Simply Lovely Lace Socks # Take Two

Ok, to quickly get you up to speed.

In 2006 I started a pair of Simply Lovely Lace Socks by Karen Baumer from Interweave Knits Spring 2006 in Opal Uni yarn.
I knitted two at once on lots of dpns until the cuff was as long as I wanted for ankle socks, then laid them to the one side for a-a-a-ages, having fallen out of love with socks again, and not having enjoyed knitting into the back of every knit stitch.

In summer 2007 I decided to give them a new lease of life and made them into fingerless gloves for myself, which actually involved quite a lot of knitting the lace pattern I hadn't enjoyed, and a lot of fudging and making it happen, but I was very happy with the results.

Now fast forward to summer 2008 when during a sock binge I realised that I hadn't actually ever worn my fingerless gloves for real, only in poses for blog posts/ Flickr.
So I fished them out, frogged the handy and thumby bit of the glove, rolled that crazy, tangly stuff and put it aside and did what I should've done in the first place, which was knit on the rest of the sock in stocking stitch. Dunno why that option didn't occur to me last year, maybe just because I was so out of the sock knitting mentality. Fortunately I had plenty of the Opal Uni left.

I am delighted with the results, and they will get much more wear out of these sockazitos than from a pair of opera gloves.

Here are a few photos for your perusal. Two things to look out for are 1) Look at all of the autumn leaves starting to hit the grass and 2) Look at my sausagey feet in the second-last photo. It was taken at a weird angle, but my feet and ankles are very sausagey in real life as well, I must confess.


Thank-you for the kind comments about last week's Dark Galaxy socks. x K

Something to "plank"

DH and I have decided to have a "recession proof" Christmas.

The upside of this is it is very liberating and lifts the obligation to buy a few extra not really wanted gifts just because the pile looks too small. One or two handmade or lovingly selected presents shared in our own home.
The downside is, well there isn't really a downside, there will be other years to splash out !
You never know, I may even accomplish some stash-busting.
I must find a place to store these Christmas socks now where I will remember where I put them. I don't need to find too inventive a hiding place because he has seen them and tried them on several times for the custom fit.
These are knitted in Regia Galaxy in Granit purchased from GetKnitted. Each sock used about 40g worth of yarn. I'm really pleased with them because they are a good balance of sober enough to wear but with a little visual interest to keep the knitter sane. The yarn feels lovely too.
The sock-binge continues and I should have some lady socks to show you soon. Happy Knitting x K

Beautiful yarn

Now, it's not much that gets me over to the Far East but I was pleased to make an exception to go over and check out a trunk show of beautiful hand-painted and hand-spun yarns made by my friend Tigerlilith .
She has a web presence as well as the fact that some qualities and colourways are available from K1 yarns .

I selected some 2-ply laceweight, seen here in blue, or Aegean to be precise. It feels divine, being made from baby alpaca, silk and cashmere. DH was pawing it for ages when I showed him.
Next to that is some superwash merino 4-ply sock-yarn in Violets, which is a perfect name to encompass all the shades of purple in this one.
Sitting on top is my little "Emergency yarn" loyalty key-ring gift, he he.



Next up we have some more of the Merino Superwash 4-ply, this time in the special K1 colourway- predominantly damson with bottle green in places. I've always liked this one when I've seen it online so I took the plunge when I saw how lovely it was in the flesh as it were.
The last Old Maiden Aunt offering is a bamboo-merino blend in Neptune. I am always magnetically pulled towards this type of colour combo and the hand of the yarn is just yummy.

I hadn't been to the Edinburgh branch of K1 Yarns before, so while I was there I took the chance to pick up some of the Noro Kureyon sock yarn I'd been hearing about too.

If you fancy getting your hands on some Old Maiden Aunt yarns, some of the remaining items from the trunk show have been loaded to the web shop as above, so go on over and feast your eyes! x K

Knitted gifts

more animals

From head to toes

No more head-gear for the time being, I'm in the throes of a sock binge!

