FO Friday!

I have a finished object! This is the first pair of socks I finished in a long time, and I am in love with them! The pattern is Business Casual and it is a free pattern. It is a very well written, easy to follow pattern and I recommend it highly.

I used some Cakewalk yarn I had in my stash. It is the Walk base, in the colorway Grantia. This colorway has been discontinued.

I have not knit a pair of socks with the Walk base before, but it will not be the last. It is a delightful two ply and they are so squishy! I never want to take them off :-)

For as simple as this pattern is, I did have some trouble with it. It was my fault -- I get over excited sometimes and stop using my brain. But I fixed it, and my flubs don't show, much :-) I used this technique to work the traveling stitches. It is super easy and so fast! Much faster than working the stitch like a cable. Twisted stitches are a great skill to have.  The socks on my banner, my Farmer McGregor socks, also use twisted stitches.

Have a great weekend! Happy knitting :-)

Linking up with Tamis Amis 

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

Dream Knitting

I have a lot of sock yarn in my stash. And since I have two pairs of socks already going, I am of course day dreaming about what to knit next.

I am a sucker for variegated yarns, and I have a few skeins of delightful Cakewalk yarn that need to be something amazing.

The top is Cakewalk in Maeby, the orangey one

is Cakewalk in Aztec Tomb, and the rainbow is 

Candy Skein yarn in Rainbow Fruit Chews.

I go a little bit crazy when I don't know what I am going to cast on next! Good crazy :-) Pattern hunting crazy!

Here are a few of the patterns I'm thinking about:

Sunday Swing Socks

These socks were made with hand painted yarns in mind, and I think my skein of  Aztec Tomb would look amazing in this! It also looks like a quick knit, but with some character. And a free pattern, who doesn't love that?

Aztec Tomb, named after Gob's magic

trick in Arrested Development. It is 

orange and pinks and reds. 

Maeby

I found this pattern after searching different names of characters in Arrested Development on Ravelry. I love this pattern for so many reasons -- cables! Yum! -- but most of all, I have a skein of the Maeby colorway! And how awesome would it be to have Maeby socks in Maeby yarn?

Maeby :-) It is pink and purple with speckles of

orange and darker purple.

Spring Prairie

These socks are published by Yummy Yarn Studio, and are just one of many of their socks that I want to knit so bad! These socks look like spring, and I want them on my feet when the sun comes back. However, I don't have yarn in my stash that would do these justice. And I am on a yarn diet, so they will have to wait.

Crusoe

I have had this free pattern in my queue for quite awhile. I have a skein of Candy Skein's Rainbow Fruit Chews and it is a very bright yarn! I tried to knit it once, but the pattern didn't fit the yarn. These Crusoe socks might have been designed for my rainbow yarn! So excited knit these up.

Blue and red and green and yellow! So bright and happy :-)

Rainbow Fruit Chews indeed!

I hope these patterns give you some inspiration. What are you dream knitting?

Favorite Pattern Friday :-)

A favorite pattern I want to tell you about today is Cabled Yumminess by Shelley Scholl. This is a toe up pattern, but would be very easy to adapt to a cuff down pattern if that is what you prefer.

This is my pair of Cabled Yumminess in 

Cakewalk Yarn, colorway Pink Lemonade.

If you hadn't tried toe-up before, I highly recommend it. Judy's Magic Cast On is an amazing skill to learn. It is a little tricky at first, but once you get the hang of it, it's just as easy as other cast ons. Toe-up works best with the Magic Loop method. I knit my fist Cabled Yumminess sock on DPNs, and it was very tricky. I bought a set of Addi Turbos after I finished the first sock and flew through the second sock. One of the things I love about Magic Loop is it is very easy to try your sock on as you are knitting it, so you can check your fit.

Staci from verypink.com has a great video on Magic Loop. It's not as scary as you might think! And it can be used for more than just socks. I've knit hats and cowls and sweater sleeves with Magic Loop. 

Another great skill to test out on these simple cable socks is cabling without a cable needle. Once again, Staci has a great video on this skill. So simple! Your cables will fly by :-)

This pattern calls for an afterthought heel. I used a modified short row heel instead. I would love to knit these again and go for the afterthought heel. I love trying out different heels. 

I hope you check this pattern out! Happy knitting :-)

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!

Favorite Pattern Friday!

I don't knit fast enough on my socks to have FOs every Friday, so I will instead share my favorite socks patterns! I will stick to free ones when I can.

The first sock pattern I want to share with you is Vanilla socks. Everyone needs a good Vanilla sock pattern to whip out when you need some palette cleansing knitting or you have self- striping/ highly varigated yarn that can't handle a stitch pattern. There are tons of Vanilla socks patterns out there, but this one is my favorite: Susan B. Anderson: How I make my socks

This is one of my first Vanilla socks. 

The yarn is Cakewalk Yarns in the "Podcast Junkie" colorway.
You can buy this yarn here  :-)                                   

The reason I love this pattern is that is it very straight forward and detailed a the same time. After my first and second sock diasters (and a three month break), this pattern saved me from being a knitter who hated socks and instead turned me into a sock knitting machine! I love that is has links to tutorials and talks about stitch counts and really gives you the bones of a sock. And Susan is so lovely -- I stalk her blog :-)

The one thing this pattern doesn't talk about is negative ease. Your sock length is not the same as the length of your foot. You should always use negative ease, or your sock will be long and floppy. The general rule of thumb is that your sock length should be 10% less than the total length of your foot, heel to toe. For me this means I knit my socks one inch shorter than the actual length of my foot. This rule also applies to the circumference -- take an inch off your measurements to keep the sock from falling down around your ankle. Make sense?

This is my most resent Vanilla sock. I used the Totally Vanilla

pattern from the book Socktopus by Alice Yu, but it is 

really similar to Susan's pattern. The yarn is Abstract

Cat BBL in the Autumn Fun colorway.

So that sums up my first Favorite Pattern Friday! Hope you check it out and let me know what you think about it :-)

Have a great weekend and happy knitting!