What's that you say? Knitting? What's that?

Back in February when I got back into blogging action I said I would need to find a way to spread my time over three hobbies.  Here is the post I wrote.

Obviously this has been a dismal failure.  The lure of quilting sucked me in no quickly that I wanted nothing to do with other hobbies.  People who have been following me for some time probably forgot completely that I was going to try to hand spin and knit in addition to quilting.

Last week I attended the Vancouver Handspinners meeting, and my fingers actually remembered what to do!  I spun all afternoon before the meeting so I wouldn't look like an idiot in front of the others.  That is the first time I've touched a spinning project since mid-April!

The retreat I'm attending tomorrow through Sunday is the Fort Vancouver Knitting Guild retreat.  I'm on the retreat committee so I figured I'd better spend at least part of the weekend knitting.  Today I got out my bin of partially finished projects - 11 of them!  I chose two different pairs of socks to work on.  I hope to come home with at least one completed sock.  I picked the two I thought took the least amount of thought - knitting and visiting is a recipe for disaster when knitting a complex pattern.  Here are the two I'm taking:

"Tidelines" by Anne Hanson

"Coquettish Clown" by Melissa Morgan-Oakes

Now that wool sock weather is back I feel the need to have some new socks.  It's a good thing that 10 of my 11 unfinished knitting projects are socks!

Remember to comment if you want to be entered into the drawing!

I will draw for the Jan Patek Block-of-the-Month patterns shortly after noon tomorrow.  I want to get those patterns plus the others I've promised into the mail tomorrow.  So if you want to enter, be sure to comment on this post.

Right now there are 10 comments, but only 8 of those are entered because I have no way to contact two of the people who commented.  One chance in 8 is very good odds!



I did manage to do the machine stitching on one binding today - the Friendship Garden quilt.  I'm still madly shifting and reordering things.  I'll be so glad when that is done!

Here is the last Civil War Diary block for February.  This makes a total of 9.  I'm shooting for an average of 10 each month until completion - so I need to get 11 done in March.

I'll leave you with a picture of today's socks.  The sock knitting world calls these "plain vanilla" socks because they are straight stockinette stitch with a short rib at the top.  They are anything but plain, however, because of the wonderfully colorful self-striping yarn.  This isn't the best picture of the colors - they are more muted in actuality.  It's almost 9:30 p.m. here and the only way to get true colors is outside in daylight.  It's yarn like this that drew me back to knitting and to learning to make socks.

Socks!

Socks are what caused my two-year detour away from quilting.  Specifically, hand knitted socks.  If you've never had the luxury of wearing a pair of hand knitted socks then you have no idea what you are missing.  I'll never go back to store-bought socks again.  These hug my feet like a second skin, are cozy warm, and fit perfectly.  There are literally thousands of sock patterns available, from simple "Plain Vanilla" to fancy lace, colorwork and fair isle, cables and twisted stitches and more.  I always have a pair of socks on my needles - right now I have 12 pair!

Of course, having beautiful socks necessitated buying new shoes.  Shoes a bit bigger to make room for cushy socks.  Shoes that leave some of the foot bare so the socks show.  I'm even thinking about making myself some long jumper dresses so the socks show below the hem!

I've decided to include a sock a day here on my blog, which should inspire me to get back to those 12 pair on my needles!

Today's socks, which I call "Blue Lagoon", were designed by my knitting friend Betsy McCarthy.  Her sock book, both the old and new edition, are two of the many sock books in my library.  This design, which she calls "Peaks and Valleys" is a simple two row ribbed lace pattern that I've done several times.  The yarn is ONline Supersock 100.

My user name on Ravelry is "hardenbrookgirl".  How many of you knit?  How many have knitted socks?  They are SO much fun to make - and quick!

My first finished sock!

It has a bunch of mistakes, but it's done. Unfortunately it is too big for me. I need to go down one size in this pattern. I thought I picked the best one for my foot measurement, but I guess not. Unless my gauge was way off. I knitted a gauge swatch, but it wasn't in the round. It's late, so I'll measure tomorrow. I do have too more skeins of this yarn - it was inexpensive and also on sale, so I bought an extra just in case. So I'll make the second sock a size smaller, then make a mate the size that fits me best. It'll be great practice. (Boy, does my calf look huge! Guess it was the camera angle. I guess I'll have to have someone else take the picture after this!

I'll try to post one more time before Sunday, but I may not manage to do so. We leave for a 7-day cruise to Alaska on Sunday - a celebration for our 40th year anniversary (which was on June 21st). I still have two baby quilts to do for a customer before then - that will be tomorrow. Plus I'll continue with my packing tomorrow. Friday I'm going to the Sock Summit across the river in Portland, Oregon. What a coincidence, but how marvelous, that this huge event - the first of it's kind - is happening in my own back yard right at the time I've started this new hobby!

Hey - it's looking like a sock!

This is SO much fun. Just like quilting - one never knows what the finished project will look like until it's almost done. I can hardly wait to finish a pair.

Especially with the new shoes I bought this week that are open enough to show off my socks LOL!

Thanks everyone!

I received lots of great links in comments and emails - thanks everybody! I have a new favorites folder called "Knitting". I drolled all over the keys when I looked at the beautiful yarn in all those online shops - but didn't buy a thing. I'm going to try not to go overboard on this hobby like I have with quilting. It's hard, because that's certainly the way my personality works LOL!

My friend Kim found a fabulous link showing how to do the Kitchener stitch - in case anyone is interested.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7jIzwO5Nv4&feature=player_embedded

Blogs requested!

If you read one or more blogs that include knitting socks can you please send me those links also?

Thanks so much, everyone!

What I'm up to these days

I've not been doing personal quilting for several weeks now. I thought that taking classes at Sisters would turn me back on to quilting. It did - for a few days anyway. However, something else jumped in to take my attention away.

Some of you may remember that I posted a list of my "goals for retirement" the day after my last day of work. One of those goals was "learning to knit socks". It's taken me a little over 18 months to begin, but now I'm loving every moment. While in Sisters we went into Bend on a shopping trip, and happened to go into a yarn store as Trudy - our "driver" - needed to get some yarn. While I was standing there taking in all the luscious colors and textures of the yarn - more fiber eye candy! - I decided to ask the clerk what book she recommended for teaching myself to knit socks. I left that store with 2 books and yarn for two pair. Well, you know me - when I find something new my tendency is to go overboard. Knitting socks is no exception.

By the time I left Sisters I'd been to the yarn shop there two or three times, and been shopping twice in the "Wild Hare" part of the quilt shop as they have a great yarn selection. I came home with 8 books and yarn for 32 pairs of socks. Since I've gotten home it's just gotten worse LOL! All I want to do is knit.

Any knitters out there? If so, please send me links to great online yarn shopping sites, as well as any other great knitting sites. I have registered on http://www.ravelry.com/, though I've not done much else there except look around.

The first two pictures show my new yarn stash - all for socks. Good thing I love to wear fun socks!

These are the books I've purchased.
My "class" sock - had to go to the yarn shop to learn how to pick up stitches. Thought I could finish it last night, but alas - I've tried to do the kitchener stitch three times to end the toe - each time following the book diagrams exactly - and each time it's been a messy failure. Guess I'll need to attend "social knitting" this Thursday also so I can have another mini lesson.

My first full-size sock. After about a dozen false starts I finally progressed this far without major disasters. There are a few booboos, but I you can't see them unless you look really closely (I seem to have a problem remembering to switch the yarn from one side to the other when switching between knitting and purling - thus I have extra yarn overs on the needle to deal with.) I'm now in the process of knitting the gusset.