toe up socks for the guys...

Dad's socks, knit in Paton's Kroy FX
 in Camo Colours

I just realized that I haven't blogged in a long while, so I'm going to make a point to blog a bit more this month.

Just a knitting update: I'm in love with knitting toe up socks. I know this pattern may be a little vanilla for some people's tastes, but vanilla works for me. I still don't get the logic behind knitting lacey socks, but give me a good skein of self stripping yarn, and this pattern looks awesome.

Both pairs of socks I have here, I finished last month. My dad's socks were for his birthday (yesterday) and DH's socks were made just for fun. Honestly, I wasn't planning on making DH any socks, but when he saw my dad's completed pair, he changed his mind and wanted some!

DH's socks, knit in Paton's Kroy Stripes
in Country Jaquard

(Not a problem!) 

Both were an easy knit - and my dad's I finished in record time, 9 days! It really helps knitting both socks at the same time, I've never been able to knit a pair of anything separately. Sleeves, mittens, socks - all done both at the same time. 

The only tweek I made to the toe up pattern, as you may be able to tell from these two pairs, is I added a little bit of ribbing to where the arch of the food would be, to make the sock more of a snug fit.

I've already cast on a pair for my FiL, his birthday is in June so they'll be gifted then. The yarn I'm using is similar to what I've used for DH's socks, but in a different colour. Pictures to come soon!

idle hands are the devil's playground

Growing up Catholic, one is bound to hear this at least once in their upbringing. I've never been particularily religious, but I've heard this often muttered by my teachers when going to Catholic grade school, not fully knowing what that ever meant.

It is, though, something that I often think about while knitting or crocheting. I've always been, by nature, fidgety - so knitting & crocheting was just naturally a hobby that I'd fall in love with. There's a certain satisfaction in accomplishing the large projects like afghans or sweaters, but the small portable projects are great too.

The top I'm working on to wear this summer is still in progress, I'll post photos of that later. What is keeping me busy on the weekends are the itty bitty projects. For example, I finished four duduza dolls (queuable here on ravelry) that were mailed after the weekend was over. This past Easter weekend, I worked on some toe-up socks that I want to finish before Halloween, since they're in Halloween colours.

I weighed myself this morning - despite the holiday over the weekend, celebrated twice - once on Friday with my DB & SiL, and again on Saturday with DH's family - I still lost 1.2lbs. A great accomplishment, despite the weight being minimal!

The unfortuante thing with holidays is that there are sweets everywhere - and I had my fair shair of cheesecake and chocolates! I was sure I wasn't going to lose anything, but the fact that I did was awesome. I wasn't about to bring that big top to knit when DH & I went up north to visit the inlaws, but having my toe-up socks came in handy to keep my mind occupied enough. My hands were busy knitting stripe after self-stripping stripe in my socks to avoid having that third peice of chocolate or that extra handful of chips.

Having some kind of mindless knitting that's easy and small enough to carry around - like socks - are a handy thing to help keep the excess snacking at bay!

Today, I blog about laundry

Laundry's knitting related, right?

:P Well, it sort of is, today. A while back I bought some Soak wash, and with it I got 2 mini free samples of Soak in different scents than my bottle. I finally got around to using one of the mini free samples today, and I'm soaking 2 handknit pairs of socks, a handknit pair of slippers I made for DH way back when, and a bra. In my sink.

And, if it's not enough that I've made a sink-full of soaking laundry a blogworthy event, I've even made it picture-worthy:

So there.

I'm going to spend the rest of my day whipping up some granny squares that'll go towards a blanket that I hope to finish - well, let's be realistic - by the end of the year!

good friday things

A good find and a few fun things arrived in the mail this week... Firstly, today's mail sent me these great stitch markers, from the Black Yarn Swap's Stitch Marker Swap that I organized on ravelry (pictured left), plus I also received my knitpicks order for sock yarn, cuz I want to make these cool flame socks with it.

