Ravelry Has Taken Over My Life

Received my invite to Ravelry mid week and ever since have been busily cataloging my stash and projects for "My Notebook". DH watches in amusement as I photograph each skein of yarn and I'm wondering as well if I'm not giving in to my worst OCD tendencies but the organizational concept is very appealing. I've always wanted an inventory of all my yarn, needles, and projects. Seeing all my stash (and I've not completed the sock yarn yet) has given me a very visual reminder of how much yarn I have so I've stopped haunting EBay for the moment. Plus I have an upcoming birthday and I think (hope) I may be receiving some yarn gifts.

The Magic Stripes Bright Spring Socks are complete and although they are not as perfect as I might like they are good enough. I did end up with sufficient yarn and actually had quite a lot remaining which leads me to believe that there may be variation between skeins at Lion Brand. I still have one more skein of this yarn in a denim blue/red colorway but I'm putting that on hold and trying a more challenging sock.

Final tally on the Microspun Preemie Hats is three. I'll be making more of these in lavender at a later date.

I've started Hedera by Cookie with my Rowan 4 Ply Soft yarn in a color called Clover. Size 1 needles are a little like knitting with toothpicks but I've been pleasantly surprised by my progress. I currently have 8 of 14 pattern repeats complete for the leg of sock one.

Stitch Marker Time Again

I am once again participating in a Stitch Marker Exchange . These beauties will be mailed tomorrow to knitters in Canada and England. Selecting beads for stitch markers is almost as addictive as selecting yarns for knitting. So many possibilities! Some of the beads came from a great local store I just found. Let's Bead in East Rochester will be seeing more of me. Credits go to Michaels for the colored safety pins which I could not resist for holders.







I've been doing some spring/summer cleaning this week and in the process came across two skeins of Lion Brand Microspun purchased in the distant past. I'm not sure what I originally intended but I quickly found this pattern for a Preemie Hat on the Lion Brand website. My thought was that I would quickly knit up this yarn so I wouldn't have to add it to my already quite long stash list. Good intentions, yes? Well, the pattern has 4 sizes of hats and I opted for the Newborn-3 month size first thinking that would use most of the skein but no, it only took about half the skein. So then I cast on for a Preemie-Newborn hat thinking surely that would finish the skein. Here's where I am now.



Looks like at least one more hat just to finish this skein and I still have another skein of purple. Although Microspun is composed of multiple strands I had no problems with splitting but I was using my bamboo DPNs. The fabric is very soft and stretchy (in a good way).

All of my projects are progressing but none is complete. The Spring Socks are the closest to finishing. I'm reasonably happy with the remainder of this sock in terms of matching the first although the heels are not the same.


Thanks to all who commented about cotton blend socks. You've given me good advice and I'm particularly intrigued with Lia's comment about the princess sole which does sound more comfortable. Just trying to decided if I'm up for that much purling.

A Woman's Prerogative

I've been happily alternating knitting projects....2 hours in the morning on the sweater, 2 hours in the evening on the scarf, etc. This morning it was time to give the second Bright Spring sock some attention. I was so proud of the first sock as I'm sure you could tell from my close-up pictures. The second one is not going to be so perfect and I'm annoyed.

Midway down the leg I encountered a knot and not only a knot but a knot which had not taken the color pattern into account. Orange connected to green so I untied the knot and wasted enough yarn to match as best I was able. But now I am concerned that I will run out of yarn before finishing the foot. Plus, I'm thinking the woven-in ends will make the sock lumpy. Curse you Lion Brand!

I've had second thoughts about the next socks. This beauty arrived in my mailbox today and turned my head.

Online SuperSocke from the Beach collection in the Pistachio Gelato colorway. The yarn is a cotton/wool/polyamid blend which should be perfect for summer. Although summer in Rochester has been varying between 90 and 65 degree days this week I'm confident we will see the sun again soon. I know from reading their blogs that Hilary and Rahime have had some issues with cotton socks. Anything I should know ladies, or anyone else reading this blog, before I attempt my first cotton blend socks?

What We Think We Know

When I recently resumed knitting I assumed I remembered how to knit but as I started creating knitted objects I noticed that my knit stitches did not look as straight as others I was seeing on the web. At first I thought I was just rusty and my stitches would improve but that did not happen. Only when I was looking at one of the knitting books from my local library did I realize that I was wrapping the yarn in the opposite direction from the book's illustration. If one wraps clockwise around the front to the back a twisted stitch results as seen in last post's scarf. I've since retrained my brain to wrap counterclockwise from back to front and am now producing very straight knit stitches.

Likewise I assumed I remembered how to make yarn-overs so blithely started knitting the alpaca glitter scarf but again my scarf was not looking like the pattern illustration. No worries I thought...blocking would fix everything but even stretched the pattern still didn't look quite right. Once again I was wrapping backwards to create the yarn over. I've since frogged the first start and am knitting again with beautiful results. Tried to photograph but my camera did not do a good job of focusing so I'll try again later.

The Booga bag is finished and I did indeed know when felting occurred. It took two runs through the washer to achieve the desired results.





Tarah asked if felting gives me the heebie jeebies and indeed it does. I have a very vivid memory of a beautiful sky blue wool v-neck pullover sweater which DH inadvertently felted for me early in our married life. It goes against my nature to put wool in my washing machine but I'm so glad I overcame my resistance this time.

I've also just completed sock 1 in the Lion Brand Magic Stripe Bright Spring pattern. I really like these colors.