A month in yarn: October 2015

October has been a good month for getting things off the needles (excellent news as my WIP list was getting out of control). As it was Socktober, there was a bit of a focus on knitting socks, but plenty of other knitting was done too. And I had a bit of stash clear out - much needed. I did completely fail on not buying any more yarn though. I really must try harder!

Finished 

Watermelon striped socks for my daughter

Knitted using yarn from my friend Amy, these socks are properly adorable. Not that my daughter will deign to wear them. I keep trying, and I'm sure she'll give in eventually.

Ex boyfriends shawl

Knitted for a friend whose baby arrived a few days ago instead of a conventional baby gift. But now the baby's here I might knit something small for him too. I can't resist a baby knit.

Rainbow hat for my daughter

October school runs are cold! A new hat was much needed.

Whale blanket

So the baby recipient for this is now three months old, which is a bit later than I would have liked, but there were rather a lot of ends to darn in (and edgings always take longer than I think they should). Now it is done I love it. The pattern will be available eventually.

Springtime Bandit for a school run friend

Easy yet interesting knitting. Aran weight shawls grow so fast. I used every inch of this yarn, and still had to cast off a row early. If I make another (which I probably will), I'll add a few extra body repeats. I'll blog properly about this one later as it's on my 32 things list.

Twilight rainbow Zigzagular socks 

My current favourites

Silver skies rainbow socks for a friend's birthday

Such pretty yarn from Mothy and the Squid

A cardigan for my daughter

This has taken five months for me to finish as the stripe sequence suddenly went crazy and four shades of red require good lighting to get them to match up. But it is now done, and should still fit! We have been out to take photos but I haven't got round to editing them yet.

WIPs

Charity mitred blanket

No progress this month.

Bee blanket

The bee is charted, and I have worked as far as the charted section. But haven't made any progress beyond that. Definitely one to finish this month.

Wiggly worm blanket

Really ought to work on this one as well if I want to get it done in time for Christmas.

Blue tit socks for a friend

Requested by a friend, these match my first ever hand knitted socks. I feel like I've gone full circle on the sock knitting front. I have noticed though that my stripes are going out of sync every so slowly while I knit them - I suspecvt I'm knitting one sock a bit tighter than the other. The recipient is not a knitter though, and I suspect won't notice. And surely these are the charms of handmade?

Paris Toujours shawl for a friend's birthday

Cast on with great excitement. Three stripes in and I'm finding it a boring knit. It does look pretty though, so I'm going to try and persevere.

Frogged 

Some projects are just not meant to be.

Melodie shawl

Just too orange. I clearly didn't like it much, I never took any photos.

Hermione's everyday socks

Poor yarn/pattern combination. And there was an error, so they have been unravelled.

Yarny maths

Yarn in

650g from Mothy and the Squid that I won in a competition (yay!)

200g sock yarn from a yarn swap

300g festive sock yarn to make into Christmas presents

200g sock yarn from Unbelievawool's yarn club

200g sock yarn from a LYS

Yarn out

500g assorted bits and pieces that went into two swap parcels

26g for watermelon socks 

197g for Ex Boyfriends shawl

840g donated to Amy to make into squares

100g donated to a friend at knit night who was project-less

438g for the whale blanket

51g for the rainbow hat

185g for the Springtime bandit

85g for the twilight rainbow socks

62g silver skies rainbow socks
144g wrap cardigan

-1078g. Which is good. But not good enough! One day I will learn not to buy more yarn...

Plans for November   

Do some advent knitting (Christmassy things that shall be worn for the whole of December).
Knit a pair of mystery socks.

Socktober: Pairs #2 and #3: The tale of two pairs of rainbow socks

Over the past few months I have been stashing beautiful sock yarn faster than I can knit it. In honesty, I was a bit scared of knitting 'the good stuff' as I'm not 100% confident in my ability to make socks that fit properly. But for the whole of September I was a bit miffed that I don't have enough pairs of hand-knitted socks to wear them every day - I have four pairs, and realistically they're only going to get washed fortnightly at most, which leaves me with ten days in a fortnight that I don't have lovely socks for. So in September, I looked through the sock yarn box and chose to cast on something gorgeous: Cuddlebums Twlight Rainbow in Donegal Nep.

