FO Friday- Eight is a lot of legs

This week I have my very first craft fair. It is both exciting and a little scary. In all honesty I am not expecting much as it is a generic craft fair rather than a fibre festival, but it should be a good experience.

I decided I needed some moral support and a project to show off some of my hand dyed yarn.

I am not sure why he is on the grass, should be in the sea really but I don't have one of those.

Pattern: Common octopus by Hansi Singh from amigurumi knits

             40cm of 7st garter stitch for the scarf on needles made from kebab skewers and beads.

Yarn: Hand dyed aran for the body, undyed aran for the underside, handspun handyed superwash wool for the scarf.

Needles: 3.5mm circular

I borrowed the idea of having him knit from the knitting squid blog (hope that is ok Erin), it seemed appropriate and hopefully will inspire people and encourage them to buy.

The pattern is quite easy to follow, there are a lot of steps though. I didn't find any errors with this one and no parts where I got totally lost (I had that with some of the other patterns). It is great for practising short rows, I am sure I have been getting them wrong so my sock heels might be neater in the future.

The pattern is somewhat fiddly but the end result is worth it. I knit the first leg, thought that was nice and simple but by the time I had sewn it up and made six more I was bored of legs. It certainly reminded me why I don't tend to make patterns more than once.

The only alteration I made was to not cast off the neck or head, instead I balanced them on top of each other and kitchenered the live stitches together. Again, fiddly but it made a nice join, almost certainly neater than I would have managed following the pattern. This did mean I had to work the underside last, which may have added to the awkwardness.

Picking up for the underside was maybe the trickiest part. I took two stitches from each leg and three from the gap between them to avoid holes. On the first round I worked the gap stitches through the back leg to twist them and further reduce holes.

FO Friday- B socks

FO for this week is pair 2 from the A-Z sock knitting challenge:
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Pattern: Brigit by Monkey Toes
Yarn: Hand dyed Raspberry sauce in superwash sock weight
Needles: 2.5mm dpns
Skills: Longtail cast on, both knit and purl version. Tried cabling without a cable needle, don't like it- I spend more time picking up dropped stitches than I save so it works best to just use a spare dpn as a cable needle.
Notes: Longer heel flap, shorter toe as I worked a full number of pattern repeats down the top of the foot, this finished further down than it needed to. Moved a stitch from N1 to N3 before starting the heel, heel work over 34 sts, top of foot over 37. This gave a constant column of purl stitches either side of the patterning on top of the foot.
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Cable detail:
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Layout of cables:
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A nice pattern, but I am a little bored of cabling now, so I have something different picked out for my next pattern. The yarn may not have been the best choice as it makes it harder to see the cables, they are easier to see in real life.
I wore these yesterday and they feel a little big, I think I should have reduced a bit extra on the foot as there is less ribbing on this portion to snug the fit. A run through the washing machine may help (they are superwash).
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The last pair of socks I named after the book I was reading at the same time. These are going to be subtitled "Bramwell"; not a book this time but an old ITV drama about a Victorian female doctor. I have been watching it when I am knitting and remembering how good it is.

Something to talk about

I seem to have run a bit short of things to blog about in the last couple of weeks. I have been working on all my new year plans (not resolutions, plans!) and they are coming along in various shades of nicely. Unfortunately there is not a lot I can show you all, WIPs have been blogged, FOs I am sharing for Fridays, and I can't take a photo of my uni work, it would be a very boring photo!

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I have promised not to bore you all with shop talk, you are here for the chat, not to be sold to. But since one thing I have been doing a lot of is dyeing yarn I thought I would share the pretty today (that said I am going to do a shop related post next week).

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I love the red on the top, and am more than a little reluctant to part with it!

FO Friday- Mistake rib hat

This is the last of my Christmas present FOs, a hat for my brother in law. I need to get knitting to have something for next week!
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Pattern: Mistake Rib Beanie by Anne Macri

Yarn: DK superwash merino, immersion dyed with a blue and black mix.

Needles: 3.5mm
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A good pattern, makes a nice unisex beanie type hat. A very simple pattern, I did need to resize it for DK yarn, which I made a mess of the first time and ended up with a HUGE hat!

I mastered the longtail cast on for this one as the green hat for my brother flared oddly at the bottom edge, this is much better. It has become my new Favouite Thing Ever (the capitals are important).
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The first set of decreases is good, the second part looks like normal ribbing, which gives the very top a slightly odd appearance, but I can't think of a better way to do them.
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