Getting Back in the Swing of Things

I'm back from my family vacation to Ohio. It was nice to see my family again. We ended up camping right beside one of our aunts and uncles. Our camper looked so big compared to their smaller camper, but ours was made to sleep nine people. It was pretty nice to be without any internet except for the connection on my phone for emergencies.

I figured out that I can knit in the car again. It used to give me really bad motion sickness to do anything in the car. Ever since I got my gallbladder out, my bad motion sickness has gone away. I still have a little bit of it but not that much.

I finished the Hermione for Him socks. My fiancee loves them. He had to wait until I got back to get them even though I finished them right before we all loaded into the car. He even called me when it was time to wash them to make sure that he washed them correctly. It was adorable! I have a feeling he might have handwashed them if I told him they needed to be. He is a keeper.

Dad found a local quilt shop for mom and me to go to called Sew Happy. Mom and I have been thinking about learning how to quilt. The ladies there were so friendly and gave us advice about how to start. While we were there mom found a pile of fiber balls. I got four balls (what I thought was enough for a pair of socks) and proceeded to spin it all up in Ohio. My relatives were very impressed to see me spinning on the drop spindle that I had brought with me.

I finished plying the skein at home and soaked it in hot water for a few hours while I cleaned the house. It was the gentlest I had ever set the twist because I didn't whack it. Unfortunately, I didn't end up with enough yardage for a pair of socks. The shop might have mis-labled the amount of fiber in each of the balls of fiber. This means that I have a few choices: see if I can match the fiber with another fiber from another store and spin more of it, make something different out of it, or match it up with another yarn in my stash.

It doesn't really match any of the other yarn in my stash. I do have two other handspun skeins of yarn that I managed to get down to sock weight that I could possibly blend it with, but I don't think the colors would go together that well. I haven't gone through the rest of my commercial sock yarn to see if I have any coordinating colors yet. I think I am leaning towards making something else with it right now. One day I will get handspun socks.

The last thing that I have been up to is knitting on a commissioned baby blanket for my fiancee's sister. His mom contacted me a while ago and asked if I would make a blanket. I agreed as long as she sent me the yarn and understood that I was about to enter a busy time at schools with graduation and finals.

I am knitting the blanket in three strips. The garter stitch strip and the seed stitch strip will be on the outside while the checkerboard white strip will be in the middle. It will also have an i-cord border to match the center.

The only problem that the yarn she sent me was thinner than I expected. So I am using the yarn with two strands held together. She sent me two balls of pink, one ball of white, and one ball of a white/pink variegated. I wound the two pink balls together, but I had to wind the white and variegated yarn together. It is creating a nice effect and will tie the whole blanket together. Luckily, the yarn has a lot of yardage so I will have more than enough to finish the blanket.

As a surprise, I think I will take any leftovers from the blanket and make a pair of matching baby booties or make a matching toy. I will have to see how much yarn I will have when it is finished. I just hope the sister likes it and uses it for her baby when she is born.

Hermione for Him

The house is empty of animals because we are getting ready to take a last family vacation to Ohio. My brother is graduating high school today and he is very excited about that. We are all proud.

I feel like I haven't been doing much knitting-related because I have been working on the same projects that I started before my exams. Then I realized that I haven't blogged in a while and it is probably more exciting then I think it is.

My main knitting project is the socks I have been working on for my fiancee. It will be his very first pair of fine-gauge socks. I dug through my stash of sock yarns and decided that the most masculine color I had that wasn't grey was Kroy Socks FX in Clover Colors. Then I gave him a choice of three patterns and he picked out the Hermione Everyday Socks pattern. It is quickly becoming one of my favorite patterns because it is so easy to memorize and the texture makes the socks look really cool.

The first sock was lost for a while and we just found it yesterday. I have been unpacking from college and trying to get rid of some of the older stuff I have in my room that I don't have much use for now. In the middle of everything I managed to lose the first sock. I tried to remember how I had packed everything in the last moments of my dorm room. I didn't pack the first sock with the rest of my knitting because I had it hanging on one of my sock blockers to use as decoration. Most of the boxes were already unpacked and I had added more boxes filled with my old books to the pile of boxes remaining.

After two days of  looking for it, I was becoming a little frantic. I knew I was getting really close to being done with the second sock and I normally used the first sock for comparison. I didn't want to bring my sock blocker on the trip with us because it is a little difficult to pack and I am slightly paranoid about accidentally breaking it. The first sock would be easy to pack and easy to compare to the second sock. My fiancee and I were talking on the phone and I was worrying over all of this when he finally convinced me to look under the bed. I was sure it wasn't there, but I indulged him because he wouldn't stop pestering me about it. Sure enough, it was sitting under the bed in a box of cotton balls.

Next time I lose something, I just might look under the bed first. You never know what you will find.

Graduation 2012!

I graduated from college a week ago and I am just getting back into the swing of things. My poor blog has sat neglected during most of the spring semester and my knitting has experienced a similar lag. I have been knitting in spurts, but other interests have cropped up again to intersect with the little free time I had.

