Consumpta nocte.

It may not appear that there has been progress, Reader. It may even appear that this blog, like Enron, promised big things, but, due to a quasi-legal accounting system and amoral trading practices, has actually delivered nothing but rolling blackouts to the state of California. I assure you that this is not the case. Pay no attention to that bank account in the Cayman Islands. That's my retirement fund, and I like to fill the hot tub with Cristal.

No, I measure progress these days by Buffy episodes watched; and we, dear Reader, are almost done with the third season. That's a lot of episodes. We have slogged through some not very good ones for the sake of the knitting time they bring us. All for you. All for you. Except for when it was for me.

First up: finally, god help me, I finished the mates of the two socks I've been blogging about for ages, and they're blocked and ready for wear just in time for a hot, humid Jersey summer. If you have a yen to visit Jersey in the summer, ever, put your head inside of a plastic bag and breathe in your own warm, damp carbon dioxide for awhile (not for too long; don't hurt yourself. Also, never use plastic bags to line your baby's crib. That's a free tip from you to me). That's what it feels like, and now I've saved you money on gas.

In any case, I've been living with those socks for a long time, and I'm tremendously glad they're over. I am quite excited about them, however, and very much look forward to wearing them. I'm up to I think four pairs of handknit socks for the winter. I have made socks before, but I've never really had ones that were up to being worn, like, out of doors.

Secondly: I made the Odessa hat for our friend Rosey, who sent us each a felt pillow she had sewn herself. I made the hat out of Lavish Fibres alpaca in charcoal grey. The Odessa is a very popular Magknits pattern by Grumperina, and calls for a DK-weight yarn and about a hundred beads, so I used a worsted weight and no beads, and felt like such a badass. Or I made a boring hat; it's hard to tell. The pattern is a really excellent one--a combination of ssk and yo spaced several stitches apart creates the spiral of the hat, which is most visible from the top. I hope Rosey has some very tall friends who are really into hats. I also hope Rosey isn't allergic to cat hair, because the kitten likes alpaca almost as much as I do. I washed it, Rosey! I swear!

Oh, a final note: I used a circular needle for this hat, the first time I've ever used one. This will become important in just a few moments.

Third: this is a sweater knit by Lilyriver to clothe one small, naked mouse, of whom I have blogged about extensively. Like Graham himself, the sweater was sort of an experiment. Lilyriver has been working through a book called The Sweater Workshop. Graham's sweater was a final exam of sorts, and she did a bang-up job of it--it's really amazing; it has all the details of a big sweater, only very, very tiny (it is unfortunate that Graham is not really the ideal sweater model, as he lacks both a neck and shoulders). L. would blog about this herself, but she's been lying on a chaise drinking mint juleps since she finished it.


Finally--finally--we have reached the part of the post where I show you a picture of a work-in-progress that is not the thing I said I was going to work on the last time I posted. I, too, have succumbed to the lure of Koigu. I'm doing the Monkey pattern from Knitty, by Cookie A, mostly because I was reminded of it on the Yarn Harlot's blog about when I decided to work with this yarn next and partly because I love Cookie A's aesthetic and most of her patterns are way harder than this one. Inspired by my foray into the world of circular needles with the Odessa hat, I've decided to do these socks on two circs. I'll keep you posted. Probably.

The other shoe drops.

After all the business about the sock patterns I wanted to knit, I cast on tonight for an entirely different sock--a pattern called Child's French Sock from Knitting Vintage Socks (again, not a pattern for children, depsite the name). I'm doing it up in a Jawoll superwash that's kind of a spring green. I'm kind of in love with the yarn. Also, I love that Jawoll comes in cute tiny skeins and I don't have to hand wind it. Anyway, I did about ten rows of the ribbing at the top during a couple of episodes of Arrested Development...and will probably now have to abandon the sock for the next month while I write my papers. I do still have my other two plain stockinette socks going, and those should be good for study breaks.

Anyway, the moral of the story is that I fail at having a reasonably-lengthed attention span.

Edited to add: Wait, I actually did have this one on my list. Congratulations, me. I guess?

Part One: Sock Patterns...no, don't run away! Come back!

Um, so I've been looking at sock patterns like crazy lately, mostly because of the massive quantities of sock yarn I've been buying. Trolling for sock patterns and yarn does not equal actually knitting socks, but for the next month, what with the papers and whatnot, my knitting will be sparse and boring. (I cast on for the leg of the mate of the Regia Canadian Colors Eclipse sock I've been working on--no, the first one's not done yet, for, though I decided to go with the simple flap heel, I have not gotten any farther than knitting the flap for it--so I could have something to work on during the movie I projected last Wednesday. Between that, some library knitting, and the pilgrimage to the Princeton* library yesterday, I have maybe 3-4 inches done. My dilemma now is that dropped from 2.5mm needles on the leg to 2.0mm for the foot seems to be a bit too much of a difference, so I think that I'll move up to 2.25 mm needles after I turn the heel. A tighter fabric is better for the heel anyway, right? That would mean, however, that I will have used needles of four different sizes at various stages of this sock, which is ridiculous. Anyway! I hope to continue to plug away at these socks whilst I work on my papers.)