Buying sock yarn, buying 2 point something needles by the dozen and hell yeah, even doing some actual sock knitting. I really do go in phases.

For moi some Dublin Bay socks by Ryan Morrissey at Mossy Cottage Knits (free download) made from Regia Bamboo Color in girly colours.

For DH some plain vanilla socks in Regia Galaxy in black and tones of grey. Not too boring though, cos you get some swirly galaxy things emerging as long as you cast on 60 or more stitches.

And some shopping from Stitching Time in Hamilton.

Jawoll Silk from Lang Yarns; Wool Craft Superwash Sock Yarn in blue-burgundy-green, Regia Design Line Kaffe Fassett; Wool Craft Superwash Sock Yarn in bluey-greeny. Fairly sedate colours so I can knit them for either of us, depending on who's being good.

Oh yes, and I've also bought the Galaxy yarn in three other colours. So far. x K

Final headscarf of the season

No, it's not some lingerie I've been running up in my spare time, it's my latest (and probably last of the year) headscarf.
This time it has been done in crochet. Man, crochet eats up your yarn! This took 1.5 balls of Adriafil Swing which is 100% mercerised cotton.
To be honest, it's a little bit boardy because I hooked it on a 3mm hook which was maybe a little small, but I have good dense, substantial fabric now. Not the world's drapiest, but it does mould to the shape of head at least, it's not THAT firm.
I'm chuffed with this for a number of reasons. I love the yarn, I figured out how to make it all by myself and then I looked it up on the interwebs and I have been doing the increases at each end properly.
However, I have only been doing 2 turning chain at the beginning of each row when convention dictates it's 3 turning chain for British trebles. Live and learn.
Last time I posted something similar I was recommended to say "ties" for the little strings which hold it on. If you remember I couldn't work out how to spell tie-er (which sounds like tyre, nothing like tier of a wedding cake). Ties is good, but I'm still holding out a glimmer of hope one of you brainy folk can give me a variation. Happy crafting, K x

Tip of crochet headscarf

Learned to increase during the course of this project.
Chain edging; looks neater when teased into shape!

Close-up of crochet fabric

Hello sailor!

When stylist Gok Wan said the sailor look was going to be big this summer and every summer, I doubt this is what he had in mind!

This is my latest headscarf. (I know, I don't what the addiction is, I'm also hooking one at the moment.)

It's made from white, tomato and navy Patons 100% 4ply coton, which is the same stuff as the Adamas.

There's a little crochet shell border which isn't too well-seen in the pictures.

I needed it today to keep the sun from frying my hair in scorchio Galloway. xK

It's Hip Knits, Jim, but not as we know it!

Firstly thank-you for the kind comments about the Adamas headscarf.

Ok, now, a knitting-related excursion.
Last week we paid a visit to Shambellie House in New Galloway , which is hosting a temporary exhibition called Hip Knits but which has nothing to do with what we think of when we hear the expression HipKnits. They were also very liberal with the expression "Get Knitted" too, both of which I thought would stir up legal connotations, but anyway, to the exhibition.

Well, it was quite nice. Damned by faint praise? Yeah. I knew it would be a small exhibition because I had visited the museum before and new which room the temporary items are housed in, so it wasn't that. It was that the only two pieces of hand-knitting in the room were 1) a stringy very avant-garde Vivienne Westwood drapey thingy and 2) the jumper I was wearing.

Granted, it didn't spell out in the publicity blurb there would be hand-knitting, but I (wrongly) assumed so, particularly with them bandying words like Hip Knits and Get Knitted on their pamphlets and posters etc. Ah, the power of language!

So, it was virtually all machine knits, some of which were very nice, but left me feeling a bit meh. I wouldn't say, don't go to the exhibition, but I would say,"Don't travel long distances and/ or come with high expectations!"

I look some pictures, but as flash was not allowed they didn't turn out well enough to blog. Just picture a generic-looking Pringle Argyle in baby-pink and black in a size 8. Ah, the power of the mind, I'm sure you're "looking" at the exact same picture as me! x K

User-friendly version?

