but WEBS' May sale made me fall down. I ended up with three skeins of Noro Kureyon Sock.


Noro Socks

I started these Thursday night and made most of this progress during the 2 1/2 hour drive to and from Mt. Pleasant. It's hard to tell in the photo, but I'm doing Stephanie Pearl-McPhee's Earl Grey pattern. I wanted some interesting knitting without requiring too much attention. I switched it to a toe-up pattern, so I can use every last inch of this beautiful yarn.

Finally, we have the socks I will be spending the most time with next week.


Vacation Socks

I started these only as far as the cuff because they will be my vacation socks. I didn't want to fiddle with starting socks on the plane, but I figured working the actual pattern before vacation would be cheating. The pattern is the Mad Color Weave socks, available here. They're pooling really crazily right now, I'm hoping it either continues like that or gets broken up by the pattern. I want to see how much knitting I get done, and also document the trip like the Yarn Harlot does. 

We're heading to St. Petersburg, FL for the week and I could not be more excited. It's been a while since we've been on a real vacation. We already have plans to see a Rays game, visit the Salvador Dali museum (great find!) and take a day trip to Orlando to see Univeral Studios. The rest of the time we will be relaxing on the beach, but if anyone has any can't miss places to visit, let me know.