FO Friday- Boot socks

Someone on Ravelry linked to Kemps who were selling 150g of Regia 6ply for less than £4. If there is one thing I like more than yarn it is bargain yarn!

4 balls in different colourways found their way to my house. I used the justification of making boot socks to wear to work, but really I just wanted stripy socks. They will be boot socks though as I find 6 ply a bit thick for wearing in trainers.

The first pair didn't have a pattern, it is just k3p1 rib with a cuff, afterthought heel and typical knit sock toe.

I worked them over 56 stitches on 3mm needles. Unfortunately they are a bit loose. This was intentional as I figured they would shrink a bit in the washing machine but the ribbing does not pull them as snug as I had hoped. They will be fine in laced up boots but slide around in wellies.

The next pair are being worked over 44 stitches, they look ok so far but may prove to be too tight. It seems I may be destined to Goldilocks knitting of late.

FO Friday- Parrots for feet

As I said yesterday, the tour de fleece has me totally obsessed with spinning, knitting is not getting much of a look in. Fortunately I have a few FOs that I have finished but not blogged about.

This year I am getting Christmas knitting started early, I started a pair of 6 ply socks for my Mum. As a bit of an extra challenge I decided I would do them two at a time, because I should really try it out.

I can see the advantages, mostly the tada! moment when you are finished and have a pair of socks rather than one done and casting on the second. Not having to keep count apart from on the heel flap is good too. I still don't like magic loop, it feels like knit a bit, fiddle around with cable, knit a bit more, fiddle with cable, repeat until sock is done. I find dpns much less fiddly.

Pattern: Bubble wrap socks by sock bug worked over the stitch count from the free Regia pattern
Yarn: Regia 6 ply in parrot
Needles: 3.5mm interchangeable

A stitch pattern close up

The finished socks are nice, a looser fabric than I usually make, but I thought I would see how they go done exactly to the pattern. The pattern of knits and purls does look a lot like bubble wrap and it makes for a nice fit as it pulls them snug to your foot.

Using the pattern meant I could make a pair of socks from two balls of yarn, I would have needed a third if I had used 3mm needles. But explain this, despite working the socks identically (and we know they are because they were TAAT) I ended up with two differently sized balls of leftovers.

Back to spinning for me now, I have the fibre for today all prepped and waiting, I may have accidentally spun a bit of it last night because it was too lovely to resist!

Yarn diet free pass 4

I have been going well with the whole not buying yarn thing, and I think I might keep it up even after it is meant to finish at the end of May. I would like to use up most of what I have stashed- I live in fear of moths!

I made my yarn purchase for April this week, and it already has a destiny- three navy blue and three brown will be Christmas socks for my Dad, multi coloured will be Christmas socks for my Mum and the green is already on the needles as part of my I sock.

It looks like I have a serious Regia fetish!

Not really the case although I have to admit I have been keeping track of all the sock yarns I buy and so far Regia and Knitpicks Stroll are coming out tops (yes, I used a spreadsheet and yes I am a super nerd!).

The criteria are machine washable, hard wearing, good colour choice and not too expensive. A nice soft feel with low tickle is also important. For the Christmas socks Regia is really the only choice as it needed to be 6 ply for thicker socks, hence a big order.

I am not sure when I will get going on these, it would be good to have them done well before December so maybe I will alternate between them and the alphabet socks.

FO Friday- Stone the Gargoyle

Another scrap down that was meant to be a quick way to sue up some yarn and ended up taking long enough to call it a full on project.

Pattern: Stone the Gargoyle by Devon Monk

Yarn: Regia 6 ply in grey

Needles: 2.25mm

Mods: I had to stitch his knees to his body to make them stay in place. He also has no wings as I ran out of yarn. I had intended to make some with leftovers from this year's Christmas socks, but I have bought brown and navy blue so no grey for wings.

This is a cute little pattern, although the all knowing world of QI (British TV programme) tells me that he is a grotesque not a gargoyle. Gargoyles have water coming out of their mouths. Or maybe it is just not raining!