A user-friendly version of the comparison DH made, mentioned in last post?

Missus wummin is not unlike the girl styled on the cover of the latest Rowan, although she is facing the opposite diro.

Contessa in Profile Wearing Heid Bunnet

Ok, here are some outdoor shots of me wearing the Adamas Headscarf.
I'm loving it and may well work up to a shawl sized one in an animal fibre.
DH took these photos, reckons his handiwork is very reminiscent of the type of composition Renaissance painters did of ladies of high birth in profile over-looking the Tuscan landscape.
Perhaps this Portrait of Battista Sforza by Piero della Francesca 1466
which we saw in the Galleria delgi Uffizi in Florence during our honeymoon will give you the idea, although I think he means a genre rather than one specific picture.
Anyway, Adamas heid bunnet; enjoy. x K

Coughed up

Ok, after much deliberation I've coughed up and signed up for a Pro Account at Flickr so I can load more than 200 photos.

For the last wee while some of my photos have not been visible cos I had exceeded the 200 mark. (They pop up again when you take the plunge and pay.) I had been swithering because I don't grudge paying the £13 or so for this year, but I can't imagine I'll want to go back to a free account so it's a commitment for the foreseeable.

Anyway, you may notice that I am loading quite a lot of completed projects on Ravelry over the next while, I've not become a prolific knitting robot, it's just I've got the Flickr space to load the photos now. Some of them date back a good couple of years.

And in case you didn't know, my Flickr name is KEDkrafty. x K

Adamas lace headscarf

Can I apologise now if the spacing on this post is weird, it's jumping about like a mad thing.

Hiya, knitting up a storm during the school holidays!
Here are the specs of my latest finished object, all being well I'll have some action shots in a couple of days' time.

So this is Miriam L. Felton's Adamas shawl pattern, done to headscarf size.

This is available as a Free Ravelry pdf download
You can get this as a free pattern on Mim Knits website as well, linky .

It's a lovely clear, well-written and charted neck-down triangular shawl, stop after as many repeats as you like, no fancy maths to make the border chart work. I did three repeats of the main chart.

My only small reservation is you knew this was coming, didn't you? ;-) that at the beginning you cast on five and start your increases from there. This is fine, but it just means you have a wee small section at the beginning where you don't get the garter ridges on the back neck (or in my case with the headscarf, front head). If you have ever knitted an Evelyn A Clark shawl design you will know what I mean. You start with k2 and do tricks with mirrors so that your wee garter ridges are consistent.

I made it with Patons 100% Cotton 4ply in shade #02708, Tomato. I enjoyed working with this yarn, it's a mercerised cotton and has a nice sheen, and it feels so much finer than Rowan 4ply cotton for example, which I used to make a Previous Headscarf . He he, very link happy tonight!

I weighed it when it was finished, and it was 33g so that means I must have used in the region of 100m to make it.

If you see some strings at the top, it's not unsecured ends, it's little I-cords I've done as straps. I've tried half a dozen times to spell tie-er, the thing you tie it on with, but I can't seem to spell it, any suggestions?

ETA: I used my new Addi Lace Needles in 3.25mm size which I bought from Outback Yarns which is the knitting department in the Gem Shop, King Street, Castle Douglas.

Loving the written patten, loving the way it knitted up, loving the yarn. Happy KEDkrafty.

Purchase sufficient yarn...

...as dyelots may vary.
You said it, sister!

A couple of years ago I bought three balls of the SWTC Oasis 100% Soysilk in HK Handknit Edinburgh as I fell in love with the colour.
I thought at the time it would make a nice Clapotis. Actually I still do, but don't laugh, at the time I thought Clapotis was too hard and I couldn't get my head round the pattern. (Thanks to Ravelry I now think Clapotis is a cake walk.)

