12.03.08
Yes, I’m still knitting. . .
I received my third Warm Woolies yarn supply over a month ago, but being so close to the holidays and the extra commotion that the holidays bring, I haven’t been able to work much on those yarns. They do give us three months to knit it up, so I still have time. I did manage to make one vest, but that’s all so far partly because I’ve been trying to work on some other requests my boys have made. But as I said, I did finish one vest, so I’ll post it up for now since it’ll likely be a while before I get to the rest of the yarn (you know Christmas knitting and all). I wanted to try a different vest pattern than the ones I had been using on the Warm Woolies site. So, I rummaged through my old magazines and found one in an old Simplicity Knitting magazine I had stashed away from fall 1988. . . Here’s the cover of the issue.
Since the pattern called for a different yarn, I had to adjust the pattern a bit. The yarn I used was Debbie Bliss’s Cashmerino Aran color #300201. I used about 7 balls using #8 US needles. Here’s what it looked like in progress along with the magazine openned where a little boy is modeling the vest in red in the picture.
The back was completed on the right, and the front was worked up about half way.
And here’s the finished vest.
My middle son likes it when I knit stuff for him, so he tends to “place orders” with me, ha! This time he wanted more socks, but even though he likes wool, he says that his feet sweat a lot so asked if I could make the sock out of cotton. Well, I happened to have some Sockotta on hand which is 45% cotton, 40% superwash wool, and 15% nylon. I’ve actually had them for over a year now when I bought a bunch of sock yarn for last Christmas. One reason I haven’t used them yet is because the first sock I tried to make with them just didn’t stretch right. The foot part worked up just fine, but when I got past the ankle, I felt like I had to do Hoodini maneuvers to get my big foot in the sock. I wasn’t sure why that was as I was using the same number of stitches I’d used and fit just fine with other wool yarns, so I figured that this Sockotta yarn was just not that stretchy. So what my son and I decided was to try making the foot portion out of the Sockotta and the leg portion out of 100% wool. He picked out a couple colors that looked okay to him, and I picked out some 100% wool in a similar weight that I also had on hand that would “kinda” match for the leg portion. Here’s one of the pairs of socks in progress. I took the wool off the cone to weigh it to make sure that I was splitting it fairly even to have enough for both socks. I had enough to make about 6″ legs. The grey yarn is from Brown Sheep in fingering weight. I used two circular needles sized 2 US working from toe up. The heels are worked using short rows.
And here are the two pairs of socks completed. I know they look like they’re for Big Foot or Sasquach, but they actually do fit him, heheh.
And here’s a pic of the sock I was working on last Christmas for my mom when I discovered how “non-stretchy” this Sockotta yarn was. I got this far, then abandoned them.
My mom and I have the same size feet, so I was able to try them on along the way and noticed how I could barely squeeze my heel past the ankle. Now looking at this in retrospect, that leg sure looks mighty little, but still, I think that’s how little the other wool socks are that I’ve made and fit me just fine.
Here’s what the top of the foot looks like.
I thought the design was actually quite nice from Charlene Schurch’s book, More Sensational Socks. I’m just guessing that I was using the wrong type of yarn for this project and just didn’t have the heart to take it apart at the time. I guess now that I’ve preserved it on film, I feel better about unravelling it now.
Oh and another little project I just finished up are a couple jewelry bags. I have a couple bracelets that I wanted to gift in pouches so that they would have their own little storage pouches. Here’s one using ribbon yarn and a little fun fur.
And since I thought that one came out kinda cute, I decided to try a plain one also using ribbon yarn, but minus the fun fur. Here it is with my little Yeoman from the UK.
I know it’s a bit hard to gauge the size from pictures, so I will say that they are small pouches about 2 3/4″ x 4″. This ribbon yarn was by Crystal Palace Yarns, 50% cotton and 50% rayon.
Well, that’s it for now. Time to start the next item on my “to do” list.
Marlakins
