"joy of sox"

i think that i mentioned last year that i had a sock design accepted for a new sock book being published by lark books which will be available this fall.

well, lark books wants to know how obsessed you are with socks and has put up a poll here. deadline for the poll is march 15th. i saw a list of the other designers! i'm not worthy. i'm not worthy.

go take the poll. the results will be published in The Joy of Sox: 30+ Must Knit Designs. my answers were totally pathetic and will never be revealed.

edited to try and fix link! thanks, katie k! i just tried it and it now works.

http://www.surveygizmo.com/s/105003/for-the-love-of-socks-

why i almost never finish

...a pair.

since january, i have managed to finish almost 3 pairs of socks. pretty good, huh?

first, socks for my bil's christmas present. what? christmas was two months ago? hey, i gave him one sock and the yarn to make the mate. what more could he want? he did say that i forgot to include needles. oh well.


then, while i was waiting for the yarn to do some new designs, i joined the leyburn sock kal over at the socks that rawk ravelry group. being that i can't leave well enough alone (and also due to that fact that my 5 stitch quilted lattice looked lousy), i found two other patterns using the same/similar stitch and came up with...

"i am not a lemming, "green", crystalline leyburn socks"
the 3 stitch quilted lattice is from the green merino socks
the cable is adapted from the crystalline socks
the leyburn is just so i can say i am doing the kal

yarn: str, medium in cobblestone county
one of my first bmfa purchases
us 2 (2.75mm) on leg, us 1.5 (2.5mm) on foot

then i finished one of these.

"time in a bottle"
february sotm club kit for theknitter.com
my design

meilenweit arizona #57o7
us 1 (2.25mm) needles
gauge: 9 sts & 12 rows/inch

if you are keeping count with me, that makes 2 pairs. ok, close. i am almost to the toe of the "leyburn".

and then i have this "pair."

on the left is the sock for the may sotm club kit for theknitter.com
on the right is the leg of the april luxury sock club kit for theknitter.com

yeah, sneaky black and white photo so you can't see anything.

yeah! THREE PAIRS OF SOCKS! i know, i worked so hard to make matching jasmine mitts and then i have all these mismatched pairs of socks. d'OH! but i really don't wear them this way.

did i tell you that i am waiting on some more yarn so i can work on a design for the "50 states/50 socks" cd? "somebody stop meeee!" i'm still working on my noro mystery of marie roger scarf and i NEED my jasmine scarf to wear with my mitts.

**go to socks and more for more info about the "50 states/50 socks" cd. previews of some of the socks are being posted there. **

i am going to stitches west on friday to play at the market. i love breathing in all those fiber fumes! yeah!

so, what's going on in your little corner of the world?

and it takes "four"

to make a "pair!" mostly because i am that way.


i was mostly curious as to whether i could get a matching pair of mitts from one ball of mini-mochi. my first ball of yarn was short a few grams and i could not get a matching color sequence which was why i started the left mitt with another ball of yarn. then i noticed that i could get a matching sequence with the second ball. i found what i thought was the same sequence going the same direction and almost finished the 2nd right mitt when i realized that there was a bluish teal and a purplish teal which were now going in the wrong order. being anal, i frogged my 2nd right mitt and started from the opposite end of the ball (which was what i was originally going to do but obviously didn't). so i've knit one left mitt and three right mitts for a "pair." but hey, they match and i am happy!

jasmine fingerless mitts
mini mochi - neptune rainbow

artsy, f*rtsy, modeled picture

now to knit a "matching" scarf! and some socks!!!

jasmine lace fingerless mitts

the pattern is posted and ready to fly! click here!

the pattern for the matching scarf should be ready soon.

and the pattern for socks is still in my head! "danger, will robinson! danger!"

and the shipment of mini mochi has arrived and is available (hopefully) at a lys near you! you're gonna love this stuff.

jasmine fingerless mitts and fun things

this is my favorite color of all the new mini mochis available from crystal palace yarns. unfortunately, the colors are very hard to capture. the blue fades into an aqua which fades into purple, then green, purple, aqua, then blue again. i think it then repeats in that sequence but i am not sure as i am not knitting these from one skein.

