Knits

Holy moses. I finished something. The first sock went so quick and the second one, well it took about two months. They’re done and probably the best fitting socks yet. The foot is maybe a wee bit tight and the first one a wee bit too long, but I improved on those things on the second one.

I love this colourway — MadelineTosh Glazed Sock in Ginger — and I’m totally not into orange. I think the pattern is a bit obscured, but in some ways it’s quite nice that a closer inspection reveals little wheat ears.

Brief details:
Pattern: Kansas harvest by Jeanie Townsend (you need to sign up to the Yahoo! group to get the pattern) [Rav link]
Yarn: MadelineTosh Glazed Sock in Ginger - I used EXACTLY 57g for each sock. I had about 5g left over.
Needles: I start all my socks on a 2mm Addi from the toe up then move to DPNs. I used 2mm and 2.5mm DPNs
Mods: Well I worked this toe up so to make the wheat ears not be upside down, I simply reversed the order of the cables. It was something I couldn’t figure out how I’d do it until I just did it and saw how things turned out. I just can’t ever remember which direction cables take (same goes for decreases) until I do it. Also, as I learned with some other socks, I knit socks pretty tightly and I tend to ignore whatever the pattern stitch counts are. I increase the foot until it fits and then after the heel turn I decrease until it fits — this tends to mean that the foot and cuff stitch counts are very different. It’s odd since I do have very skinny ankles so I’m guessing it has something to do with my very high instep.

The colour in the close up is washed out, but the colour in the above is pretty accurate.
[Rav link for my project]

As in crazy, not angry.

I finished the memorial scarf, but don’t have a finished picture since 1. It’s a scarf so it’s rather boring to photograph again and 2. I just don’t, okay? It’s nice and thick. I haven’t actually washed it yet as there really is nowhere for me to lay it out to dry without it being totally in the way (my flat is that small).

I have started on some new socks - the Kansas harvest socks (Ravelry link) using the MadelineTosh sock yarn I got in a trade. As I’m knitting them toe up I hope the wheat sheaf bits don’t look too funky being upside down.

I want to start a larger project and I even swatched! I washed the swatch and then realised I don’t know where my pins and what not are to properly block it and measure. My guess is is that everything would be fine if I were to just get on and knit (based on how the yarn behaved post-bath and the difference in my gauge pre-wash), but I want to be sure before diving head first into this one because I really want to finish a larger project!

Other than that not a lot going on. I looked into moving out of my flat early and it really wouldn’t be financially feasible because of the rental market right now. I would be responsible for rent, bills, and marketing fees until the end of my tenancy agreement or until a new renter could be found. Considering half of this building is still empty it’s pretty clear I’d be obvious for all the above. Oh well. At least I tried, right? I am keeping my eye out for new places to live as things are starting to show up that are available in a couple months time. I have actually toyed with the idea of buying, but right now I’m mostly leaning towards “not a good idea”.

As always I am way behind with blog reading. I have been doing as my body says and getting lots of sleep including naps after work and lots of them at the weekend. I’ll go catch up a bit while my dinner is cooking…