Marilinda socks

Last week I bought Cookie A's book, Knit.Sock.Love. and a skein of Baah yarn at Stash in Corvallis, Oregon. It is a gorgeous hot pink skein of superwash merino and I spent an hour going through the book, deciding on a pattern. I finally picked Marilinda, for the beautiful heel. I have not knit a sock with the foot pattern running all the way down the heel. So gorgeous and fun to knit. I am going to have to buy a pair of clogs just to show these socks off!

The lace chart for this pattern is very straight forward and I picked it up pretty quickly. I love knitting lace so much, and these socks have so much to offer! The cables are just fantastic and I love the use of the double yarn over. I feel so smart when I am working of these socks.

If you haven't checked out this book, you really should. It is not available online for less than $200 that I have found (however you can buy the digital book for $16.95 on Ravelry), but my local yarn store had it, so you should check yours. I want to knit nearly every sock in here.

So I was on a yarn diet at some point this year, and fell off the wagon, and am trying to get back on. I did buy two skeins of sock yarn this week, and I am swearing to myself that these will be the last before I move in May! Seriously, no more yarn for me!

I bought these online at Eat.Sleep.Knit. Beautiful, right? I know these will be amazing socks, and I'm really excited to try these yarns. The green one is Sweet Georgia Yarn in Lettuce Wrap and the blue one is Tanis Fiber Arts in Peacock. Gorgeous!

But seriously, no more yarn for me. No more.

Ha.

Happy knitting!

WIP Wednesday take 3

I have two things this week, but I fear one of them will never reach their finished object state: my lovely Clandestine socks. These are so beautiful and so consuming... in more ways than one. I cast on the second sock with trepidation. Would I have enough yarn? Of course I will! I always have gobs leftover from socks. It will be fine. 

Famous last words.

My second sock still has two repeats of the lace pattern to go before the heel, and I really don't think it's going to make it to there. I contacted the dyer of Gynx Yarn, Laura, to see if she magically had a half a skein, but she didn't. She does have another skein if I want it, which brings me to my next conundrum.
How much is too much for a single pair of socks? I love sock yarn, quality sock yarn, and it's not cheap. It's not super expensive and I have no trouble with the fact that most of my socks contain $20 or so worth of yarn. But $40? For a single pair of gorgeous socks? I just don't know.

And there might be enough yarn here, but with a pattern this labor intensive, it's hard for me to want to knit them with the thought of running out of yarn looming in my mind.  So I put them on a spare pair of DPNs, and they will sit for a while, until I decide what to do.

But what cures the "I've run out of yarn" blues? Stripey socks! Stripy socks out of my Cakewalk yarn leftovers. I have been dying to knit these up long before I even had the scraps. The amazing Susan B. Anderson knit some patchwork socks ages ago and I remember I wanted to participate in the KAL she was hosting so bad! But I had only knit two pairs of socks, so I didn't have all the lovely leftover bits. But now, a year later. I have six pairs of socks out of Cakewalk Footsie alone, and my stripey patchwork socks are looking amazing!

Can you believe I started these this morning? I'm already to the heel on the first sock! This is the perfect palette cleansing knit. I have a feeling that when I am done with these, I will be ready to take on my Clandestine sock once again :-)

Happy knitting!

Linking up with Tamis Amis for WIP Wednesday.

WIP Wednesday

I am still working on the same two pairs of socks, but I have tons of pictures to share :-) I got my camera out on Monday when it was sunny and got some great pictures -- the color is really true to life in these.

The blue one is a Cookie A pattern, Clandestine. 

It is a challenging lace pattern and I love it!

 I can't wait to finish the pair. 

The leg goes on forever! 7 inches of delightful lace :-)

The pink one is Business Casual, and I turned the heel on the second sock last night. 

I should have a working pair by Friday! 

The Business Casual sock is single cables, but I worked 

them as twisted stitches. It is much faster and the result is a 

little neater I think. There are lots of ways to work twisted stitches, but I 

like the way Alice Yu works them in her Farmer McGregor socks,

so that is how I did mine. It is very similar to this technique, only

for a left twist Alice slips both stitches one at a time knitwise,

and then passes them back to the left needle. This makes it 

easier to knit through the back loop of the stitches. 

My knitting attacked me so many times on this sock.

I had to do major surgery during my gusset decreases.

I got all confused by the cables and my stitch count was 

off -- major Fiasco! It still has a wonky hole, but I 

cheated and sewed it up afterwards. 

I am the boss of my knitting! 

They make such a cute pair :-) 

Happy knitting!

Linking up with Tami's Amis and Other Creations

WIP Wednesday!

It is 10 PM in Oregon, and I have had an insane day (mostly insanely awesome, but also crazy loooong) but I am bound and determined to show you what I have for Work in Progress Wednesday!

First up we have my first Clandestine sock! This is a Cookie A pattern and I love it. This is my first Cookie A sock and I know it won't be the last. It is a very challenging knit, but in a good way. It is a lovely lace pattern that is charted and easy enough to follow, but I do recommend a row counter! It's been easy for me to loose my spot and there is more than one goof. This pattern is a free pattern from Knitty! Get it here.

This sock has been a bear to photograph and I will try and get some pictures in natural light tomorrow. The yarn is so dark! It really looks amazing in real life. The yarn is Gynx Yarn in Merino Sock base, colorway Midnight Blue. I love Laura's yarn! So delightful to work with.

Normally I am a very monogamous knitter when it comes to my socks. This is mostly because I only have one US 1 set of Addi Turbos. But after finishing my first Clandestine sock, I decided to take a break before sock two and knit some Business Casual Socks, which is another free pattern. The Celtic Cast On is doing a KAL with this pattern, and after seeing some FOs, I had to join in!

I cast this on last night! I'm already at the start of the heel flap -- wonderful pattern! I am knitting this with my most favorite sock yarn ever, Cakewalk Yarn. Rose has an amazing way with color, and I have so much to say about her yarns, I will devote an entire future post to her. But for now I will say, go look at her yarns! You won't be able to resist a skein or two. My Business Casual sock is in the Walk base, and the colorway is Grantia, which is discontinued. It is a lovely pink, but not to fear! Rose has many other lovely pinks :-)

I am loving this pattern, and I do have a lot to say about it, but not right now. I am so tired! But I leave you with this video about business socks :-) After all, it is Wednesday!

Happy knitting!