Coffee Beans

This week sort of slipped away from me. It went from busy to busier and all of a sudden, it's Saturday. I sort of forgot to blog but I have been working on some things.

I'm making some decent progress on a few projects but I'm really excited about these.

These are the Cool Beans socks. I'm knitting them as a Christmas gift for my lovely mother. They're coffee beans and I think they're so cute.

I'm using a skein of Knit Picks Stroll Tonal in Kindling for the brown and a skein of some random hot pink fingering weight yarn for the pink. My mom's favorite color is fuschia so I think these will be lovely because she loves coffee too!

For colorwork they're going very quickly too. I'm a little farther than these pictures show. I have 5 beans down the leg so far and the pattern calls for 6. I was considering stopping at 5 but I'm concerned that they will be too short as they're just barely 5 inches and so, I think I will continue and knit one more bean before I continue with the heel flap and heel. I really like the way they look so far and I'm enjoying knitting them though.

It's always lovely to be a little ahead of the game on Christmas knitting and to be knitting for someone you know will appreciate their gift.

Autumn is Riveting

I can't seem to tell if I'm falling in love with fall or with my autumn shawl. Either way, it's finished!

I really love how it turned out. I had loads of fun taking pictures of it.

So, let's get right down to the Specs shall we?
The Specs:
The Yarn: nom from Gritty Knits in the Autumn colorway, it's a club colorway from last October so it should be available to the public now. 2 skeins.
The Needles: US 4
The Pattern: Simply Riveting Scarf by Megan Williams (a free pattern!)
The Notes: The pattern is written for one skein of DK weight yarn but I followed the directions for increasing in size and knit on needles I thought worked well with the lovely fingering weight yarn. I stopped knitting in stockinette at the area where I would have added a riveting row (when I was low on yarn) and added 6 rows of garter stitch to edge it. I have a wee little ball left that will be great for Hexipuffs.

I really wasn't too sure about the colors of this yarn when I first received it, I'm not a big yellow/brown fan but I decided to purchase a skein from someone's destash anyway and so had two just hanging out in the stash for a good long time before I decided to knit with it. I'm really glad I did, it's lovely to wrap around your shoulders now that it's getting colder outside. You can't get a very accurate picture of the shape of the shawl from the pictures I took, I'll have to have some photos of me wearing the shawl taken soon.

One project done, you know what that means!

I'm allowed to cast on something new. More about this lovely project later this week.

Skyp-ing is Finished

I spent some time working on my Skyp socks while I was out of town this week and lo and behold, they got finished! It's amazing how if you work on something it gets done.
I think they turned out very well.

The Specs:
The Yarn: nom from Gritty Knits in the June 2012 club colorway: Dusk
The Needles: US 2 DPNs (2.75mm)
The Pattern: Skyp Socks by Adrienne Ku
The Modifications: At first, I tried to knit them exactly to pattern but I had some trouble getting the pattern to line up after the heel on the first sock because you leave some stitches unworked at the end of the round before the heel flap. I chose not to figure it out and fix it, I just kept going and didn't both to leave those unworked stitches on the second sock.
The Notes: Lovely yarn to work with, although it's definitely too warm for them just yet, my feet were sweating like crazy while I had them on (for those 2 minutes) to take photos. These will be going into the Christmas box I think, to become a gift.
There's also a bunch of leftover yarn.

It may not look like much but this is 46 grams of yarn! I think I may do some hexipuffs and then attempt to knit a pair of children's socks. We'll see if I get that ambitious.

I think this is the last thing I had with a real deadline so it's all about what I want to knit for awhile. I'm very excited about that! Although, I should think about working on those couple of projects I am planning to knit for Christmas.

Planning for Halloweening

I recently treated myself to something a little bit special. A skein of Vesper self-striping sock yarn in a Halloween colorway.

It's called Witchy Woman and I thought it was very pretty. I decided that I would knit some Halloween socks, I don't usually do that so it sounded fun. This skein stripes a lovely deep purple, neon green and black. It's even more fun when you wind it up and start knitting it!

