Happy Street

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L and I found a few minutes this weekend to get some proper shots of my finished shawl. It was actually harder than expected to photograph because it’s so big – 85 inches long and almost 16 deep.

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It’s almost more of a scarf than a shawl, which will be perfect for fall and winter (I purposefully chose colours that will go nicely with my red winter coat for that very reason). The looser gauge means it wraps nicely around my neck, twice, so it fits well under a jacket or, wrapped just once, it’s perfect as an extra layer in the air-conditioned office.

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Overall, I’m really pleased with this! (Details on it are here and/or here)

Wild Monkeys

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After knitting nothing but garter stitch for two weeks (and such a lot of garter stitch it was) I needed something entirely different. Naturally, my attention turned to socks. I actually cast on after finishing the fourth repeat of my shawl (so, okay, not two weeks of nothing but garter stitch, but pretty close). I didn’t yet have my copy of Coop Knits Socks, so I couldn’t start Willowherb, but I have had Cookie A.’s Monkey in my queue for almost a year now, so they seemed a suitable choice.

I'm using SweetGeorgia Tough Love Sock in Honey Fig.

I’m using SweetGeorgia Tough Love Sock in Honey Fig.

I’ve mentioned before that I wear socks year round. Not every day in the summer, of course, but if I’m wearing my Chucks, I’m wearing socks. Spring, especially, is sock weather, since although it’s warm when I go to work (averaging 20C these days) the temperature is still falling to around 8C by the time I leave, and that is too cold to not have socks and shoes on while waiting for the bus.

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This weather is perfect for lace socks. All that pretty patterning that is impractical when there’s snow on the ground is ideal right now, and will continue to be for the next few months. For all the socks I’ve knit for myself, though, I really only have two pairs of lace patterned socks. Not enough, clearly, so for the next few months I’m going to work on that portion of my sock drawer, which means lots of fun new patterns.

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These Monkeys were a great place to start. They’re pretty much knitting themselves (I knit half the ribbing when I cast on last week, the rest of the knitting has been in the last couple of days) and are a perfect canvast for this yarn. I’m knitting the classic, with-purls version of the pattern (from Knitty), and although I might knit no-purl Monkeys in the future, the texture of knits and purls is doing wonderful things to break up flashing and pooling, which I can see happening on the sole, where it doesn’t matter.

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Summer socks – I guess you have to be a knitter to get excited about such a thing, but man, is it too nerdy to say I can’t wait?

Almost as planned

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Yesterday was my birthday. I’m lucky enough to work somewhere that believes your birthday should be a holiday, so I had the day off. It was lovely. I knit, I watched some TV, I baked a cake (chocolate zucchini cake with cream cheese icing – delicious).

My original plan, as you may remember, was to have my Happy Street shawl finished by my birthday, and I have to say, I almost made it. By the end of Friday I was finished all the repeats and only had the border to go. I figured that with the weekend to knit 12 rows and cast off, I’d be home free. Then I got sick. I barely knit four rows on Saturday (24-hour flu) and then had to work on Sunday. I got really close, but I still had to finish the last row, bind-off and block the shawl on my birthday. The bind-off row was nearly 600 stitches.

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This is a big shawl. I knew it was going to be big, but this is really big. After blocking, it’s 85-inches long and almost 16-inches deep. It dwarfs my Colour Affection and I can comfortably wrap it around my neck twice. The garter stitch is soft and squishy, and the short row turns tightened up nicely.

I haven’t had a chance to get proper FO shots yet, but in the meantime, here are the specs.

Details
Pattern: Happy Street by Veera Valimacki
Yarn: Sweet Fibre Yarns Super Sweet Sock in Luna (MC), Early Spring (CC1), and Spanish Coin (CC2)
Needles: 4mm
Modifications: None. I knit in my ends (at least at the leading end of each stripe), which was a great time saver. Also, on my last WS row (I bound off on the RS), I didn’t do any increases. My shawl is ravelled here.

More photos to come.

Very looooong stripes

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At this gauge, the garter stitch is so wonderfully plump.

At this gauge, the garter stitch is so wonderfully plump.