But now I am back and ready to keep on posting about my crafting life. I have an active commission for my fiance's mother, a few pairs of socks, and a ginormous blanket for myself that I want to finish. I am going to try to post at least once a week for now until I get my life in order (read: find a job). We have a lot to catch up on. Happy Knitting!

Favorite Socks

Well, that was a long break from my blog. What has happened to me in the last two months? I got my gallbladder out because it was causing me massive pain. I sunk into a little bit of a depression afterward and didn't feel like knitting or doing much of anything. On top of all that, I had to deal with the last of my healing at school because the new semester started up. Now, I'm all healed up and I have been knitting and spinning like a mad woman. I've been knitting so much that I have completely finished the Indigo Bed Socks that I am knitting for my friend Conrad. I ran out of blue, so I had to finish up the socks with a bit of extra grey.

The reason why I wanted to learn how to knit in the first place was so I could knit socks. I am still not sure why I even wanted to knit socks in the first place. I suspect it has something to do with memories of snuggling up with my favorite bear and reading Little Women obsessively. I identified with Joe and she was one of the ones that was referenced with knitting socks and reading at the same time.

When I first started knitting I was intimidated by socks because I had seen my mom (who was also trying to learn to knit) use double pointed needles. I didn't think I could do it. It wasn't until last year that I really started knitting socks and loving it. I moved past my DPN issues and even learned how to use magic loop so I could use both techniques. I managed to knit five pairs of socks last year and loved knitting every one.

I looked back on yesterday's post to refresh myself on the specific sock resolutions I had to plan out the next few sock projects when I saw that Tasmin of the Project Project blog commented with a question.

"I'd love to know if there are any particular patterns you have in mind that you'd like to work on this year. And I'd love to see your favorite sock pattern, if you have one."

I know that I haven't been thinking of any sweater patterns or shawl patterns yet, but there are a few sock patterns that I had been thinking of when I made up my list for this year and I have a lot of inspiration from the Sock Knitters Anonymous group on Ravelry.

One of the socks I have been wanting to try is an entrelac sock. I have tried entrelac before and liked seeing how the knitting stacked up from all of the little squares. It is an easy technique to do once you have it down while having the added bonus of looking complicated. The entrelac pattern that I found that I would love to try is The Lonely Socks Club Entrelac from Think Outside the Sox. The appeal of this sock is that it is entirely entrelac. The cuff, heel, and toe is entrelac along with the leg and the foot of the sock. It will be a challenge, but it will be an awesome challenge.

A few of the other sock patterns I have been interested in all have fairly unique construction. I haven't been sucked into the viral knitting of Skew when it first came out because I have a bias against toe up socks. I have no idea why I have a bias against them, but I do. But, I am completely willing to try toe up at least one time because Skew has such an interesting construction for the heel. Some of the others with interesting constructions that I am interested in are Double Heelix, Hexagons, Perpendicular, and Spiral Cables.

I also got two new sock books for Christmas: Knitted Socks East and West and Knitting Knee Highs. In East and West I am interested in making Samurai for my fiance and Fuji for me. Only I would put a toe on Fuji and make it into a complete pair of socks instead of having it be pedicure socks that it shows on the cover. In Knitting Knee Highs I am attracted to almost any pair of socks in the book, but I would like to start with Maid Marian.

As far as my favorite sock pattern goes, I think it might be Hermione's Everyday Socks. I have only knitted one pair, but it is such a nice pattern that I want to knit it again. It is also the socks that introduced me to the idea of having your heel flap lined with garter stitch to make picking up stitches even easier.

Now the only thing I have to do is to figure out which sock to knit first.

New Year Resolutions

The beginning of the new year always feels like a big event. The calendar is resetting and it feels like anything is possible. Most people have the idea that starting the new year is like starting the beginning of a fresh school year when they were young. It is a clean slate perfectly free of screw ups. Nobody should be mad at you for doing something stupid and there should be no bad memories of this year to taint it. Inspired by this feeling of invincibility, people often make resolutions to be a better person and to try to do this year "the right way".

This is mainly a knitting blog and the new year always comes with new goals. This year I am making official resolutions for my knitting life. At the end of the year (assuming the end of the world doesn't happen yet again) I will look back and see if I have accomplished any of my goals for the year. Since this year will be a big year for me personally, it makes sense to make twelve knitting resolutions for the year.

2012 Knitting Resolutions

1. Complete 12 pairs of socks in the year
2. Knit a pair of knee high socks
3. Knit a pair of socks with unusual construction
4. Knit a pair of colorwork socks
5. Design and knit a pair of socks
6. Spin sock yarn and knit a pair of socks from the handspun sock yarn
7.Knit 3-5 pairs of socks for my fiance
8. Knit my first sweater
9. Knit my first shawl
10. Learn to knit and purl with my left hand
11.Learn how to knit back-backwards (for entrelac)
12. Design, spin, and knit a wedding ring shawl

Happy New Year Everyone!