I also found this cute little book the other day at the mall, Knitted Icons, which I can't wait to start knitting from! How cute is this? And it'd make neat little stocking stuffers come the holidays!

speaking of socks... again...

Can you tell that I love varigated yarn?!? :)

I knit these up in Patons Kroy Jaquards, in whatever the colour is called that makes this pink + green + orange varigation. The pattern I used is Magknits' Rainy Day Socks and it turned out awesome.

The only thing I changed on the pattern is the top - not that you can tell from the picture - but I'm not a picot-edge kind of girl, so I made a k1/p1 ribbing for the first 5 rows.

I gots me my yarn swap package!

The pal I had for the yarn swap I organized was Marion and I absolutely lurve what I've received! I've one skein of bamboo yarn (the Opal) and the Trekking - both very cool varitaged sock yarns! woot!

She also quite skillfully sewed together two cases for dpns, and included a set of wooden 2.5 mm dpns to knit these two skeins up! (the rolled paper to the left is the instructions she found to make the dpn cases, handy!) I envy anyone who can manage to sew, and I adore what I've received! Thanks, Marion!

DH's Socks

I've finally gotten around to knitting my DH a pair of socks, finishing them a week early for his birthday at the end of the month! They're knit with Patons Jaquard in 'Houndstooth'. Even though he wanted black socks, I just couldn't commit myself from buying ever-so-boring-flat-black yarn, so the silvery white specks in this made them turn out quite nice!

The pattern I used is from here, and the (I think) clever coat hanger sock blockers I found here. (The coat hanger ones will serve good purpose until I can afford to spend $ on some nice wooden ones from ebay!)

out with the old, and trying something new!

First, let me tell you that I'm quite into the idea of trying something new as often as possible. I would like to brag about my beginning a pair of socks:

yay! I've attempted knitting socks before, but have struggled, but this particular yarn has some awesome colour, and I am quite eager to sport this particular pair of socks!

:)

This will be my good news, before I vent about the bad.

:(

Now, I don't believe in naming names because it's just not necessary, but I do feel the need to get this off my chest.

I often find myself relying to websites for new knitting inspiration, and lately have decided to pop into a few of these awesome sites and check out their posting forums and chatrooms. I found myself in a chatroom where I was surrounded by a quite aggrivated and mildly b****y group of women ~ I have obviously invaded the Mean Girls Knitting Snob Click. Within a week of hanging around in this particular chat room, I went from (what I thought was) positive knitters to chat with, to the cattiest of the most unfriendly and unwelcoming group of people.

Part of my Fiber Snob post a few days ago was inspired by a couple of these women in this chat room, but that negativity spread from one or two people through to the better part of the group. It went from joking sarcasm to harsh accusations, name calling, people ignoring then mocking, and finally a couple of them falsely accusing me of things like copyright infringement and bad business practice.

Now, granted, it's nothing more than the gross misinformed judgement of a handfull of people, and just out of a chat room, but considering that this is (from what I understand) a particularly popular site and seemingly a high-traffic chat room linked to it, I would hate to think that not only they would treat other new chatters the same way, but also, who knows how far false accusations travel once you've left? And who else also gets this negative attitude? For I'm sure I'm not the first, and likely won't be the last.

I do think that this sort of thing is unfortunate. To be honest, I was so happy to find what I thought to be a great place to hang out and chat in, considering that I'd be surrounded by knitters, as well as I have a lack of knitters in my personal life to stitch with. Who would've thought that such an immature, elitist attitude would transcent teenage immaturity and high school playgrounds into a chat filled with adults?

It's silly of me, I suppose, to expect anything more than extreme superficiallity when it comes to people's attitudes online. It was naive of me to think that a group of people, however small, with such a 'calming' ;) hobby as knitting would welcome me in their circle, irrigardless of what items I knit or which yarns I use, rather than make it a point to snub me out.

Who would've thought that knitters were so mean?

;) ah, live and learn.