Gold Medal Progress

Yup! Sock #1 of the Olympic socks done, cast off and sewn up. I just cast it off! I purposely took a crappy pic for you because I can't wait to show you the finished project. They are lovely. Simply, perfectly, amazingly lovely and I'm so excited to get #2 off the needles and stretch these babies out and show you the pattern. To date my most favorite pair of socks I've ever made. I'm completely a Cookie A convert! Her patterns are straight forward and easy to read, not to mention stunning. I'll definately have the guts to try more of her stuff!!

I think I'm definately going to sign myself up for more projects next Olympics because while these socks have been fun, I know I could have knit more. Next year, more challenges! So far it's been pretty fun!

I've hit a baby snag in the sock progress this evening... I've been distracted by this:

I finally got my grubby little paws on the New Vogue Knitting. It's a good thing too, especially if my paws are grubby because the mitten pattens in this magazine are so nice- they'll make a lovely cover to said grubby paws! Just look at these...

I. WANT. TO. MAKE. THEM. RIGHT. NOW! Oh tempting and lovely projects... why do you taunt me?

Okay, must dash- I've got an Olympic sock to finish and baby hats to make so I can move onto bigger and more exciting projects. Can I finish sock #2 before the weekend? Only time will tell!

My First Olympic Start!

(This is obviously not my photograph- but it belongs to these lovely people)

Nothing kicks off an olympic start quite like fireworks! Day 1 of my official Olympic quest saw some good knitting action! (You'll note I'm using new Addi Turbo double pointed needles and OH MY do I love them!)

My goal is to have sock one done around Wed- I better hear some cheering to motivate!! The pattern is challenging, (whoo boy challenging!) it's definately a "knit alone" type of project, because any distraction, including conversation would probably result in a pretty grevious error!

I thought I'd also update you on the sock project of my "travel" sock. My travel sock is a sock I keep in my purse that usually gets dragged to work and various other locales... progress tends to be slower since I really only knit on them when time permits or over lunch hours, but they're starting to come along nicely.

I appreciate that it's kind of funny I'm knitting two projects with blue yarn right now - but not to worry, both are a pleasure to knit with. I'm using the Dream in Color Smooshy for my Olympic sock and the ShiBuiKnits and both yarns have a lovely "sproigy-ness" that makes knitting them a very pleasant process.

I've also had a bit of a falling down (HARD) on the old yarn diet.

This red Bernat acrylic (ack!) is destined for baby blanket stardom. I'm currently designing a top secret project for some friends and that's going to be the color. Curious? I can justify this addition to the stash because I know I'm going to use it fairly soon.

This stash acquisition, (the softest bamboo ever!) This is Kertzer's "On Your Toes" and I can't really explain how I ended up buying it. I blame mob mentality.

You see I went to the Make 1 Friday afternoon knitting, and this was being stacked on the shelves while I was there- the minute it hit the floor the ladies were on this like white on rice! Caught with the concern that I would be left out of a really great yarn deal, ($11.97 skein!) both the MiL took our pick of the colors before everything got scooped up. I couldn't help my self! It was SO soft. I had to have it. HAD TO. Okay!? Stop looking at me like that!

Okay- well I need to get back to work on the Olympic sock- much to do before the time is up! Socks don't knit themselves!

Going for Gold

When I was a little girl I had one dream: to win a gold medal for Canada. Now, my preferred way to do this was through figure skating, except that I lacked grace, skills, poise and the ability to be coordinated for longer than 2 minutes. With my Olympic dreams dashed and the truth painfully obvious that athletic and myself do not belong in the same sentence, I conceded my dream to win any medals for Canada at the Olympics.

Except my friends the winds have change have blown in my favor, and my Olympic dream is now being realized! I have answered the call from my country, and I will proudly be representing her in the “Ravelympics” in the “Sock Put” event.


(I am terribly proud of myself for creating this graphic with my crappy Photoshop skills!)

For those not in the know- I’ve been challenged to a somewhat daunting task. Knit a project, starting from the opening ceremonies of the Summer Olympics and see it to conclusion before the end of the closing ceremonies, 17 days later. I signed up for team Canada and chose from the numerous events my task, the “Sock Put”.

With the new yarn nestled in my stash, and the Marilinda socks reminding me that I have a goal to knit something from each retreat designer, choosing my task was simple. Long time readers of the blog may be wondering where the challenge is here, given that I’ve knit a pair of socks in less time and so, for interest’s sake, I shall spell it out here. Time to knit these socks is going to be few and far between, aside from being the most complicated pattern I’ve knit to date I will be away and busy during the Olypmic time, and knitting time will be sparse.

Can I do it? Will I proudly display my medal for all to see? Will Adonis Dionysis Bobicus Maximus


(who bears a striking resemblance to Ravelry mascot “Bob”) present me my gold? Only time will tell.

