Gems is my new pair of bed socks from hand spun and hand dyed yarn. I used several kinds of fleece; Merino, Hampshire down and some Reyeland to get a warm and soft yarn. But first I dyed the fleece in several green colors, inspired by gems like jade, malachiet, tourmaline, chalcedone and ryolit. I got about seven different colors, which I spun into seven colored singles. I twined the singles randomly with each other, creating a soft variegated yarn.
I used the “Simple socks with a Slant” pattern from Cat Bordi’s book “New Pathways for Sock Knitters“. An asymmetrical toe-up sock pattern where nicely placed yarn overs which created a line of holes and formed the gusset. Knitted on needle size 3 mm (US 2.5) with a gauge of 6 stitches per inch, this pair of socks took only a week to knit!
It is the second pair of socks I made from New Pathways. I guess lots of them will follow. The book has basic architectures and works with master numbers. This makes it so easy to get patterns that fit my feet perfectly and are customized for my hand spun yarn.
Fearless knitting, introduced in the Knitting Daily newsletter.
My first project of fearless knitting this year is knitting two socks on one circular. The biggest fear; two balls of yarn getting all tangled up, magic looping with to socks, and how to divide the stitches the right way. On the Internet I found several instruction for 2-on-1′s, it seems horrible complicated to me.
The best way to overcome, is take a deep breath and just start knitting.
For this goal I bought a Addi Turbo, size 2.5mm, 100 cm. Never knitted on an Addi circular before, I was really curious. Well I love them, the knit so much easier then my other fixed circular (Prym / Inox) The stitches run smoothly from the needle to the cable and back. The cable does not twist all around. People told me so, I had to try it for my self before I believed it.
I decided to knit the January Mystery Sock of the Goddess Knits on one circular. This pattern is a cuff-down sock. A complication; the tutorials give instructions for toe-up. Let’s give it a try. I could always continue on DPN’s ;-) The cast on and knitting the cuff took some determination to continue. The stitches twirled around my needle, the inside got out and vise versa.
After about 10 needles of knitting it got a lot easier, knitting the leg was a piece of cake after that. While knitting the heel and heel turn the instep stitches rested on the cable. That works fine, more comfortable then letting them rest on a DPN. Then came the next challenge; picking up stitches for the gusset and knitting the gusset. I couldn’t find a way to work this out without cheating. I had to use some DPN to move the stitches to the “correct” part of the cable. It was a bit of a mess, though I finally succeeded to get the gusset stitches on the same cable as the heel. Right now I am working the gusset. I have to keep in mind knitting the first stitches a bit tighter as usual to avoid ladders.
The next part will be the foot and toe.
I don’t expect any challenges there, but you never know ;-)
It is showtime!
My hubbie made some photo’s of me showing the Montparnasse cardigan “Gotthic” I finished last week. The photo’s are quite well taken, noticing the fact he can hardly handle my camera, look thought the lens and balance on his feet on the same time ;-) Thanks dear!
Click on the image to see a larger version at my Flickr. account
This cardigan has absolutely no slimming effect at all.
But what item with thick hand spun yarn does?
Soms zit het mee, soms zit het tegen.
De afgelopen tijd heb ik drie breiwerkjes gestart en weer uitgehaald ;-)
De sokkenbrei groep heeft de fruitmandjes als samenbreisok voor januari / februari. Het leek me leuk deze van zelfgeverfde en gesponnen wol te maken. Het was al een gereken om met de steekverhouding uit te komen. Een stukje breien in het patroon werd echter zo lelijk dat ik er niet eens een foto van heb gemaakt.
De tweede sok die er aan moest geloven was de January Mystery Sock van Goddess Knits, ook een knitalong. Ik had hier zelfgeverfde blue faced leicester sokkenwol voor gekozen. Het kleurverloop en het patroon werkten totaal niet samen. Absoluut lelijk, er is een remedie daar tegen bestand. Uithalen!
De derde in dit verhaal is La Digitessa van Yarnissima. Absoluut een mooi patroon én schitterend garen. Ik had zo mijn twijfels of ik het patroon wel goed las. Ik heb even contact opgenomen met Yarnissima voor wat meer uitleg. Inderdaad, mijn interpretatie klopte niet helemaal. Ook deze zijn dus uitgehaald om opnieuw te beginnen.
Ach ja, soms zit het mee soms zit het tegen. Ik heb weer wat geleerd over de combinatie kleurverloop en patronen, in dit geval, wat dus niet werkt. Liever vroeg uithalen, dan een sok breien die niet helemaal naar mijn zin is ;-)
Bij Marion kwam ik deze tegen,
een testje waar ik wel benieuwd naar was,
zou het kloppen? Wat denk jij?
You Are Surrealism
Dreamy and idealistic, you’ve created a world that is all your own. It’s very likely that you’ve either dabbled in drugs or are naturally trippy. You are always trying to push beyond the boundaries of your culture and society. You believe that art, love, and freedom can change the world.
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