FO: Husband Socks

I finally made a pair of socks for my husband.  He is pretty traditional when it comes to socks - black cotton for work and white athletic for around the house.  I got him two pair of SmartWool socks for the holidays last year and he loved them; I sensed my opportunity to get him into a pair of hand knit socks was close.

 

Earlier this year I picked up a sale-priced sock yarn sampler from Knit Picks.  I love the colors that came in this now-discontinued pack (it was called 'Earth') and the socks I have knit with their yarn over the years have held up really well.  My husband chose the dark brown wool/nylon and I set out looking for a plain sock pattern.  Something with just enough character (for his taste, but for me to enjoy knitting too).  They turned out smidge big, maybe a quarter-inch all around, but in my experience Knit Picks wool/nylon sock yarn will shrink a bit after washing and drying.

 

I happened upon the Globe Trotter sock pattern on ravelry.  I really like the pattern - I think the seed stitch rib makes for a sophisticated yet casual looking sock.  The designer also has a matching 'Around the World' sock pattern.  Wouldn't it be fun to knit up a pair of each for an engagement/wedding/anniversary gift for an adventuresome couple?

WI Sheep and Wool Festival

I was lucky to get a day away this past weekend to attend the Wisconsin Sheep and Wool Festival.  I attended the festival last year and enjoyed myself.  A lot.  So this year I expanded on my festival experience by taking a class taught by the very talented Mo Brown (owner of The Cat and the Crow yarn shop in Mount Horeb, WI).

This was another dying class.  And while the basic process was the same as the other class I took in the summer, the techniques we used were very, very different.  This was specifically a sock yarn dying class, and we went from undyed, superwash wool, machine knit sock blanks to skeins of hand dyed yarn.

Some contrasts to the other class include: using syringes instead of brushes to apply the dye, using a microwave instead of steam heat to set the dye, and working with a knit fabric instead of loopy skeins of wool.

I am really happy with the two skeins I brought home - one is an experiment in gradation, going from dark purple to light and back to a dark red-purple again.

The other is (hopefully) full of long color repeats of blue, green, gray, black and orange.














I found the class very inspriational, and was quite taken by the approaches of the other students.  A few treated their sock blanks as canvasses, painting elaborate pictures on them.  What is amazing is that work become hidden once the yarn is wound, and then knit up into a project.  But the artists' intent remains: a secret wish, or hidden message, if you will.  Like a whisper, those 'paintings' were utttered and then will disappear into the wind.

I didn't make any elaborate paintings, but I did find myself fantasizing about hidden messages in a hand knit project.  Don't you think a yarn blank could (literally) be printed with messages about love, peace and joy and knit up into something beautiful?  What about including messages of social justice or protest?  Civil disobedeince as public art!  Craftivism!

I did some browsing after the class, but came home with only one kit - the Pippa and Poppy dresses by the talented ladies at Ewetopia.  They are absolutly adorable!  I've cast on for a first dress, with hopes of completing three more (one for each of my girls) by next spring.  

p.s.  I'm also in love with Ariana and Roaslind and might have to splurge in the new year.

FO: (Modified) Mitered Mittens

 

I knit up these mittens quickly during the last days of July.  The pattern, a tried and true Elizabeth Zimmerman from The Knitters Almanac, suggests knitting them in May, when the winter is a fading memory and it's getting too warm to have piles of wool on your lap.  It's good advice.  Before you realize it you have something special to tuck away for when the cold winds blow again.

The pattern itself is simply a paragraph, describing the basics (number of sts. to cast on, approx. length to top of mittens, etc.).  No frills, no row-by-row instructions; your only guide being a leap faith that if you just follow her advice the mittens will turn out well.

I modified the thumb gussets using Kathryn Ivy's instructions and love the way they turned out.

The wool for these mittens is one of the skeins I hand painted in late June.  I am pretty excited to see the skein knit up, and even more excited that there wasn't any weird pooling!  I also think these would be great looking in a yarn with really long color repeats.

The mittens fit well, snug with enough give to be comfortable.  I think I could even squeeze in an upcycled cashmere sweater lining.  Sounds divine, no?

7th Birthday

My twins turn seven today - and they are full into the American Girl doll scene. 

My parents got them the camping tent (it fits two dolls), which got me thinking about the other gifts that fit with the camping/hiking theme.  Since we enjoy camping and hiking as a family, I got each girl a pair of special hiking shorts - the kind with mesh pockets, d-rings and ties.

And then I ventured back into the world of 'sewing for dolls' for a second gift: doll sleeping bags. I kept it relatively simple, with a self-designed pattern for a sleeping bag. 

But it turns out that my sewing machine really IS broken (at first I thought I had just mis-threaded it, but there is certainly something wrong with the bobbin mechanism now) so I couldn't turn them into proper sleeping bags.

As I finished them with more hand stitching then I care to re-count, I decided to call them camping rolls.  And they have been met with more enthusiasm then I could have hoped for (cue the big sigh of relief).  They didn't even realize that I made them at first - a high compliment in my book - and then I showed them photos of them as babies, wrapped in the flannel blankets I used to line the sleeping rolls, and they exclaimed, "SO COOL!"














The rolls are made with a heavy cotton exterior, flannel interior and lined with a layer of cotton batting.  They measure approximately 20 inches long by 12 inches wide.  There isn't any top-stitching (a detail I would have liked to add) and they mostly just fold over the top of the dolls.  The ribbon ties are nice and long so the girls can roll and tie them up themselves.  The pillows are sewn directly into the top seam and fold down, or up, depending on your preference.