Yellow

Wo, these ones are bright!!

Love them. Love how the legs are long and the heel flap didn't need any backwards knitting (because it's a Fleegle heel) and how I'm going to use that strategy in the next pair so I don't have to cable on the wrong side, and the moss stitch columns, and the cables!

They took forever! But they did use 95g (of the 100g I had), and were not exactly TV knitting.

Now I'm up to green!!

Green sparkly stuff from Stranded in Oz, with a DNA-shaped cable that denatures when it meets the heel. They're called "Denature", and I'm finding them slow-going, too! Mostly because every chart row needs concentration. Luckily, 2/3 of it is stocking stitch, but I'm not sure I'm going to finish them in my week off. I'll do my best.

So slow, so fast

I know I haven’t written on this blog for a while, but it’s not because I’m a slacker so much as I’m just So Slow. I wanted to have a finished thing or two, and socks take me forever.

Last month I thought I’d get ahead on my sock NEWT. Ha. I didn’t even finish the second pair until a few days into September. I thought I might be a bit ahead anyway, since I’d made a start on Pair 3. Nope. I still haven’t finished them. I’m getting behind.

Anyway, I don’t actually have a real life deadline (it’s just a game) and I’m getting some nice socks out of it. Here are Red and Orange.

The red ones are Skyp socks, and they’re pretty simple, a bit of a twist on the usual rib. The orange ones are Treppenviertel (which means something about stairs) and they’re actually kind of fun to make and fit well. The reinforcing on the bottom is done with an extra strand of yarn that stays on the sole.

Here’s what I did for the orange socks. Basically, you have one needle for the top of the sock and one needle for the bottom (if you knit with two circulars like I usually do). On row 1 (at the start of the sole stitches) you knit 1 orange 1 white all the way across (regular colorwork). Then you drop the white and knit the other needle.

Then you find yourself at the beginning of the sole again, but the white yarn is on the wrong side. You knit 1, slip 1, all the way to the other side, turn so you’re knitting on the wrong side of the sole stitches, drop the orange and pick up the white, and purl the stitches you slipped on the last row and slip the stitches you knit on the last row. Then you drop the white, and without turning, pick up the orange and go on with the instep. When you get to the sole stitches again, there you are with both colors on the right side again.

As for the yellow socks, they are both rib and cables, and are taking me a long time! I was supposed to be finished them by now, and I have about 50 rounds to go, knitting two at a time. But I think they’re the trickiest, so perhaps the other socks will go more quickly.

Also bought an Addi King Express knitting machine! It’s only a simple plastic thing that knits stocking stitch in the round, and it has to be 46 stitches of fairly fat wool, but I bought it for experimentation. So far I’ve made a scarf for Jasmine (using a whole 200g ball of Stellar) and two double-layer hats for the charity box.

I added the ribbing and fringe to the ends of the tube, and gave it a good stretch.

For these hats, I made a long tube, using 2 skeins of Madelinetosh Chunky, and took it off the Addi King Express (AKA AKE or Cranky). I did some maths, put my needles in 7 rows down from the ends, and unwound a bit. Then I used the unwound bits to knit 4 rounded ends (hat tops). Because it’s a tube, I can push one inside the other, and it becomes a double thickness reversible hat. It’s still quite long, too; the boys have to fold up the brim as well. Each hat took me about 2 hours, an hour of cranking and an hour of finishing, though I dare say I could do it more quickly if I wasn’t watching TV. :)

And now, back to my yellow socks! As soon as they’re done I can finish off some spinning I started and cast on my green sparkly socks!