Stages of Knitting

I have returned to sock knitting.  These are really "leftover" socks but because the yarns are so beautiful, they are making beautiful socks.  I think I am at the point of heels, or just about, and that part always slows me down.

Last week I had to take a few steps backward.  I discovered that the bind-off I had done on the button band was too tight and it kept the band from hanging right.  And it is to be remembered that the band went from the bottom of one front panel, all the way around the neckline to the bottom of the other front panel.  I have no idea how many stitches there were but I got to take them all out and here you see me redoing the bind-off.  I searched through several loose bind-offs and chose the Latvian one.

This mess is a sleeve.  You may remember that I forgot to knit the sleeves on this "all knit at one time" sweater.  So I knit them after the body was done and now I am readying them to be put on the shoulders. 

I had thought to just knit the sleeves onto the body but couldn't figure out how to do it without having a "bump".  So I am currently binding them off, same as the button band, and then I will attach them.

I decided that once I begin sewing the seams of this sweater together it will be time to start on the cowl below.  I am only planning to do the smaller cowl, not the larger one below, but it will look much the same.  I bought the yarn above but have left it in the bag until the sweater is almost completed.  Next week I will put this yarn on the swift and wind it into two balls and begin.  Of course I am going to watch the Very Pink video tutorial one more time, just to familiarize myself with how to do the pattern.  I am really excited as this will be the first fairisle I have done with hand knitting.  Someday I will show some of the things I machine knit several years ago.

Last weekend we had a bunch of family in our house:  two of our children, and their spouses, two grandchildren and their spouses, a granddaughter-in-law, 3 great grandchildren, and 6 dogs (4 are ours).  We had a wonderful time with lots of laughs and quite often 2 and 3 different conversations going on at the same time.  This went on both Saturday and Sunday morning.  Both Eric and I were energized all the way until Monday morning when the energy started to ebb.  It took until Thursday before I got any energy back:  I was really a slug Tuesday and Wednesday. 

One of the things I did work on while I was "just sitting" was to sort through lots of embroidery designs, thinking about what I want to do for Christmas.  Last year, while I was bed bound, I knit washcloths for family members.  This year I want to do something different.  So I have put my thinking cap on and am searching for ideas.  Anyone want to help?

Gari

Happy Anniversary

It is hard to believe but this sweater is finally finished.  I had all the parts knit by the end of October but panicked when it came time to seam them together.  But last week I decided that it had to be completed as I wanted to wear it on our anniversary, which interestingly is today.

 

And since we have been having cold weather I decided I needed a cowl to go with the sweater. 

 

I still need to block these and then decide if I am going to put a closure on or not.

 

 

I paid a visit to my local yarn shop where the owner is beginning to dye her own yarn “exclusively” for her customers.  I found this skein of yarn and a pattern called something like “rib error.”  The funny thing is that this is not what it looked like so I guess this is a rib errors error.  Anyway I really like how this turned out.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So much so that I made a cowl to match the hat.

Of course all that meant that I was out of that yarn: what’s a knitter to do?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So I bought these two recently hand dyed skeins of yarn.  I said I wanted to knit bright socks so how’s this?

 

 

Well, and this is the yarn I decided to use to begin a new pair of socks (yes, I bought three different skeins). This is the milder of the three but I am working myself up to BRIGHT.

 

 

 

 

 

I need to get back to the short sleeved sweater but

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I had started these socks before I bought the above yarn so I want to finish them first.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So what do cool people do to celebrate their 54th anniversary?  Yes, they go to see Paddington.  As I said, our anniversary is today but we celebrated yesterday.  Having given it some thought I decided that Saturday would mean a theater full of little children but Friday might not.  And I was so right.  The movie was great: we will get it again to see at home.  And afterward we did some antiquing, ate out and finished our day in the big city with a stop at Dunkin for coffee and, of course, donuts.

 

 

And now we are back to our daily lives and beginning our 55th year.  Yay!!       Gari

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

EDIT: 1/23/15

 

Since I only have one additional photo I decided to amend this post rather than write another. 

 

As you can see these socks have grown some this week.  I have been either sewing or gadding about more this week so there has been less knitting.  The orange socks have also grown some but not enough to take time for another picture.  I hope to have more next week.   Gari