I have been knitting my Sweet Street shawl very diligently since I cast on last Saturday night and managed to finish repeats three and four this weekend, despite spending most of the two days outside enjoying the glorious and unseasonably warm temperatures. Despite all my hard work and attempts at focus, though, I am slowing down.

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As with all top-down shawls, the more you knit, the more there is to knit, because the rows get longer and longer as you progress. In the case of this shawl, where each repeat adds 84 stitches to the overall count, that meant I finished section 3 with 350 stitches on my needles. Now, the finished wingspan of this shawl is listed as 3 metres, which is basically enormous. My gauge tends to be a little tighter than Veera’s, but even if I only have it to 2 metres, that’s still a pretty big shawl.

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I have no idea how big it is.

So, while I’m not surprised by the length of each row, I am a little dismayed at how long it’s taking to knit them. I have one repeat and and the edge to knit before I’m done and a week until my birthday, when I’d like to be wearing this, and I’m honestly not sure if I can make it. I’m going to knit like the wind, but these rows aren’t getting any shorter.

From the Frolic

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I’ve been on a bit of an inadvertent stash stockpile in the last few months and I think I’ve discovered what’s up (besides and obvious love of yarn): this is stress stashing. I’ve never really been someone who bought into the idea of retail therapy (hah), but yarn and clothes are very different beasts. There have been big changes at the Post in the last few months and work has been crazy and the result has been a lot of yarn coming into this little apartment (and yes, L has noticed).

I, however, am not worried, because I have a plan. Or, many plans. I bought Rachel Coopey’s Coop Knits Socks last week and, although it has not yet arrived (yes, I bought the hardcopy; it comes with a code for a digital download, so it’s win-win), I am planning. At the Frolic last weekend I picked up:

Orange!

Orange!

Indigodragonfly Merino Sock in Safety Pin or Safety Pint: Discuss (explanation behind that colourway name here). This is destined to become Willowherb. (After the Frolic, in a fit of why-didn’t-I-buy-it remorse, I swept over to the Indigodragonfly site and picked up three more skeins of this yarn in various colourways. I am well stocked now.)

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I also snagged a skein of Tosh Sock in Maple Leaf (it takes a Texan to see maple leafs as anything but red, I think, but this is exactly the colour of the maple leaves that are bursting forth right now, and I love it.) I’m going to turn it into Calamint. I’m not sure what the other skein, in Spectrum, will be – maybe another pair of these?

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A skein of Tosh DK, in Cosmos, also snuck home with me, and while I’m not totally sure, I suspect it’ll be a pair of Stepping-Stones for me. Every winter I tell myself to knit some thick socks and every winter I don’t; this winter I’ll have no excuse.

So, that’s the yarn. I also picked up a Sweater Stone for de-pilling and a pair of sock blockers. These are just slightly smaller than my feet, which I think is good since it leaves the sock with a little stretch to ensure a snug fit. I got a pair (set?) of the metal ones and so far I like them just fine – they remind me of my grandparents’ bathroom, because every time we visited my grandmother always had several pairs of my grandpa’s socks hanging to dry over the radiator on giant sock blockers. (This is also why I call all thick and wooly socks “Grandpa Socks.”)

I will have an update on my Happy Street shawl soon (stripes are worthy of in-progress photos since they make for such delightfully visual progress). I am knitting away and have been monogamous since casting on. It’s driving me crazy, so if I can get the third repeat finished tomorrow, I’m taking the sock out with me for a few rounds at least.

Sweet Street

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I have been planning to knit a second Colour Affection for a while now. I wear mine all the time and every time I wear it someone compliments it. Since I knit the fingering-weight one last time, I thought I’d knit it in laceweight for the second go round for a little more versatility and so it isn’t just the same thing again. Then, Veera Valimaki went and released Happy Street and, well, my plans sort of changed.

Super Sweet Sock in Luna.

Super Sweet Sock in Luna.

Like Colour Affection, Sweet Street is a striped, garter stitch crescent shawl in three colours, but that’s basically where the similarities end. These stripes are wider and, because of some seriously clever short-rows, this shawl looks more like two colours striping over a solid background.