Behold... my accessory of choice, the newly acquired "Dream in Color Smooshy" in Midnight Derby. They shall be gold winning socks!

Stay tuned to the blog for your Ravelympic updates!

I'm On a Roll!!

Um? Holy crap... I finished another pair of socks!



Sock #3 for the Summer of Socks completed and off the needles. These were supposed to be my break from the mind bending "Marilinda socks" that are on hold until my Loopy order arrives. (The less said about how long the Canadian customs folks take to clear my yarn, the better....) I'm going to need another brain breather when those eventually get on the needles! (Good thing I have three more skeins of self striping yarn!)

Pattern: Yarn Harlot's Basic Sock Pattern
Needles: US 1
Yarn: Online Supersocke Cotton Beach Color 83
Thoughts: There is something inherently satisfying seeing the stripes "magically" appear while you knit them. Self striping sock yarns are fabu simply because they make your project look 20 times harder than it actually is! I'm not loving the yarn so much, very splitty, but it's kind of an ends to a mean thing- sometimes you suffer through less than stellar yarn for it's results. Let's look at them again shall we? Oooooo....



I'm especially proud of the way I was careful to line up the stripes on the sock. Special attention needs to be paid when you knitting if you like matching socks, something I'm rather anal retentive about. Check out how closely the stripes line up on the socks: (the picture below best illustrates the line matching..)


Yeah. I'm good.

I've also been fiddling around with a few mindless project ideas for my Breast Cancer run team this October. I'd like to make something for the people who choose to run, or walk in my case, on my Run for a Cure team- and I'm experimenting with a few ideas. Idea number one... please forgive me, this is the first time I've ever attempted duplicate stitch, so this is a project that can be improved upon.

It took me about an hour and half to knit this little coffee sleeve. I could probably grind these out pretty quickly at the last minute, (when I tend to save things to), but am I going to feel satisfied giving these to everyone? Or, can I do more? (Says the girl who is woefully behind the baby hats she needs to have knitted to be on track for 52... not to mention the socks she plans to knit for the knitting retreat.)

Otherwise I managed to survive two major knitting events this week:

1) The Make 1 Sale, which I decided not to attend, no matter how badly I wanted to go. I've decided that I'm weak to a good deal on yarn, and don't always buy what I necessarily need. In my effort to respect the stash management, I opted to not go, and instead reward myself with a Loopy order if I continue to wittle away at the stash this summer. Oh please knit gods let my "Rainbow Black" yarn still be there when I allow myself to "fall off the wagon" again.

2) I surived the great Ravelry server crash of July 08, furthmore known here as SUNDAY BLOODY SUNDAY. This may not be a big deal to you, but my favorite yarn, pattern and overall knitting database wasn't working properly and I was practically frantic about it coming back so I could download a pattern. Ravelry has changed the life of most knitters, and I'm a full blown addict. So many knitters are relying on Ravelry to store their new patterns that they aren't posting their patterns to their blogs anymore, only to Ravelry for a free dowload. Imagine my horror when I finished a sock and couldn't download the next pattern I was going to knit. I was frantic, I was pacing, I was updating the husband every 20 minutes on the status as if he cared, (*gasp* I don't think he did... what kind of heartless person did I marry?!) and ultimately was forced to go and knit something I had kind of abandoned on the needles. (Hello pink sweater...)

While the crash had my fingers itching to get back on to the site to see if I missed anything, it was good to get re-focused on the sweater... enough so that I'm actually interested in knitting it again. So there you go- despite the SEVERE withdrawl symptoms I had from the website it actually forced me to go back and work on something and regain interest in it. So, at least some good came out of the devasting 10 hours Ravelry wasn't working properly. (Seriously though folks- don't let that happen again, I was breathing into a paper bag and overall trying to not hypervenilate over the whole thing. An addict of this degree should never be forced to quit for that long at a time!)

So- as you can tell, it's been a busy week over here... and I need to get back to my knitting.

I Couldn't Resist...

I bought yarn.... and I don't even feel bad about it! This is Linea Baby, Baby Star yarn. It's 100% Merino and a lovely sport weight.

It is evident that I cannot resist a "good deal" on yarn. Some good deals are so good you simply cannot pass them up! That's what happened here. While on a routine "walk by", I walked into Pudding Yarns and stumbled on their Stampede sale. A quick peak into the 75% off bin and I discovered this perfectly cute merino yarn and the store practically paid me to buy it. This entire collection of stash cost me $9. An AMAZING deal given that regularly priced this stuff was $8.95 a ball! I practically stole it at that price! I bought enough to make a baby sweater I have in mind. That price is so good I'm tempted to go back and buy the remaining 3 skeins of it and make ME something. But, well, I don't want to be ridiculous!

