Thursday, May 27, 2010

Jar of Shame

What's a jar of shame? This is a jar of shame:


It contains all my single socks, mittens and gloves.

I am about to start a new project - 12 pairs of socks in 12 months. Simply - I have to make two socks every month, starting in June. Note the careful wordinig there.... It means I can *finish* some of those pairs where I already have one.

Here are the rules:
  • Knit 12 pairs of socks in 12 months, or 24 odd socks if you have lots of WIP socks you want to make into pairs.
  • This challenge starts on June 1st.
  • You could have seven pairs by Christmas. Some of the socks to be knit in the yarnyard yarn

Continuing the shame - here are some of the singles:


From left to right:
Purple sock in Yarn Yard Clan - think it's a toe-up
Schoppel wolle yarn - toe up with an odd cast off.
Brown banboo yarn - plain vanilla sock
Colinette jitterbug - vanilla sock - too small - now frogged.

All of these may end up being frogged as I have no notes on needle sizes or patterns (a lesson in here....)

I also have single gloves. This first one is for Ruaridh - rainbow gloves in schoppel wolle reggae - now where did I put the pattern?

Then we have *two* left-hand Fetchings - not much use really...

I have a single Noro fingerless mitten:

Here is my garter stitch mittens in Rowan Tweed - almost there...

And finally - Orla's Tomten jacket that I never finished. It is now being frogged and will go towards a lizard ridge. It's proving hard to frog though - very sticky yarn that Kureyon :)

So - lots of frogging to do and some already done. I am now left with lots of ideas and plans for the 12 pairs in 12 months. Here is my basket of sock yarn:


My clan yarn is kept in my secret draw:

If you are on Ravelry you can see my planned socks in my special queue. The queue (like all things in my life) is a work in progress ;-)

Oh and some good news - I actually finished a pair of socks - for Orla:

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Clan Obsession

I'll skip past the usual apologies for not posting for a while and move on to some knitting.

What do you think of this?


It's the start of a fairisle sock using the wonderful Yarn Yard Clan in Soot and Saffron.  Lovely to knit with and I am loving the contrast.  Can you see the problem?  Probably not as you have no sense of scale from that shot.  Well - for some unknown reason I cast on the same number of stitches and used my normal size needle (2.5mm) and expected them to be a good fit - yeah - well that didn't work out at all well.  The sock has been frogged and now been cast on again with lots more stitches (72 - but maybe it should be 80?)  Re-thinking the pattern too.  The one above was corrugated rib and then a pattern taken from Alice Starmore's Fairisle book.  Now I am thinking of doing Stained Glass Window Socks which look lovely - but just with the two colours.  

In other sock news I have finished ONE - a mojo sock.  Do you like it?  It was a fun knit - and I must cast on the second one soon before it gets added to the single sock jar of doom.  Knitted using autumn-coloured Yarn Yard Clan.


Such a cool sock - looks great off the foot too - all wibbly wobbly.

Also on my needles are some Slip-Stitch Socks in yummy daffodil coloured yarn.  This yarn was especially dyed for me by Natalie from The Yarn Yard on what was otherwise a very blue day. (Huge thanks to Judy who insisted that I got some new yarn - what a lovely lady - do check out her blog!)  Natalie asked what I would like and I roamed away from my normal colour range and looked out of the window onto some flowering daffodils - and this is the yarn to match.  Isn't it gorgeous?  And isn't Natalie talented?  Oh yes!!  

Excuse the blurry shot:



Oh this one is in focus:

Do you think I have a small Yarn Yard Clan obsession?  Maybe a little ;-)



Here's my secret Clan stash (with a little Natural Dye Studio hidden in there):