Super Sweet Sock in Early Spring.

Super Sweet Sock in Early Spring.

Saturday was the DKC Knitter’s Frolic in Toronto, so I hit up the marketplace with this shawl in mind. My original plan was to do the bright stripe in chartreuse and then choose contrasting colours based on that, but when I arrived at the booth for Sweet Fiber Yarns, that plan went straight out the window.

Super Sweet Sock in Spanish Coin.

Super Sweet Sock in Spanish Coin.

Sweet Fibre is new to me, and I was totally taken by their colours. I honestly wanted one of each, but I was very controlled and only bought three – all for this shawl. I was very tempted to go with a cashmere-merino blend, but then I remembered that there was a whole marketplace to shop in, so I needed to be smart (the rest of my purchases will get their own post). I was, of course, immediately drawn to the gold colour, and then to the smoky purple beside it. For the third colour (the background) I went with a grey that seemed to have some purple undertones. My Colour Affection is bright, and I wanted this one to be more subtle while still offering a pop.

Sweet Street

Sweet Street

I am in love. The purple and the grey are a little closer in tone than I was imagining, but I think as this grows they’ll gain better definition. The gold does exactly what I intended. I’m finished one fifth of the shawl (in repeats, not size), and the rows are already really long (over 200 stitches, I’d guess), but there’s something hypnotic and addicting about garter stitch stripes. My goal is to have this finished for my birthday, which gives me two weeks. That is rather optimistic I think, but who doesn’t like a challenge?

Good news will come to you by mail

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I always thought this was the most ridiculous fortune a cookie could offer, but then yesterday I got home from work to a postcard from Lisbon and a package from Ireland.

Hedgehog Fibres Twist Sock in Pheasant.

Hedgehog Fibres Twist Sock in Pheasant.

The package? Yarn I ordered from Hedgehog Fibres on Saturday. Not even a week ago! This is a bit different from the yarn I used to knit my Hummingbird Socks, though. I imagine it’s dyed the same way, but that yarn was a four-ply Merino/Nylon blend and this is a two-ply BFL/Nylon. It feels much springier, but that bit of nylon also makes me think it will hold up well. (I ordered yarn for Grace from Quince & Co. the same day – maybe in some late-April miracle it will arrive today!)

And, because it's silly to order one skein of yarn all the way from Ireland, Twist Sock in Unforgiven.

And, because it’s silly to order one skein of yarn all the way from Ireland, Twist Sock in Unforgiven.

In other news, I am knitting another pair of Stepping-Stones for my mum and I swear these socks knit themselves. Barely a few hours in and I’m almost at the heel. It’s (almost) silly to knit quick socks at this time of year, since she won’t need them for another six months or so, but I don’t care. The next pair, though, is for me!

Two Hummingbirds and a Hedgehog

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Sounds like the title of a nursery rhyme, doesn’t it?

Finished socks, bad camera angle. Sorry.

Finished socks, bad camera angle. Sorry.

I finished my Hummingbirds last night (apologies for bad photos – I decided to try out my camera’s timer rather than wait for L, clearly I need to practice). This is the second pattern I’ve knit from The Knitter’s Book of Socks and, like Stepping-Stones before it, it was a well-written, clearly presented pattern that will almost certainly become a standard. In the book, Clara writes that these socks (designed by Sandi Rosner) were designed expressly to be used with multi-coloured variegated yarn. That’s unusual for lace, but the idea is that the trellised pattern shifts the colours up and down, breaking up the stacking that would ordinarily lead to pooling and flashing.

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They’re definitely fun to knit, and the 12-row, 32-stitch repeat is an easy rhythm to get into. I didn’t get quite to the point of memorizing it, but a quick glance at the chart was all I needed at the beginning of each row. I did make some modifications (detailed below) and I have some others that I plan to try on the next pair of these I knit (probably with this yarn). I do find these tight to pull on and off (though they’re comfortable to wear, pesky high arches), but, as you can see in the photos, the first sock (which I’ve tried on a few times) has stretched and grown noticeably longer than the second sock. It’s superwash wool, too, so I suspect these will stretch a little once they’ve been blocked (no, I didn’t swatch).

