Flame Socks v.2

Project specs : Flame Socks v.2

Pattern : Top down almost-standard sock

Yarn : Elann Puzzle Collection Color 714 & (very old) Kroy 4-ply 54042

Needles : 2.5mm regia dpns

Wierd sock fitting notes : 72 sts cast-on for leg. Standard 1x1 ribbing for the top, 5x1 ribbing for the leg. I transitioned to stockinette for the last inch before the heel flap. The heel flap is a non-standard 48 rows long. I picked up 24 sts on each side of the heel flap after turning the heel and decreased down to 64 stitches. The toe is decreased on alternating rows down to 32 stitches.

Sitting and Knitting and Winding

There was a lot of sitting in the car and knitting last weekend. Vancouver - Grand Forks - Trail - Grandforks - Vancouver, Vancouver - Seattle - Vancouver looks like this.

A Little Sit-ster from The Natural Knitter for Tricia.


Joanne's new hat design using Jessica's hand-spun. The details are blurry but this photo does capture the transition from dark purple at the crown to purpley-blue at the brim. It's a very subtle change and I love the way it looks.


No pictures yet, but Flame Socks v.2 are finished and I made some good progress on the Garden Path Shawl.

The trip to Seattle was for the first fair-isle
winding party. I still have 24 skeins to split up and wind (25 bobbins/skein) and I think Denise's present will come in handy. Surely I will be able to achieve a sense of Zen as I meditatively wind yarn and contemplate my potato.

Naughty Knitting

I've been a bad, bad knitter. I should be working on Pebbles, my March UFO pick of the long abandoned Garden Path Shawl or the beautiful Campanula socks.


Instead my schedule and lack of brainpower have me working on far less complicated projects. Here we have the Flame's next pair of socks (blue/green/grey/white, I am at the heel flap of sock 2), my finished Vintage Socka Socks, new socks for me (Regia Spirit in blue) and an Odessa hat in grey.

Project Specs : Vintage Socka Socks - mish-mash pattern from various sources. I use Priscilla Gibson-Robert's toe-up start and Jackie Erickson-Schweitzer's toe-up turned heel. Everything else is my fault entirely.

Yarn : Fortissima Socka Colori, I lost the ball band a long time ago, but perusal of on-line colour cards has me believe that the current 2414 would be a good match.

Needles : 2.25mm dpns (Aeros, maybe?)

Started : so very, very long ago, I picked these up as my January UFO Resurrection project
Finished : end of February 2007

Notes : 67 stitches in the foot, 68 for the leg. Washed and dried, these have the thickest, softest hand of any socks so far. Better even than my Conwy socks out of Socka 2434 on 2.5mm needles. I think I have mastered my perfect sock.


That hasn't been all of the Nau(gh)tie knitting I've been doing, here's my Swap Softly creation hiding in the wild. I'm really pleased with how he turned out. My tentacles look as if they are growing out of the knitting organically.

I picked up two stitches for the bottom of the i-cord. Each stitch was picked up so that they were off-set from the original stockinette by half a stitch (so I picked up into the left half of a stitch and the right half of the stitch to the left of it simultaneously).


Once I have both stitches on my double-pointed needle, I take a second needle and pick up into the centre stitch 1 row above the two stitches I have just picked up. I place the loop onto my original dpn and start working my i-cord.



Project specs : Nautie from Knitty

Yarn : KP Wool of the Andes in Fern and Marks and Kattens' Dream in pale blue (nothing like soft, fuzzy tentacles)

Needles : 3.5mm Brittany Birch dpns

Started : March 2, 2007
Finished : March 19, 2007

I knit the face onto the body as it seemed easier to continue stuffing as I went. It worked out very well as the pick-up made for a very definite turned edge.

Small successes and a teeny setback.

I've been battling that nasty virus that seems to be lurking around 'most everywhere these days. It's made me pretty grateful for the little things (and some Big Things too, scroll down for the MSF/KWB total).

The Flame's pretty handy in the kitchen even if he insists in making (Spinach) Pie are Squared.


I finished the Flame's first ever pair of hand-knit socks. There are some fit issues to fine-tune but we're both quite pleased. The Flame is pleased with his warm toes, and I am pleased that I did not get bored with knitting men's size 13 socks. They are about twice as long as my little size 6s.


I spun up the first bobbin of Tamarillo for the mind-reading, awesome-cookbook picking Knitbrarian.



I unmasked my Secret Pal! She has designed the most beautiful pair of socks and inspired me to go dye some sock yarn so I can test-knit these babies.

I'm practising Doing this month. Unfortunately, that meant that following the pattern for the Suri Raku was a mistake on my part. For whatever reason, the swatch god(s) decided that while I should use the specified needle size for the squares, and achieve a satisfactory result. I was not meant to use the smaller (yet still specified) needle size for joining the squares. Nor was I to use the next size up. Apparently, I was just supposed to continue with the same needle size. Huh.

Off to the dye-pot.