Gift

So I've opted for closeup photos for my gifts. I may change my mind but for this gift, at least, I think it is the right way to go. I'm about half done and I'm pretty happy with how it is coming out. I'm using Louet Gems superfine merino in burgundy and cloud grey. So soft and nice.

I'm breaking from my tradition of using bamboo needles for stranded colour work. I've got some 2.5 mm addi DPNs and I'm finding they work just fine so far. Hopefully this won't be a saga and my gauge will remain consistent. Fingers crossed.

Blogging gifts

I have a new project (or two) to post but I haven't decided how I'm going to handle showing off Christmas presents in progress. I've planned a lot of knitted Christmas presents this year and at least some of the recipients read my blog. In some cases it doesn't matter if I spoil the surprise but in others I am not so sure. I'm currently debating with myself whether to simply post a warning to those who want to be surprised or whether to simply take pictures that don't gibe the whole thing away. In the latter case I could either post black and white photos or close ups. Any advice?

I will try to decide what I'm going to do by tomorrow because I really want to show off what I'm doing. Until then I'll post a picture of one of the things I knit as a gift last year. I knit this Icarus using Habu silk and I can blame it for my continuing love of lace.

'Finished' Sweater

I finished knitting this sweater back in April or May but I only now got around to putting the finishing touches on it. The first zipper I installed back when I finished the knitting was at least an inch too long so the sweater buckled pretty badly. I wore the sweater for a while anyway but then I gave up and ripped it out.

The last couple of days I have sewn green ribbon to the new zipper,sewn the zipper to the sweater and then stitched the edge of the ribbon down. I also knit an i-cord edging along the front which makes the whole zipper look more professional in my opinion. Pockets have been sewn in and buttons attached. Here are some pictures of the details:




One of these days I might also add a breast pocket to draw the eye up. I tried to knit just such a pocket but it wasn't coming out like I wanted so it will just have to wait. As before, I'm going to wear it anyway.

Quick sock post

Tomorrow I'll have a longer post about a sweater I just "finished", but I'm off to a Weakerthans concert tonight so I'll make this brief. I'm working on this sock as part of my Christmas knitting. I'm making it out of some Trekking XXL in a beautiful black/green/blue colour that reminds me of a blackbird's iridescence. The pattern is Uzume. So far I'm really happy with these socks.

Christmas yet to come

The last couple of mornings have brought me deliveries of yarn. I've been ordering my supplies for my Christmas knitting. For the next month there will be lots of pictures of socks and mittens. I've got some Gems merino wool from Louet (above) and some Romni wool from Headwater Wool (below). All of it is fingering weight and most of it is getting knit up for others. I'm amused that my Romni is spun in Latvia and much of it is probably going to end up in Latvian mittens; it seems appropriate.

Bad sock luck #3

I will warn you that this is pretty bad. I have actually had to work up to posting this because I've been secretly hoping that ignoring it might make it magically go away.

You will recall that I went to some trouble to knit myself a pair of Nancy Bush's Norwegian Stockings. I basically knit 5 socks and ended up with two pair. When I washed them I noticed that the black bled a little into the red and white. I could have taken my time and just rinsed them repeatedly in cool water until I got the extra dye out but instead I decided to speed things up with a bit of RIT colour remover.

The result was that the RIT took all of the colour out of the red yarn (I guess superwash merino is as easy to undye as it is to dye) and somehow managed to put some of that red into some of the white yarn. This happened to all 4 socks because I was doing both pairs at once. Despair and damnation.

So now I have to find a way to redo the red bits (I'm thinking either stitching over them, colouring them in with a fabric pen or cutting off the top and reknitting it) and a way to get the red out of the white (I'm thinking with the very careful application of a bleach pen.) Of course the little crazy voice in my head is saying that I could always just knit another pair. So far I've managed to ignore the crazy voice.

Since I don't want to bum anyone out too much here's a picture of my cat. She looks better all stretched out than my doomed socks do.

Some spinning

I thought I'd take a quick break from socks and show off some sock yarn. Ok, I'm a bit sock centered at the moment.

This is a 50 g. skein of 3 ply fingering weight worsted spun Blue Face Leicester. I spun it up a couple of weeks ago and I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. It is not the most even I've ever spun but I also wasn't trying very hard to keep my singles nice and even; I was just enjoying spinning it and playing with my wheel.
It is a Fleece Artist wool and I really like the colours. I wasn't aiming for stripes or subtle progressions so I just spun each bit as I felt at that moment. I was quite impressed with how close I came to dividing it into 3 given the fact that I just eyeballed it and then didn't spin really evenly. Once I'd plied the 3 bobbins of singles together I only had this much left on the bobbins:

Now I just need to spin up some of the white BFL roving I bought so that I'll have enough yarn for some socks.