Speaking of the wool, let me tell you about the Hedgehog. This sock yarn is by Hedgehog Fibres (an Irish dyer) and it is one of the loveliest sock yarns I’ve used. It’s smooth and round and so, so soft (85% merino), but its tight twist and 15% nylon content suggest it’ll stand up well too. It isn’t especially springy, but I do think it’ll grow a little. The stitch definition is beautiful and, perhaps best of all, the yarn is hand-painted in such a way as to prevent pooling. No two skeins are alike, and even though this yarn did tend to feature similar colour repeats again and again, even in the stockinette portion of the feet there’s no pooling. I love this yarn so much that I’ve ordered two more skeins. I also have 23g left of this colour, which I will probably use to knit up some more leftover socks one of these days.

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Part of me kind of wishes the charts were shifted so the lace was over the front of the foot and the purls stitches were on the sides, but I guess these are socks meant to be enjoyed in profile.

Details
Pattern: Hummingbird by Sandi Rosner
Yarn: Hedgehog Fibres Sock Yarn in Sunflower
Needles: 2.5mm
Modifications: I knit the leg as written, but changed the heel from a short-row heel to my normal heel flap (I’m hard on my socks). I also added an extra chart repeat to the foot, though next time I’ll add another one. Depending on how these wear, I might also knit them on 2.75mm needles next time. As I mentioned above, these are quite tight to pull on over my heel. The fit is pretty good, though, so maybe a compromise would be to just knit the leg on the larger needle and then make the heel flap a few rows deeper. I also made the toe really wide for some reason (I did the first one a few weeks ago and can’t remember why now), but next time I’ll just knit my normal toe. My notes and whatnot are Ravelled here.

Still in season

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So windy.

So windy. Also, it was brighter than it looks, hence the sun glasses. Sorry.

On Thursday it was 20C, this morning it snowed. What I’m saying is, I have been wearing my Woodstove Season cardigan quite a bit and it has been lovely. I’m so used to knitting small things and accessories that to knit an actual garment and then get to wear it around is a whole thing. It took me two months to wear the first socks I knit (I thought it was weird, but I was a fool) but it only took me a week (during which I thought I was going to knit pockets) from finishing to first public wear. I could get used to this whole sweater thing.

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It has taken us a while to coordinate, so when L had a minute this afternoon we went for a walk to finally take some proper finished photos. Of course, it was freezing, and insanely windy, but you have to take what you can get. I swear, my hair is usually less wild than this.

It typically flaps less when worn open, but you get the idea.

It typically flaps less when worn open, but you get the idea.

I am really happy with the way this turned out. The sleeves have enough ease to be comfortable with a long-sleeved shirt under them, but they aren’t loose, so they don’t add bulk under a jacket, and the buttons are spaced properly so there isn’t any gaping. I do wish I’d knit the collar a little longer and the body a little shorter, but honestly, those are such minor details that they’re pretty much inconsequential. This is designed to be a long cardigan, and it is, which is something I’m sure I’ll appreciate during the winter (no lower back draft!).

And buttoning the million buttons back up.

And buttoning the million buttons back up.

It hasn’t been long, but so far the yarn seems to be holding up well too. It’s a superwash, so it doesn’t have quite as much structure as an untreated yarn, but there haven’t been any signs of pilling yet and it’s holding its shape just fine.

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Crispy crispy chevrons.

Details
Pattern: Woodstove Season by Alicia Plummer
Yarn: SweetGeorgia Superwash Worsted in Cyprus
Needles: 5.5mm for the body, 5mm for the collar and 4.5mm for the cuffs and bottom ribbing
Modifications: The biggest change was really the gauge. I knit this at 4.5 stitches to the inch instead of 4 stitches to the inch because, honestly, I just didn’t like the fabric when it was looser. This led to a false-start because I chose the wrong size initially. What I ended up with was something between the medium and the large, which was perfect. I made my buttonholes every 14th row (every 7th right-side row) instead of every 12th row, in part because my gauge was tighter so I could get away with it and in part because I wasn’t paying attention at the beginning and didn’t want to tink back two rows when it wasn’t going to make a difference anyway. To make my buttonholes work out I added two pattern rows to the body (after the end of the hip shaping and before the ribbing). I also picked up way more stitches in the armpit and decreased quickly and then slowly. All the details are Ravelled here.

