socks
Umm... socks for homeless animals? Well, it's not what you think. In fact, the animals won't be wearing the socks, instead they will be sold and the profits will go to the homeless animals.
These yarns were donated to me by the animal shelter to work them into socks. So that's what I did. The purple pair is about size 36-37, and was knit with 60 stitches across with using the Rinsessa stitch.
The blue pair is size 39-41, with 64 stitches across with a simple 2x2 ribbed cuff and a plain foot.
In fact, I made these a while ago already, and indeed the blue pair has already been sold! It's not big money, but if a homeless cat can eat for a few days or weeks from that money I'm more than delighted.
These would then be the 62nd and 63rd FO on my Charity knits 2011 list!
Can you see why I call these the Lighthouse Socks? Even in dim light, they shine like a lighthouse! Made with self-dyed yarn (with Kool Aid), they really "stick out".
As I had two balls á 50 grams, I wanted to make the socks as long as possible, I chose the toe-up method. I used a generic toe-up pattern, but I can't remember what it was called!
It wasn't groundbreaking, though: I "figure 8" casted on 11 stitches and increased every other round at the sock's edges until I had 60 stitches. I then knit plain to the heel, which was a short row heel. The pattern claimed it would be a "simple no-fuss, no-w&t, no holes" heel. Ha! Either I misunderstood or the heel is crappy. The pick-ups on the knit side were fine, but the ones on purl side are full of ... holes.
I was going through my year last weekend, and decided it would be nice to pull together my knitting highlights and the steps I've taken to build my site! So here it is: the best of Worsted Knitt in 2010!
January
I started the year by publishing a free sock pattern, namely the Ripple Moss Socks. They're now at 10 projects on Ravelry!
I also finished the beautiful Owls sweater, which hasn't been getting much use, though.
February
The highlight in February was finishing a shawl in two weeks - Tulppaani for Ravelympics. I also started selling stitch markers "for real" on Worsted-Knitt.net.
I always surprise myself when I finish a pair of socks. I'm currently not very into socks, so every pair feels like a big accomplishment. I finished these in July but as it happens, the blog sometimes has hard time keeping up.
Anyway, here are the specs:
Yarn: Lana Grossa Meilenweit Mega Boots, one 100 gram ball; plenty of yarn was left over
Pattern: Fawkesby Monkey Toes (Rav link)
Needles: 2,5 mm dpns
Modifications: I did five repeats of the pattern on the cuff and not four as suggested in the pattern. Other than that I followed the pattern.
No, it's not a new health food, it's my newest FO!
I'm slowly getting back my sock knitting mojo which was gone for a long time - I've been enjoying shawl knitting so much that I've forgotten all about how I liked knitting socks. But then I discovered this pretty yarn and the Froot Loop pattern in my May Small Item Club bag, I decided to get my dpns out and make some socks. Here are the specs:
For the second time in a row, I'm participating in the Finnish knitalong "Kesäyön hullutus", which is a KAL for crazy Finnish people who want to start a new knitting project every day from the 1st of June to Midsummer, the 26th of June - and finish all 26 knits by the end of July. Pretty insane, huh!
At least until now I'm keeping up. I've started a few bigger things I know I'll be able to work on in the train (I'll be travelling a bit the next few weeks), and lots of small ones (I mean finished-in-one-hour small ones!) This post is about a small one and a bigger one.
I notice again and again that I hardly ever show WIPs on my blog. Is it because I find WIPs so difficult to photograph in a pretty way, or that I usually finish my small knits so quickly that I don't have the time to blog them while they're still WIPs, I don't know. But I do know I probably won't be finishing these in the next few days, so why not show them to you already.
My April small item from stash is/are the Froot Loop socks. I've just started them and seem to be making god progress. It's so weird to knit socks after a long pause. These small, fiddly needles! The thin yarn! But I'm getting the hang of it again. Also the soy sock yarn feels really good, even though I'm not so crazy about how the striping is coming out.
I came home today and had three packets waiting for me! In one were a rice cooker and the complete Absolutely Fabulous series which I had ordered a few days back. In the second one was the book Custom Knits
But the third package was my Swap on a budget swap packet from Norway! Take a look at all the goodies in it.
This is my 2009 tally für preemies. You might know that I support the German knit for preemies charity Frühchenstricken, who collect preemie knits and distribute them to the hospitals who request them. I usually send one packet a year, and this is the one for 2009 (they asked me to wait over Christmas to send it, so I only sent it last week).
What I made:
2 cotton blankets, ca 55x60 cm big
5 pairs of preemie socks
5 preemie hats
OK, it's not so much, but hey, every little helps and I know these items will beused by those who need them. Plus preemie knits are so great for quick stashbusting projects!
PS. What do you think about the new background Nick made for me?
Another free knitting pattern from Worsted Knitt! I'm getting the hang of this :)
This sock pattern is perfect for self-striping and self-patterning yarn. It can be so boring knitting plain stockinette socks with these yarns, but any complex pattern will not show in the striped yarn, or it will just look bad and messy. This simple moss stitch rib doesn't disturb the colours, but makes the sock more interesting to work on and to look at.
A word of warning: the pattern is not symmetrical. If you love your order and symmetrical ribbings, you possibly won't like this pattern. It doesn't really show that much, but better to give you a heads-up to avoid disappointment.