This yarn has been in my stash since my birthday in April, and apparently needed Autumn to happen for me to cast it on. I chose to knit a new pattern, one from the toe up, but that has gussets - my knitting of hand-knitted socks so has taught me that I like knitting them toe up best, but that my feet like wearing ones with gussets best. I merged a basic pattern with a slightly more complicated one (Zigzagular) for interest.

The yarn was wonderful to work with. Completely crazily pooled, but I love that it looks a bit like a sari in its colour scheme, and can't help but make me smile. I struggled a bit with the heel, but that was probably just because I wasn't paying enough attention, and knitting them two at a time wasn't covered in the pattern, so I had to guess that bit. But it worked well, and is a really nice heel, with its slipped stitch reinforcement at the back of the foot as well as on the heel flap.

The finished socks are my current favourites. As soon as they're dry from washing they're back on my feet. And my husband has been admiring them, so he's going to get a pair too.

*******

A couple of weeks ago we went to see a friend who we hadn't seen in a few weeks. Things have been a bit tricky for her recently,  but her birthday was coming up, so I decided she could do with something hand made to cheer her up (she is one of the most knitworthy person I know). It being Socktober, I went for socks, and rummaged through the stash to find something beautiful, but struggled to find something that would really suit her. I then remembered the yarn I won from Mothy and the Squid in September (which hasn't yet made it to stash - it has its own special box), and cast on a pair of socks in Silver Skies Rainbow - grey with a rainbow splash and silver sparkles.

 

These socks were lovely to work up; I liked the reinforced heel so much I used the same pattern as for the Twilight Rainbow socks, but minus the zigzags. The yarn kept me guessing the whole way through, and I raced the rainbow splashes, getting the socks done in a record five days (admittedly these socks are for size 5 feet, not my monster 10s)! I haven't yet passed them on to my friend, but I am hoping she loves them as much as I loved making them.

*******

I think that's probably it for completed socks for Socktober. I have cast on a pair of West Yorkshire Spinners Blue Tit socks for another friend, but they're not going to be done by the end of the month. What has everyone else managed for Socktober?

Socktober: Pair #1: Watermelon striped socks

Earlier this year I posted my friend Amy and I were having a text conversation about sock yarn and she sent me a picture of some watermelon striped socks, but was sad that she couldn't find the details of the dyer to get some for herself. So when I saw a photo on Facebook of indie dyer Young Yarns knitting a pair of watermelon striped socks I immediately emailed her to ask where she had got it from, who said it was from Hand Dyed by Kate, an indie dyer based in Wales. A few weeks later Amy received a ball of self-striping watermelon yarn for her birthday, which she rapidly turned into a pair of socks.



Amy's watermelon striped socks. Image copyright Amy H.

Adult socks don't generally take an entire ball of yarn (unless your feet are as large as my husband's, in which case a ball of yarn doesn't make a whole pair of socks), and most people who knit socks have a bag of oddments somewhere in their house. I've seen lots of projects that use sock yarn leftovers: mitred square blankets, linen stitch wraps, beekeepers quilts. But Amy went for sending the leftovers of the watermelon yarn back to me, so that I could make some super-cute watermelon striped socks for my daughter.

I cast the socks on enthusiastically while on a train journey, and rapidly reached the heel, then got distracted by other things. Last week in honour of Socktober I finally got back to them and finished the first one off in an hour or so - baby socks are quick! I made the leg a bit longer than I usually would so the 'seeds' didn't fall in the ribbing, but that should make the socks last a little bit longer. Annoyingly my first cast off round ate slightly into the next pink stripe, so I had to unravel the cast off and pull back a row before casting off again. But once done it looked lovely with its matching ball of yarn.

The second sock was much quicker, as I was determined not to abandon these socks this time, and I finished them on Saturday evening. I did have to do the heel a couple of times, and even in the final version it's still a row higher than the first one, but c'est le vie. Now my daughter has a lovely pair of stripy socks, and I'm very much looking forward to showing them off!

These watermelon socks are the first pair of several I hope to get finished during Socktober, and if there's time I'm going to try and knit a pair of Caoua Coffee's Leonore or Athos socks so I can join in with the Sock Knitters Anonymous group on Ravelry's challenge for October*, but we shall have to wait and see whether I actually get that far! Does anyone else have any Socktober plans?

*You have to be logged into Ravelry for this link to work. Joining is free and it is an excellent knitting and crocheting resource.