This brings me to my next dilema, the big ole Make 1 Summer sale that coming up next Saturday. If you recall, at Christmas the MiL and I went on a yarn binge, if you will, at their sale and well, I know the prices are good enough to make me consider a good old binge session again. It seems I'm pretty good at yarn binging, but the purging takes a little longer. (It DOES happen though... just at a slightly slower rate...)

And this is just proof that I DO eventually purge the yarn. The Plain Jane socks are moving slower than expected, but I suspect that all the Stampeding we've been doing has been effecting the progress. This is yarn that I bought at the Make 1 Christmas sale, so there you go- I DO eventually get to it!

More Socks for Summer

You know, it feels a little weird knitting warm woolen socks in the summer- but I can't help it! They're such an addicting project!! In record time, Sock #2 of the summer of socks are off the needles and completely done. (From June 27 - July 4!)


Pattern: Spring Forward by Linda Welch
Yarn: Koigu KPPM (*slobber*)
Needles: US size 1
Thoughts: Quick and addicting little knit. I would definately knit this pattern again. I love how all the wiggles look like waves on the socks!


With those off the needles I decided to move on to a major challenge, sock #2 in my quest to knit a pattern by all the designers at the retreat, Cookie A's Marilinda socks. Holy! Intimidating! Batman! I bought the pattern, pulled the yarn out of the stash and cast them on and got ready to go.


Once I got into the pattern though- it was obvious that I was going to hit a snag in my plans. The yarn pools. (I doubt you can see it well enough in the picture above.) The varigation in the yarn doesn't spread evenly and instead I somehow managed to have a "dark" side and a "light" side. This pattern is complicated and impressive enough that I don't want it to be lost in bad pooling in the color of the yarn. After much discussion with the husband, he gave me the go ahead to break the yarn diet and order up something that will be similar and serve the right purpose for the pattern. I remembered seeing a yarn on the much loved Loopy Ewe that mentioned that it was subtly varigated to avoid the color pooling that sometimes occurs with hand painted yarn. And so, in what can only be referred to as enormous restraint, (afterall I only ordered what I needed and not what I wanted {because let's face it what I wanted was about 12 other skeins also} ), I put my order for Dream in Color Smooshy's Midnight Derby.** (PS- if you ever feel so inclined to, I've attached a link to my Loopy Ewe wishlist on the sidebar there so you can see what I've been lusting so heavily after.)

Before the yarn pooling incident occured, a few rows into knitting Cookie's pattern my brain started to hurt. This woman designs the most stunning socks- but they're also not for the faint hearted knitter. (Although her patterns are incredibly thorough, organized and well written.) The chart is complicated and I was using techniques that I never had before. So, to have a little break from all that focused knitting I cast on the simplest, plainest of socks-


Ah brain break socks! They're even self striping yarn! I imagine there will be pictures of these up shortly too. Feels good to be stash busting!

** I kind of love Sheri over at the Loopy Ewe- she runs such a great company. I'd say about 28 minutes elapsed between the time of my order and the email I got to say it was shipped! That's the kind of "wow" service you rarely get these days!

Kicking Off the Summer of Socks

Yes! That is the long awaited Whisper Lace socks, off the needles and on the feet!

Pattern: Whisper Lace Socks

Needles Size: US 1

Yarn: Koigu KPPM (*slobber*)

Thoughts: Such a pretty, girly pattern. The minute my mom saw them, she squealed-which means she'll probably be the proud new owner. My one regret with these socks is that it was the wrong pattern for the yarn, and the prettiness of the pattern is lost in the variagation. (Click the Whisper Lace link to see the pattern without all the colors.) That's not to say anything negative about the koigu (blasphemy!), but the pattern is really cool to knit see. I'll probably knit these again some time, in a plain colorway.

As if finally having these socks off the needles isn't enough to celebrate over here, I cast on the newly popular Spring Forward socks for my road trip to Regina.

Before I left for my trip they looked like this:

Upon returning home they looked more like this. I knit these up fast!!

That's ONE completed sock and another leg finished! Talk about a quick knit! This pattern is great, although the cuff is a little tight and next time I'd probably knit it on slightly bigger needles. (Do they even make 1.5?) Much better pictures will show up on the blog upon the completion of sock #2.

Next in the shoot I need to figure out what sock I'm going to put on the needles next. I need to get another retreat designer finished up so I'm on schedule to making a sock by each designer on the retreat in November. It feels good to be shifting my focus back to projects I'm interested in instead of projects that make me less than excited. Looking forward to knitting up the sock yarn stash this summer!

Breathing Again...

Well... there's one sock! Think I had enough for #2?