There were a couple of points in the pattern where I got lost, but the wonderful world that is Ravelry helped me out.

He is now sat on the dvd shelf with the scary films, seemed appropriate.

Year of the sock November- More Christmas socks

I realised this morning that I forgot to post my November sock of the month while it was still November, oops!
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Technically that is not quite true, these appeared as a finished object a few weeks back:
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But they have friends! :
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That's right, thanks to the wonders of 6ply speedy knitting I managed to get two pairs done, which is convenient as that is one pair for each parent. The blue stripes are for my Mum, the brown and grey for my Dad. I added grey heels and toes as I thought there was not going to be enough yarn, there would have been so it was a lot of unnecessary ends to sew in, but at least they look a little snazzy (as snazzy as grey and brown can get anyway!).
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The pattern for both is Thuja by Bobby Ziegler. I love this pattern, it is so fast and more interesting than a standard rib sock. They were both made in Regia 6 ply for speed and durability- past Christmas socks have worn to holes in about 4 wears so a yarn with a 10 year guarantee sounded good to me.

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I am not sure where I am going to fit socks in this month, still a lot of presents to see to. Wonder if I can make a pair in the 5 days left after Christmas is done with :D

FO Friday- Mmmmm, sockitty

These will make another appearance later in the month as my sock of the month for November. I have to say that they are single handedly (footedly?) responsible for renewing my sock addiction. They are part of my Mum's Christmas present, and were going to be normal k3 p1 rib socks, but I decided to go a little more adventurous (just a tiny bit, nothing too fancy or they would not be worn) and do a seed stitch rib.

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The pattern is a combination of Thuja by Bobby Ziegler and the free one that comes with Regia sock yarn. I used Regia 6 ply (for its 10 year hard wearing guarantee) and worked on 3mm needles as I like a slightly denser sock fabric. They worked up so fast it was like magic!

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The combination of bigger needles, a stitch pattern with anything interesting and some coloured yarn was great, I am most definitely back into making socks.

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One ball made exactly one sock, with less than a gram left over. Which was excellent, except the second ball started in a different place so I had to go into the third ball and have quite a bit of leftovers.
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The seed stitch rib shows up much better in real life, but you can just about see it in this photo (also hands are not great for modelling socks when trying to take a photo):

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FO Friday- Socks and the return of the square

These have been blogged before as October sock of the month, they are Christmas socks for my Dad, made from 6 ply Regia. They are just a basic k3p1 top down sock.

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Since the FO is not overly exciting this week I whipped up a sock yarn blanket square this morning to brighten the post up. This project is still being neglected in favour of Christmas knitting, there are a lot of ends that need sewing in!

This square is from 6 ply sock leftovers, variegated yarn is great for this project as you can get loads of different squares out of one colourway.

Year of the sock October- Christmas socks

Another last minute posting to get my year of the sock online before the end of the month. These are the first of the Christmas socks, I got an email the other day with the title "it's too early to think about Christmas", I just laughed and carried on knitting.

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A few weeks ago I posted a picture of the things needed for working on these socks, it was not a new pattern but a new method. The chocolate was very important and actually listed in the pattern.

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The knitting in action, but why are there two balls?

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Ta da! Two at a time socks on dpns. This is a very cool method where the second sock is knitted inside the first, you alternate between the socks with each stitch. I followed the instructions from Knitty and used Regia 6 ply. These were worked on 2.5mm needles as the double knitting method is meant to make the gauge looser, I'm not sure it did. I did a mixture of one yarn in each hand and dropping the yarn between stitches.
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Unfortunately the switching between yarns made my hand and elbow ache, so I got about 2/3 of the way down the leg and switched to normal knitting, enough to say that I can do it. I stuck with the 2.5mm needles which give a dense sock, should be nice and hard wearing but took a little over three balls to finish one pair of man sized socks (approx UK size 10). Had to do a quick order to get an enough to finish them up, fortunately the shop still had the same dye lot.
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Finished socks, they will be stowed all ready for wrapping when it gets closer to Christmas.
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