My Opals

My last month of 2012's Self Imposed Sock Club is done.  Yeah!  I ended with the oldest yarn in the stash...seemed appropriate.  The yarn was given to me by Anonymous who wrote one of the first knitting blogs that I stumbled upon.  She or he (no idea) had made one of those pledges that all knitters make from time to time...'will not buy more yarn until I knit what I have'.  Everyone has made that claim at some point, right?  At the time that Anonymous made hers/his they broke it by buying 13 skeins.  As 'punishment' she (or he) decided that in order to appease the Knitting Gods an equal number of skeins had to leave the stash.  I was the lucky recipient of one of those skeins.  Since this is the last month of my sock club I knew which yarn should close out the year. 

As for the pattern I decided that I would just knit a generic toe up sock...mainly due to the striping of this yarn.  I didn't want to find a pattern and thought I'd let the yarn do the work.  This yarn had a self stripping pattern and I really wanted the socks to match.  So easy to say, but it turned out not so easy to pull off.  This yarn had the longest pattern sections I have ever seen.  I used my usual method of setting up the balls....wound it into one ball, weighed it, and started to rewind it into ball two.  Trouble soon began when I pulled out the yarn to measure the pattern length.  Goodness gracious did I create one mess of yarn...it went on and on.  Every time I thought I had the pattern it would turn out that it wasn't quite the same.  After pulling out what looked like half the darn ball I finally found the repeat.  I ended up knitting almost an entire sock with the one repeat...that's never happened before. 

I did end up with a pair of perfectly matched stripey socks...in a strange mix of purple, blue/white, blue and beige.  You should see the mess I made of what was leftover...

Details:
Pattern: Generic toe up socks

Yarn:  Opal Ambiente by Zwerger Garn;  Fingering / 4 ply; 75% Wool, 25% Nylon;  465 yards / 100 grams.  I had a mess once these were done and did not weigh the unraveled ball.  Maybe once I get back to my desk I'll untangle it.

Needles: 2 US 1.5, 24" circular needles

Gauge:  32 stitches over 4 inches of stockinette

Modifications:  I sort of used Wendy Johnson's generic toe up formula for knitting socks.  I changed the cast on, heel, and bind off so it was mainly used as a reminder of pieces and parts I needed to complete the sock.  I used a Turkish cast on and increased until I hit my magic number of 32 stitches per needle.  Once I hit the heel I did my favorite...the Fleegle Heel.  When it was time to bind off I used Jeny's Surprisingly Stretchy Bind off.

Overall these ended up being a pretty neat way to end the year.  Love the fact that these match...kind of magically considering what the mess looks like on my desk.

Winter Promenade

An actual knitted Christmas item that only took a few hours to knit.  It is the perfect hand knit gift...Promenade Scarf.  I'm still wondering why the designer chose to call it a scarf.  My dad said 'it is the shortest scarf ever seen'.  Anyway it only took an evening to get this one completed...got to love that at this time of year.

I used one of my skeins from last year's Three Irish Girls Stash Menagerie Club.  Since I only had one skein of bulky weight my pattern options were somewhat limited.  A cowl or fingerless mitts were about my only choices.  I decided that a cowl would be the most useful and appreciated of the two.

The pattern was so simple yet fun and interesting to knit.  I adore cables on hand knits so this simple 7 stitch cable was perfect.  Easy to remember and worked well with the semi-solid shade of the yarn.  The cables popped even in the bulky weight which I was somewhat worried about as I completed the first repeat. Given that I only had the one skein I was able to complete the full 7 repeats and add one knitted row before the bind off.  There was still with enough yarn to sew on the buttons and have a bit left to send along just in case a repair was necessary in the future. 

Details:

Pattern:  Promenade Scarf by Mimi Hill;

Yarn:  Springvale Bulky by Three Irish Girls; 100% superwash merino wool; 4 oz./98 yards;  colorway: Katherine Hepburn;  I used all but 6 grams to complete the cowl...oops scarf. 

Needles:  US 9; Addi Clicks; 24" cable

Gauge:  17 stitches per 4 inches of cable pattern

Modifications:  I knit this as written until I finished row 4 of the pattern.  I added one more knitted row before binding off in pattern.  After blocking the finished cowl/scarf was 6" by 26" which fit nicely around my neck.