Fast forward one year and Get Knitted are having a big sale on SWTC Oasis 100% Soysilk.
I say to myself, it's not going to become a Clapotis so I'll buy some more and then I'll have enough for a summer top. Now obviously I know that there will be subtle variations in the shade due to different dyelots of the same colour NAPA VALLEY.
So I receive my 8 balls of it in cheapy looking ball bands and feel a kind of disappointment with a vague feeling that the 3 balls I have in my stash (right down at the bottom, inaccessible) are much nicer. I think my memory is playing tricks with me, and try to shake off the feeling that if I had seen this batch in a shop I'd have walked on by.

So now we're up to the present time and I'm ready to make myself a summer top. I haul out the original lot and it is a DOZEN TIMES NICER than the second batch! My lingering sense of disappointment was right. The second batch (left)goes like this PURPLE>OLIVE>PURPLE>GOLD.
The first batch goes like this PURPLE>LILAC>GOLD>WHEAT>PEPPERMINT>OLIVE. The colour transition is much more subtle in my original balls and overall lighter and fresher.
Can you see the difference in the photos?
And in the first batch the yarn is about 1/2mm thinner, which may seem nothing, but in my massive 12 stitch swatches for your delectation, version one on the right is 1 1/2 stitches narrower.
Needless to say I'll work with more than one ball at once. Boo hoo, I wish they were all like batch one on the right. I thought I was safe enough because I'd seen the yarn IRL.
Take heed of my salutory tale!
x K

Showing signs of initial improvement

No, I've not been writing second-year French reports, I am celebrating the minor successes of everyday life.

I have finished the Sanquhar-inspired scarf and it is having a tepid bath as we speak.


I've been noticing that my colour-work is getting a little better, in fact as it flowed through my hands I could see clear improvements on the motif section of the second side compared to the first.

The first time round I was still concentrating so hard on learning to hold the two yarns in two hands that I wasn't taking the trouble to make sure things like tension etc were right, and ended up with an acceptable stab at it, but with the dark green stitches too loose and taking over, as seen in the first photo, where there are almost lines of dark green.


By the time I came to do those same sections on the second side, my work had become a lot more even and well-balanced, as seen in the second photo.


I'm not beating myself up about the first side, there's nothing up with it that some very assertive "teasing" and blocking and a few millenia won't solve, I'm just happy that with two like pieces to compare, I can see the progress.


If anyone has strong *symmetry issues* and they want to attempt something like this, they had better do two ends and graft in the middle as in my version the Vee of each stitch faces upward on one side and downward on the other, when worn on the neck.


All in the garden is not rosy, in spite of my "signs of initial improvement". I mis-placed a motif! I made a chequered box when it should've been a diamond box. And yes, I did notice it one inch afterwards, and yes, I did leave it in. Feel the freedom!


I answered this in the comment box of my last post, but just in case it got missed:


In my last post I made reference to Ravellers and my daring British spelling. Whenever I've seen that word written on Ravelry it has been spelt Ravelers, one l a l'americaine. If I were writing travel then travellers I would put two ls and I've extended this to Ravellers. Feel the freedom again!

World-Wide Frog in Public Day

Okay, June 14th was meant to be World-Wide Knit in Public Day linky but when you have an Icarus shawl which you have neglected for months and months because deep in your heart you know your yarn is too fuzzy to show off the lace-edging and it doesn't look delicate and fragile like everyone else's Icarus, you can choose to take decisive action. Icarus link for Ravelry punters
Non-Ravellers * can always get it under Interweave Knits Summer 2006.
The shawl is getting some major doctoring, it's being ripped back to the beginning of the lacy charts and I'm just going to continue with the first chart, the one with the eyelet leaf spines radiating from the central spine. I feel a sense of relief already, knowing it's just an eyelet triangular shawl now, rather than a failed Icarus. Talk about re-framing, he he.

Anyway, the site of my public frogging was at the wishing well in
Threave Gardens Castle Douglas
where I spent a lovely afternoon with my honey strolling about admiring the flowers and playing on the Galloway cows. These are an artist's impression of the local Belted Galloway Cattle native to these parts. Yes, you are allowed to touch the sculptures, hell, you're even allowed to walk on the grass in this garden, although you do pay a pretty penny to enter.

