Be it known to all...

...that on this 17th day of April, 2011, I was awakened to heavy snow falling. Apparently Frau Holle hasn't finished shaking out her pillows yet. "Frau Holle hear me! This is Renate calling to remind you quite sternly that it is time to put away your pillows and let Spring take over." In the meantime, I have finally been able to photograph the last two pairs of socks for the Urupinka, Kazakhstan orphanage. The off-white socks are knit with WEBS coned sock yarn and 2.5 mm needles. The pattern is and old pattern by Monika Eckert of Klabauter Wolle which I found some time ago on the Internet.

The legs of the second pair of socks are knit with Knit Picks Essential Tweed sock yarn in ash and a green variegated hand-spun, hand-dyed wool while the cuffs, heels, and toes are a kettle dyed yarn in a darker gray. As always all dyeing and spinning in this household is courtesy of my in-house dyer, aka Angela or "the youngest daughter."

Knit on Merrily!

Another Akkol Sweater

As promised, I finally was able to take pictures of sweater no. 2 for the orphanages in Kazakhstan. This one was knit with Elann Peruvian Highland Chunky on US 8 (5.00 mm) needles. The pattern by Christiane Burkhard was well written and, therefore, easy to knit. A beginning knitter should be able to manage it.

Now, all I have to finish up is the foot of the second sock and I am all done with the items I committed to knit.

Knit on merrily!

I've been MIA for a while...

...but for good reasons. I have been furiously knitting for Mittens_for_Akkol which supplies knitted goods to two orphanages in Kazakhstan. I have 1/2 of a sock left to knit and a sweater to wash and block. In total, I will have knit 2 sweaters, one pair of boot socks and one pair of regular socks. This sweater was knit from hand spun Blue Faced Leicester yarn on US #9 (5.00 mm) needles. Kudos go to my daughter who is the spinner-in-residence. The pattern is from Drops and can be found on Ravelry or directly from the Drops site http://www.garnstudio.com/ . I made some minor changes since I had to combine two shades of brown. The pattern could easily be knit from the top down if seaming is not your cup of tea. And here is a pic of the boot socks. They are US Size 11 and knit with Cascade 220 and Wildfoote sock yarn.

So now to finish the second pair of socks and wash the other sweater. You'll be hearing from me.

Knit on Merrily.