In any case, I thought I'd assemble a list of some patterns I'd like to try, and perhaps the largely silent, but copious (she says optimistically), readers of this blog may care to weigh in (anonymously if necessary) on which they find appealing and what they definitely do not.

I have Nancy Bush's Knitting Vintage Sock Patterns, and I love nearly all the patterns; from it, I'm especially interested in:

1. Gentlemen's Socks. This is my favorite out of the book; the stitch pattern is understated and visually interesting. I'd probably do these in a similar kind of yarn--I am really in love with yarn that's plied with two colors like the Lana Grossa yarn because it produces such a neat heathered effect. I don't have any of the Lana Grossa yarn because--well, if you know me, you know that my buying habits are often perplexing, in that I like to stalk things that I really want and not buy them for a long time, buying, instead, other, cheaper things that are sort of like what I want but are not quite good enough. Luckily, all yarn, some of the more outlandish jacquard patterns notwithstanding, is "good enough," so I can wait until I find a fine deal. Maybe.
2. Miranda Sock; on a model. This is my second favorite pattern. I think I'd do this one in a single-color yarn, or at least a subtly-variegated one. I hate the calf shaping on the sock, though--why is that necessary? It's not as tall as a knee sock. Unless I'm feeling like I really want to learn how to do calf shaping, I'll just use the stitch pattern.
3. Child's French Sock; another picture. Nancy Bush has adapted this pattern for a child's sock to fit a larger foot. I have the perfect yarn for it: some Chinese red/subtly blue-plied sock yarn I got for a song from a destasher on Etsy.

That's all for now, Reader.

*Lilyriver has referred to Princeton as the "pleasure palace of the privileged," which is as apt as it is alliterative.

Labyrinth.

Well, Reader, there has been knitting, but there has not been productive knitting--at least by me. Lilyriver finished her lovely shawl and should make an appearance with it on soon enough. The lace scarf, I'm sorry to say, is going back in my box until I can give it my full attention. Ready, set, May 25.

As soon as my camera battery has been replaced, I'll post pictures of the haul Lilyriver and I got from my grandmother's craft stash. I am pretty pumped about using her needles, especially some of the lovely wooden ones. We also took home her beautiful hardwood lingerie chest, and it's the nicest thing we currently have in our apartment...so we're using it to store yarn.

Learning that my classes today were cancelled, I decided not to get a jumpstart on the papers looming like vultures over my head and instead learn how to make short-row heels. Seven hours later (the seven hours, I'll note, includes frequent yarn-browsing breaks), I have a short-row heeled sock. I do not have a picture of it because my camera battery is dead. I do not have joy coming off me in waves because the heel is full of holes. I'm itching, itching to rip it out and do the usual flap-gusset heel, even though I know I'll never get the short-row business down if I give up now. My short-row heel isn't hideous, and may, with a few clever picked up stitches, be serviceable, but it's not as pretty as all the ones I looked at on Flickr. Mine has this problem and this* problem. The latter problem is fixable through picked up stitches. The former really isn't. It's gotta come out. The only thing that I need to decide is what I'm going to replace it with.

But see, what's killing me is that I've already done the heel three times. For my first two tries, I used two different tutorials and couldn't quite make heads or tails of them. For my third try, I used this one by cosmicpluto, and I know--I know--that there's nothing wrong with the tutorial.

But no, I'll persevere. I'll rip it out a do it a fourth time. But not today. Dear god, not today.

*The other thing that makes me sad about that green patterned sock is that it's yet another discontinued Knit Picks Simple Stripe yarn that I covet. Covet, covet, covet.

I never thought it could happen to me, but....

Remember how I was all like, Pooling? Who cares about pooling? Pooling's great, you damn yarn whiners.

Famous last words.

All I did was drop down a size and a half in needles and the yarn made that crazy giant purple and blue stripe on the foot! It was, I admit, really fun to knit; I could hardly believe my eyes while it was happening. But what happened to the green? How will I ever replicate that effect on the second sock? The answer to the second question is, of course, that there's no way I can. I'm more likely to knit the face of Jesus in the second sock than I am to get that stripe back. And it's cool, but suddenly what I thought might be a tasteful (HA) autumn sock might instead hop in a van and spend its summer following the Grateful Dead.

In other news, I cast on a new sock (not that one's mate, much to the dismay of the long-suffering Lilyriver) with my Regia Canadian Classic Colors Eclipse, and it's knitting up so quickly and easily that I feel kind of bad about it. I have done another couple inches since I took that picture. Another wild colorway, that's for sure. The Regia yarn, it turns out, is really excellent for socks--it's spun quite tightly and doesn't split. It really seems like it'll last forever even if I machine wash and dry. It isn't as soft as the 100% merino wool sock I just made, but I'm sure I'll get more wear out of it.