Anyway, a good WWKIP day was had by all. x K

* Yes, I really did apply British spelling conventions to this word, so sue me.

Planet KEDkrafty

Have you seen this wonderful site yet?
Tag Galaxy

You can type in things you like, such as KEDkrafty, knitting, Ravelry, wool, yarn, lemurs, puffins, Vienna, green, whatever

and it reads the tags people have put on their Flickr photos

and makes you a planet, or if it's a bigger subject, a GALAXY of pictures on that subject.

The final effect is great, but it's also lovely as it's all pulling together.
Don't worry if it says "No related tags", that means your main subject IS there, there's just no linking subjects. Click on the resulting planet. Grab it and turn it round.

It's really cool! Try it with your favourite things.

Seeking closure

Firstly, thank-you for your kind comments about the Stoney vest and the Twilley's cardigan.

I've made this wee corsage as a closure for the blue cardigan. I knitted a square in the main yarn then felted it by distressing the bahoochie (sp?) out of it by alternating between boiling and very cold water. Did the trick very quickly, but you will observe the colour change which happened in the process. Not just lighter shades of the main colours, but the nature of the colours is altered. I kinda like it. Sort of rustic or naive or something. It's an homage to something I once saw in a shop.

Of course, if I had knitted a swatch, ha ha ha I could've felted it. It has a brooch pin from Get Knitted on the back.


Happy Knitting. x K

Breezy and Bunchy

That wind would blaw the buckles aff yer shin!

(shoes)

Here are some shots of my latest finished object.

Sirdar Jacket 8750, supposed to be done in Country Style DK, in fact done in Twilley's Freedom Spirit , colourway 506, eight balls.

It has been on the go for some time because I was not feeling the love for it anymore. It started when I didn't like the way the variegated yarn was pooling and striping. I mean, I know you can expect a degree of that but I didn't like THE WAY it was pooling and striping, not the fact.

I persevered through this and got ready to knit up all the rib stitches round the back, fronts and neck. I didn't have the pattern with me (you can see where this is going, can't you?) so I didn't pick up the appropriate amount of stitches. If any of you are writing a knitting book, call on me and I'll give you some pictures of how not picking up enough stitches causes bunching, pleating, puckering, the lot. Don't waste your money on getting a photographer in.

If I wanted the cardigan for something special I would've ripped and rectified, but I just made do. I know the thought of that makes some of you readers' flesh creep, but I can live with it. Maybe some day I'll feel enough distance to go back and fix it, but it's quite a big job.

In the meantime I am needing something nice to close it with. I haven't seen anything in the shops which ticks the boxes so I'm endeavouring to make my own with some leafy and flowery shapes I've cut out from the swatch, felted. If it turns out well, I'll show you in a couple of days' time.

Happy Bank Holiday wishes from a very breezy Galloway district! x K

Introducing Stoney the Waistcoat

Here's my new waistcoat Stoney Rowan 43 designed by Lisa Richardson.

Made using 6 balls of the discontinued Jonelle Knitting Cotton DK which I bought from John Lewis when I first got back into knitting, I think we're talking the year 2000 here. Has been maturing in my stash for eight years or so, he he. I do like the colour, it's a warm pinky browny shade aptly called Rosewood. I was left with 2 or 3 metres left after the edging, which was lucky. I wasn't panicking too much because I have more balls of the same yarn quality in a toning colour which I could have edged it with if the worse had come to the worst.

I like it and I've enjoyed making it. One thing I can't get my head round though. There's short row shaping to get the curved look on the left and right fronts. So far so good. BUT there is a definite texture to the waistcoat, with garter ridges every four rows so the short rows look weirdly staggered. Wouldn't make it again with that feature.

It has a mock opening, you sew down both layers of the fabric and pull the waistcoat on over your head. I used some Rowan buttons I got from Get Knitted. (Rowan Metal Heart 15mm 00037). I'm also pleased with the fit. The sun's in my eyes in some pictures, sorry for looking grim!

Oh yeah, and I'd spell it Stony, but the book says Stoney, WWWWWhatever.