I have one other skein of Vesper sock yarn but I haven't knit with it at all yet. I like it so far although it's another fine yarn that I chose to knit on 0s. Rather than doing the typical plain stockinette sock I decided to go a bit different and I'm knitting the Skew pattern. Fun yarn plus a fun pattern should make a really awesome pair of Halloween socks.

You may notice I'm not mentioning my other knitting, that's because I'm working on it but it looks pretty much exactly the same. I'm also not mentioning Christmas knitting (don't panic, you knew it was coming!) That's mainly because I'm not planning to do a whole lot of knitting this Christmas. I put far too much pressure on myself so I have decided that only a very few people will be getting hand knits this year. I'll have to bring it up at some point though.

Fall Shawlette

I just wanted to get a little quickie post up before I rush out the door. I started a new shawl/ette! It's from nom in the Autumn colorway. I have 2 skeins one from the club and one from a destash, they're different dyelots but I'm not all that worried about it. I wanted something fairly simple since there is some color variation in this yarn so I chose the Simply Riveting Scarf pattern by Megan Williams.

I'm planning to just keep adding repeats until I get close to the end of the yarn, do the edge and bind off. I'm loving it so far! It's a fast and fun knit! Talk to me later when the purl rows are a few hundred stitches though.

One Skyp Down

It's amazing how quickly socks knit on size US2 needles will go when you just finished a pair on size 0s. The first Skyp sock is done and I'm loving this pattern.

It's very simple and easy to execute but it look wonderful! I'm really glad I did decide to rip the ribbing and reknit it because the 2x2 ribbing flows so nicely into the sock pattern.

I'm not sure what it is about this colorway though, it's not my favorite so I've made these just a tiny bit big for me, I'm thinking they will be a Christmas gift. For someone pretty special though, this is nom after all! (The colorway, in case you love it is called Dusk and was a club colorway. It doesn't appear to be on the shop yet  but should be soon. I think it was June's colorway so it will be out this month or next month I believe.)

It's amazing how, if you keep your Ravelry project page updated you can see how many projects you have going at once. I'm amazed to find that I actually don't have that many so I'm thinking of starting a lovely cushy shawl for fall. I'm even thinking about using some nom. I have 2 skeins of a colorway that's very autumny and I think it would be perfect! Now to find just the right, simple pattern. I'm sure I have one in my queue.

Silk Mittens with Dyelot Issues

Let's discuss dye lots shall we?
You know how you often see those messages on patterns or even on yarn that state: Make sure you buy enough to finish your project in case of dyelot changes? Well, the same applies if you are dyeing your own fiber for a project.

Let's examine my silk mittens. These are knit from silk hankies or mawatas that have been pulled out into a yarn-like thickness and then knit. There's no spinning involved. They've been pretty popular the last few years. When I thought about trying the process, I couldn't just run out and buy the fiber already dyed, no, I had to try dyeing it myself.

It really is a fairly simple process, the same as dyeing any other animal fiber. Notice the difference though? The top of the left mitten (they are interchangeable, it's just the left one in the photos) and the thumb are darker. Yup, I ran out of dyed mawatas and had to dye more. I didn't get them to come out exactly the same but to me, it was close enough so I decided to just use them anyway. It's silk after all, you don't want to waste it! The color was dubbed "Mermaid's Tears" by a friend at Knit night and I think that's funny so it stuck. You can find my Rav page about them here.
I think the color is close enough that it doesn't really bother me that it's a little different but when I finished them and showed them to my dad, the first thing he said was, "How come the top of that mitten is a different color?"
*sigh* Muggles.
Ah well, they will still be lovely this winter.
Speaking of silk though, I  have agreed to teach a class at the Upper Midwest Fall Fiber Fest this year. It's all about silk! Here is the Ravelry group for the Festival, although my class is not listed yet, if you're interested, keep an eye out.