Thursday, October 18, 2012

cheating…

©http://elephant-juice.blogspot.com/

I cast on for a new project a few days ago, and it wasn’t a sock!

©http://elephant-juice.blogspot.com/

I do feel like I’m cheating on Socktoberfest, but I’ve been wanting a new not-too-slouchy hat for a while, and when I saw the new Cloudy Apples pattern collection, the Puffin Apple hat by the lovely Jen Arnall-Culliford seemed perfect. The name alone is too adorable to pass up!

©http://elephant-juice.blogspot.com/

So I went behind my socks’ back, dug up some cream aran in my stash, dyed it up and cast on. Working with tiny needles and skinny yarn so much, I often forget how quickly thicker yarns knit up. This is a super quick and satisfying knit, and I’m completely in love with the gorgeous texture and cable pattern!

I’m sure the socks will get over it.

Pin It

Monday, October 15, 2012

notes from the weekend.

©http://elephant-juice.blogspot.com/

I sat in the garden in the morning sun with some knitting and a book,

©http://elephant-juice.blogspot.com/I cast on for new sock,

©http://elephant-juice.blogspot.com/

and I cooked a roast dinner and baked some yummy pumpkin muffins.

©http://elephant-juice.blogspot.com/

These things are seriously good I enjoyed one this morning for breakfast, along with a mug of apple cinnamon tea. Oh how I love autumn.

©http://elephant-juice.blogspot.com/

The only thing I changed from the recipe was reduce the sugar slightly (I used 1/2 a cup rather than 3/4), but the next time I make them I think they’d be lovely with a handful of chopped nuts or some chocolate chips. It’s a testament to how yummy they are that 21 muffins came out of the oven yesterday afternoon, and only 14 remain today….

©http://elephant-juice.blogspot.com/

Back to the socks, I really can’t decide how I feel about them. I cast them on wanting something plain, and although I like the subtle variegation part of me feels like it’s missing a bit of texture. I’m half tempted to rip back to the cuff and start again with Hermione’s Everyday Socks, but I’m almost at the heel and I’d hate for all of my weekend to have to go to waste!

Pin It

Friday, October 12, 2012

back to business

©http://elephant-juice.blogspot.com/

Well hello there, I seem to have unintentionally taken my annual summer hiatus from the blog! The last few months have been a bit of a rollercoaster. Not long after my last blog post I was called back in to my ex-workplace to help out with a project that was close to deadline for a few weeks. And then I got some incredibly tragic news about a friend which just pushed everything out of focus while friends and family tried to wrap our heads around it.

Things are starting to get back on track though, and I’m kicking off my return with a sock for Socktoberfest!

©http://elephant-juice.blogspot.com/

Pattern: plain top down vanilla socks with a short row heel (notes on Ravelry)

Yarn: Rico Design Superba Poems and Regia Stretch Color for contrasting cuffs, heels and toes

Ravelled here.

These socks were an emergency cast on as the Boy was dragging me to the cinema to see Looper (great film, by the way. I thought it was going to be one of those stressful, difficult to watch films but it was brilliant and I enjoyed it so much more than I was expecting to!) and I had… *shock horror*…. no vanilla socks to take with me! I kept the cuffs short so that I wouldn’t be knitting ribbing when the film started. I’ve been caught out with that one before; I always get so engrossed in the film that I lose track of what I’m doing, can’t remember if I’m supposed to be knitting or purling and end up with a couple of mistaken yarn overs and a mess of rib. Not good.

Once I got started, these socks zoomed by and were off the needles in a little over a week. I even don’t mind the fact that they’re not matchy matchy. I initially thought I was going to get a little twitchy about not being able to match the gradients because I forgot to make a note of where I joined the colour on the first sock, but then I decided to embrace the idea of fraternal gradient socks. If these were striped or patterned I would definitely be getting a little bit of twitchy rage at them not being identical, but I quite like it in the gradient, there’s something softer about the mismatch that almost works.

This yarn seems to provoke quite a vitriolic response in the Ravelry comments, but I quite honestly can’t see what the fuss is about. I actually quite like it. It has an almost handspun look when it’s knit up that to my mind translates to something cosy and comforting, and until I get around to spinning my own sock yarn these will do quite nicely. I did want to offer my counter to a lot of the negative comments I’ve seen surrounding this yarn though, so here goes:

  • It is on the hairy side for sock yarn, but it’s not scratchy or itchy.

  • It’s not soft either so personally I think it’s best for socks, but unless you have particularly sensitive skin it would be fine for a shawl or a scarf.

  • It is not plied, it is a single. Because of this I’m not sure how hardwearing it’ll be as a sock yarn, but I’ve used my favourite workhorse Regia yarn for the heels and toes so hopefully it won’t fare too badly. We’ll see…

  • It is a little splitty, but not too bad. I’ve knit with a lot worse before. I managed to knit this in the dark at the cinema and worked quite a few inches without working any split stitches, so it can’t be that bad :)

The needles have not been idle this past few months so I have quite a few things to share with you, but I’m going to ease back into things. I know I promised a couple of recipes in my last post, and I will get round to doing them! The pictures are all done, so I just need to sit down and write them up. In the mean time, I’ve got a lot of blog feeds to be catching up on….

Pin It
Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...