The week that was

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Plain socks, knit in Koigu KPPPM #P123

Plain socks, knit in Koigu KPPPM #P123. Apparently these colours are not out of my system yet.

I can hardly believe it’s Monday, because I’m still in recovery mode from last week (also because I worked yesterday). Last week my section of the paper went live with a new program that totally changes our workflow and, in small ways, everything about how we do our jobs. The basics of the job (design news pages, edit stories, write headlines, etc.) is the same, but the way we do it has changed, and like any big change, this one has been hard. It’s new technology, with fewer people in-house, and last week was a bit chaotic. The paper made it out close to on time every night, so it was okay, but I got home every night totally wiped (and late, since new systems tend to take longer, at least at the beginning).

It was one of those weeks that makes you glad you’re a knitter. Every knitter I know has, at some point or another, talked up the stress-relief of knitting, and I really needed that last week. Of course, as is often the case, I didn’t really have time to knit. I did pick up my needles and work a few stitches here and there, but there wasn’t time for more.

Hunter St. Cowl. Lace always looks bad before it's blocked, but I am loving this pattern (and this colour). I think I managed to knit four rows on this last week. Part of me thought it would be done by now.

Hunter St. Cowl. Lace always looks bad before it’s blocked, but I am loving this pattern (and this colour). I think I managed to knit four rows on this last week. Part of me thought it would be done by now.

By the end of the week, I realized (in part) why that was: I didn’t have anything plain on the needles. Everything I was knitting had a chart of some sort, and even an easy to memorize chart like the one for the Hunter St. cowl requires just enough counting to not be mindless. Often, I enjoy charted knitting when I’m stressed. For one, it makes me feel a little clever, even when I’m just executing the same set of rows over and over, but it also forces me to stop thinking about whatever is on my mind (last week, page layouts – I actually dreamt about nothing but page layouts two nights in a row) and focus on something else. When I have the time, this is awesome, when I only have time for a row or two, it’s not the same.

The second Hummingbird sock, which I'm knitting Hedgehog Fibres sock, which might just be my new favourite sock yarn.

The second Hummingbird sock, which I’m knitting Hedgehog Fibres sock, which might just be my new favourite sock yarn.

It took me the entire week to realize this, so on Saturday, after running around for most of the day, I finally fished some fun Koigu out of my stash cast on a pair of plain socks (at the top of the post). Sometimes stockinette bores me to tears and sometimes it feels like magic. These are magic socks. I knit most of them while we hosted friends for dinner on Saturday, and a little more last night, and I’m going to try and squeeze in a few rows before I go to work.

Part of a pocket for my Woodstove Season cardigan. After wearing it a few times without pockets, I'm actually reconsidering my plan, so I might put these away for now. They can always go on later if I change my mind.

Part of a pocket for my Woodstove Season cardigan. After wearing it a few times without pockets, I’m actually reconsidering my plan, so I might put these away for now. They can always go on later if I change my mind.

L sometimes teases me about how much yarn we have in the house, but honestly, this is what my stash is for. I definitely did not have time to go to the yarn shop this weekend, but luckily I had already planned for such a moment and had what I needed at home. These socks will likely sit on my needles for a while since stockinette socks are nice to have around but rarely hold my attention long enough to be a primary project. That’s okay, though, because they’ll be there when I need them.

Edited to add: After a couple of people asked about the needles I’m using for my socks, I thought I’d post a link. I treated myself to some Signature Needles after Christmas and holy, they are awesome. They are a bit of a splurge, but when you think of how often you use your needles, and factor in that good metal ones will last forever, I decided it was worth it. I bought three sets (2.25mm, 2.5mm, and 2.75mm) and am seriously considering getting another set in 3.25mm (for worsted-weight socks).