What fresh hell is this?

In which it proves startlingly difficult to photograph a sock.

Today, Readers, I gave my beige tweed socks a test drive, and while I can't say I'm falling over myself in rapture to the joy of hand knit socks, they were lovely. I think they felted a bit on the bottom, which should not have happened but may prove fortuitous as it should make the fabric stronger.

But the purpose of this post is to showcase the sock at left. I've done the cuff and the top of the foot in a 3x1 rib using size 1.5 dpns (for the foot I'm using 0s). I made the cuff a bit longer than I've done before--it's around six inches--and that might cause me some trouble, as I have some concerns about running out of yarn. I'd just do the toe in a contrasting color, so it wouldn't be a disaster, but it's making me think about learning how to do socks via the toe-up method. In any case, it's another simple design, enabling me to knit while I'm reading (sort of) or screening films in the dark or whatever. The real pleasure of the project is the yarn, which, as I've mentioned before, came from kaleido's Etsy shop. It's 100% merino wool, meaning that it's not superwash and therefore must be handwashed, but 1) I'd probably handwash them anyway and 2) the yarn, without the nylon and the superwash wool treatment, is quite amazingly soft. One may, I realize, have some reservations about the colors (this is not a sock for the faint of heart), but as I've said before, sock knitting is all about putting one's pesky "taste" aside in favor of more interesting knitting. The picture at right I include because it's truer to the actual colors of the sock.

Oh! And the Brittany folks came through and sent me replacements for my snapped needles free of charge. In fact, they sent me an entirely new set, so if you'd like two five inch size 0 dpns, you know who to call.

My only friend: the end.

That's right, ladies and germs: a finished pair of socks! That I am keeping for myself! Forever and ever and ever or until they get holes and probably even after that!

Get ahold of yourself, Bolty darling; you might scare the children.

In any case, the beige tweed socks are done, and they are delightfully warm, and I have only found one mistake (a purl in the ribbing where I should have knit). The yarn--Phildar Preface, as I've mentioned before--is really lovely, both in terms of the colorway (it's hard to to tell from the photo, but the yarn is actually variegated) and feel. I think the brand is Canadian (?) and moderately difficult to get ahold of--mine came from Double Diamond Knits. In any case, I also have a couple skeins in a flat brown; I might use the leftovers from these socks to do heels and toes on those and make some cute socks for next winter. I see yarn in my sleep, you guys.

In sadder news, I'm going to have to frog the green almost-argyles yet again due to purl laddering. My new plan is to put the argyle pattern on only the front of the sock (32 stitches) and do the back 32 in plain stockinette, which seems to come together much better at needle joins. I think I'll probably have to wait until I have better technical skills to do the pattern as it's written.

Be bold; be not too bold.

A joyous post may follow sometime soon about how I learned to walk and chew gum at the same time, but for now, I will note that though I am almostbutnotquite done with my current sock project, I decided to attempt something slightly more challenging--a knit/purl one color argyle pattern from Knit Picks--and am feeling rather exhausted. One problem with knitting on double points is that it can be difficult to pull the stitches tight enough at the joins between the needles; this is particularly a problem if one is trying to join two purl stitches. A way out of this, at least mostly, would be to use two circular needles. I, however, kind of hate circular needles, in the way that one hates things that flummox one, and am not especially inclined to try either the "magic loop" technique with one circ or the double circular needle technique or the double-circ-two-socks-at-once technique either. In any case, I'd forgotten how much trouble the "laddering" effect can be, and it pretty much ruined my first attempt at the argyle pattern; you can see why in the picture. I had to frog about fourteen rows. I decided to go down a needle size (the pattern recommends 2.75mm; I went down to 2.25mm) and also go from using five dpns to four, eliminating one joint and possible site of ladders. The pattern repeats in increments of 16 four times, so having five dpns worked out nicely, but after redoing the 14 rows I ripped out, I think it looks a little better.

The yarn is Knit Picks Essential in Grass, and it's really soft, especially for a superwash yarn. I'm worried about durability, but so far I'm really pleased with how it feels.

Turning over a new leaf.

Quick post of the sock work-in-progress, which I've been messing with whilst I make a dent in my Urania reading. One advantage of a giant book is that it'll stay open on its own. I am not reading or knitting very efficiently, but at least I've turned the heel correctly and begun the long, slow march towards toe decreases.

Lilyriver will post later about our visit to our local yarn shop ("LYS" in knitting blog parlance, apparently; one learns so many things on the internet) so she could get yarn for a shrug. I did not need yarn of any kind, but I got some anyway. I am now on a yarn freeze, for real*. It's called Tofutsies, which I'm sure we can all agree is totally appalling (I'd be happier with "Tofoot," I think), and it's made out of wool, soy, cotton, and crab shells, of all things. I think I'll give this a go next because I'm really excited about the texture. With all of those things in it, you wouldn't think it would be as soft and slick as it is.

*Well, unless I find some Lorna's Laces at a bargain price.