I did! Thank God I did!!!!! Both socks are stunning and while I had a near heart attack knitting the last one, worrying with every stitch that I was going to run out of yarn, I didn't- even had a little teeny bit left over!! The pictures of the socks here pay homage to the pattern name- I'm standing on a map of Connecticut! This is one of those patterns you knit to impress the heck out of your friends-- it's a lot less complicated than it looks. (And it looks so pretty!!!)

Pattern: "New England Socks" by Nancy Bush from "Knitting on the Road"

Yarn: Cherry Tree Supersock in "Natural"

Needles: US 0

(Do socks ever look bad on Sock blockers?) With the New England socks off the needles and my heart returning to normal palpatations, I also squeezed out a few more projects this week - behold... HATS O PLENTY! (I'm almost caught back up to the goal again!)

With the socks done I can turn my focus on to more interesting pursuits- like the pretty pink Powder sweater that's been sitting in my Ravelry que for quite some time. I'm not loving the yarn so far- and it sadly won't knit to gauge so this sweater is going to require a little "gauge math" to ensure a pretty finished product. Cross your fingers for me that I'll be pleased with the results! Below is the waist band completed (and blocked!) as well as the gauge swatch.

And that, ladies and gentleman, was my very productive week! It's amazing what you can get done when you assume breathing normally again!

Anxiety Attack

I am at MAXIMUM anxiety levels right now. In fact if I inserted a fancy little graph to show you my anxiety out of 100- it would be off the charts.

I'm knitting the New England socks, sock#2. I've got a pattern and a half of the repeat as well as the toe to complete and I just don't know if I'll run out of yarn or not. There are moments when I think to myself that it will be fine and then there are moments where I'm nearly breathless in fear that I won't have enough and THEN WHAT? I could order another skein of the yarn from the infamous Loopy Ewe - but it kind of defeats the purpose of stash busting (and creating room in the stash to justify further Loopy purchases) as well as running the risk of a mismatched dyelot. (Alternatively all would not be lost as I do have other pattern ideas for the extra yarn.)

And so I knit on, trembling in fear of what might be. Running out of yarn would be bad.... very bad.

We shall have our verdict soon- cross your fingers!

Rain Can Be Good Too!

Many good people in Calgary are currently bemoaning all the rain we've had. While I agree that I am SO. OVER typhoon season here, (or so it feels), the rain has served one very useful purpose- time to knit. It's too miserable to go outside- and thus provides the perfect opportunity for prime knitting time.

Check out what I accomplished this weekend!

Uh yah, that would be a blanket, two socks and two hats. Holy productivity Batman!

First on the finished list was the Runk Baby Blanket.

Pattern: Leisure Arts "Baby Chevron" by Kay Meadors

Needles: US size 9

Yarn: Bernat Satin in White and three Blue variations

Notes: There's no doubt about it, the pattern knits up beautifully, and the finished product is pleasing. However with each color change comes endless ends to weave in- and well, the lazy knitter in me just groans at the mere thought of it. I also ran out of white yarn earlier than expected and only knit this approximately 34" vs. the regular 40" blanket size I knit. Personally I like the smaller size, (ends the pain earlier), but kind of felt like I was cheating to be done so much shorter than normal.

Here's another close of shot for your viewing pleasure:

As if that wasn't exciting enough to get that off the needles- I also made HUGE sock progress on the New England Socks - like sock 1. This is a stunning pattern and one I'm certainly going to be proud of upon completion...

... that is if it ever does see completion. (Sorry no full frontal sock shots until #2 is done up.) As usual, I'm having my traditional "OH MY GOD I AM GOING TO RUN OUT OF YARN BEFORE I FINISH THIS SOCK" panic attack.

Does this look like enough yarn to you? EEK. I'm motivated to knit this sock as quickly as possible only so that I can see if my fears are confirmed or not. I honestly don't know what I'm going to do if I'm right about freaking out. I suppose I can hunt it down on Ravely, (what did knitters ever do before Ravelry?), but let's all collectively cross our fingers and hope it doesn't come to that. The leg is a lot longer than a typical sock I make-- and it's got me in panic mode!

There's even more finished items to view! The whisper lace sock is finally cast off for one and cast on for the other. (Personal rule- always immediately cast on sock #2, or you never will.) I'm regretting the variagated yarn selection. The pattern is quite intricate and pretty, but completely lost in all the colors of the yarn. I had anticipated it to blend a little more subtley- but I suppose you learn something each time you knit.

And lastly- as if all of this wasn't already blowing your knitting minds- I added two more baby hats to the total. (OH LORD am I behind on this!)

They're cute, they're simple- they're baby hats.

It looks like the weather is promising to be gross right through to the weekend again- at this rate I'm going to RUN OUT OF STASH YARN. (But I don't mind, it just means I get to buy more sooner- and OH DEAR LORD do I want to buy yarn badly right now.

That's it for this week- feels good to have taken a big chunk off the "to finish" list!