jasmine fingerless mitts
mini mochi neptune

i was going to knit the pair from one skein and told myself that fraternal is good but after i got into the first pattern, i couldn't do it. if i had planned ahead and knew the color sequence, i might have started the first mitt in a slightly different spot and could have worked the second mitt from the opposite end of the skein and had matching mitts. unfortunately, that is not what i did so i broke into a 2nd skein which actually started in the same color as the first skein so i didn't have to work too hard to get these to match. now i will try to piece the colors i have left to knit a "matching" jasmine scarf.

i have the pattern for the scarf written and am working on the pattern for the mitts. bad, that i am, i did not take notes when i knit the first one (flame) as a sample, so i am reverse engineering the pattern and writing it down this time. both patterns should be available at the cpy website in a few weeks. i will let you know when. and there are plans for some jasmine socks too.

the good news is that mini mochi has arrived and is available for you to buy and fondle.

i wanted to share this gorgeous bobbin lace heart that my friend, tunie, made me for my christmas tree. she told me that her bobbin lace friends call this "peasant thread" because it is so "thick". dime placed for comparison purposes.


i will never have the patience for bobbin lace; even if i use this "thick, peasant thread." thick?! i don't think so. thank you, tunie!

and then, my buddy, stilaholic nartian, held her first blog contest in november. for her birthday, she bought herself **mumble, mumble** skeins of socks that rock. the contest was to identify the colors she bought. well, out of 3 entries, i won. does that mean i spend too much time over at the blue moon fiber arts website? and here is my prize:

a skein of str lightweight, iolite colorway
and some make-up from "stila" and "nars"
(i always wondered how she got that blog name)

we have a running joke going that because we live in the same town, we can't let the other know our address because we might go stealing each other's stash. so, of course, we had to meet in person at the local starbucks to make the exchange as she won the frog pond drawing from the carefree kal. we met on the rainiest day in december. she brought her littlest monkey who taught me how to count to 10. she is sooo cute. anyway, thank you, nartian, for this wonderful prize. you need to have more contests.

and speaking of blue moon fiber arts, my pattern for the 2008 rockin' sock club ("serendipity") and the colorway ("dragon dance") have been posted and are now available for purchase by the general public.

out with the old

...and in with the new!

have you ever bought yarn just because it was on sale?! never mind that the colors are just so "not me". well, here begins the tale of the noro entrelac scarf that was not meant to be. i purchased 4 skeins of noro #93 because it was on clearance. it had purples (love purples), light turquoise (good), hot pink (like hot pinks with purple), a little yellow (ok, not fond of yellow but it's just a little bit), and orange (ok, don't like orange, but hey, it's just a tad).

i have always loved noro as an entrelac scarf. so, enter the beginning of the entrelac scarf.


and i even finished it, all 4 skeins! joined the colors so the color sequence was the same. learned how to knit backwards.

but i hated the colors the way they came out on the scarf and i knew that i would never wear it. so, on new year's eve, the scarf became this...

did you know that noro is really hard to frog?!

i looked around on ravelry (doncha love ravelry?!) and found a scarf that is knit lengthwise, thus breaking up the blobs of colors that i didn't like on the entrelac scarf.

mystery of marie roger scarf

i even like the little bits of yellow and oranges now, as they seem to accentuate the colors i really like. i definitely am getting my play value with this yarn!

happy new year! i know i went missing in december but hey, you can probably guess what i was doing! i will show you what next time.

thanksgiving desserts

i don't know about your family but our thanksgiving dinner always ends up with way too many desserts. this year, we had 6 pies, one ice cream cake, and these delicious cranberry bars for 18 adult/teenage persons and 2 younger children who didn't eat much but played a lot of video games.

cranberry bars

i was told that they are even better frozen and they are. i am so thankful for the internet and my new-found internet friends who love to knit and cook. the cranberry bar recipe came from my new friend, tunie, a former californian who has tranplanted herself & hubby to the land-down-under. yummy, yummy. i am thinking that they would be even MORE delish with a handful of chocolate chips.

i am almost done with my pair of socks i am knitting from panda superwash. for some reason, i have been making all kinds of mistakes on the mate and have spent a lot of time talking to my little green friends down at the frog pond. i have enough yarn left-over that i might make a pair of baby socks to throw in the washing machine...just to check out the superwash.

my own pattern
panda superwash "joyful"
color pretty accurate in this photo

carried pattern down toe

see how well the heel fits?
i added about a 1" heel flap before starting the short row heel.

the only thing i didn't like was the transition from the ribbing into the pattern. i would definitely change that if i were to reknit this.