More Socks!

I am still trying to catch up with photos of finished socks.  Here are two more pairs ready to be taken to Kazakhstan by the founder of the Motherless Child Foundation.  I am still having fun finding odds and ends and putting them to good use.

This pair was knit with some hand-dyed navy blue yarn and scraps of unknown origin. Of course the hand-dyed portion was master-minded once again by my daughter.

The netting over the summer squash is to discourage the deer from eating the leaves and protecting the summer squash.

The second pair was actually knit with a brand-new skein of sock yarn from the Yarn Hollow bought at the annual fiber festival in Charlevoix, Michigan.  This pair is also going to the kids in Kazakhstan.

Aren't these luscious colors?

More socks to come. 

Knit on, Merrily!

Oh my, it's been a month since I last posted.

How time flies.  But I've been busy knitting socks and more socks. The pile of odds and ends seems to be multiplying rather than being depleted.  Of course, every so often our cat dives into his private stash of yarn balls and supplements my stash with an odd ball of yarn.  We can't be the only household in which the cat has amassed his own stash of yarn in a place only known to him, or are we?

So here are the next three pairs in the series.

These are knit with the remainder of some ancient Brown Sheep sock yarn on a 1 lb. cone which I bought for the huge sum of $1. 
A pi shawl and another pair of socks emerged from that pound cone as well.  I think I've used up the last of it. The lighter color is yarn I do not even remember buying. 

This is what happens when you forget to rewind one of the patterned balls which you have divided into two.  You get two different socks. These socks are made from a mixture of yarns, the blue cuffs and heels are knit with a hand-dyed yarn and the toes with a dab of Opal.

A variety of Opal, Regia, hand-dyed and ONLine. I weighed the yarn, halved it and knit until the yarn ran out.   

So now you know what I've been doing.

Knit on, Merrily!

Playing with finger paint, almost.







I feel like the proverbial 4 year old who has been given finger paints and a sheet of paper.  Except, I am not using finger paints, but left over sock yarn to knit socks and I hope there is a kid out there that likes wild and woolly socks as much as my daughter and I do.

 

 

Of course, there are the inevitable ends to sew in.  I've tried the knit in the ends as you go method, but don't like the look of it.  So I've gone back to my old method.

This is the second pair in the series. I got wise with this pair and changed the yarn every row and, thus, didn't have that many ends to sew in since I could carry the yarn along. 

 

More to come.  I'm on a roll.

 

Knit on, merrily.







No more odds and ends sock yarn afghans

I finished the afghan made with left-over sock yarn.  It only took from September 2009 to May 2013. Never again.  Way too much work to sow together.  I kept procrastinating and then the dreaded moth invasion happened and thus the afghan was smaller than anticipated.  It still ended up a good size.  In order to stabilize the edges of the afghan, I single crocheted one row and then did the crab stitch.  It'll keep my son-in-law warm when he takes his naps.  The photo is without the edging.  I was so glad to be done with it that I forgot to take a picture. 

 

I still have odds and ends of sock yarn.  They will be made into much needed socks for the Kazakhstan kids.

 

Knit on Merrily!



Witches Garden

Another pair of socks for the orphanages in Kazakhstan via the Motherless Child Foundation.  These were knit with an ancient ball of Opal sock yarn which I picked up on the cheap some years ago at www.littleknits.com . The pattern is by Sonja Koehler and the link to the pattern is on Ravelry.  It is available in both German and English.  The pattern is easy to knit, but slightly boring due to the moss stitch.  I saw one photo where the knitter knit the back of the sock in stockinette. 

Knit on, merrily!

It's been a while...

...exactly a month less one day since I've posted last.  I have been busy, however with knitting, ripping out, knitting, ripping out, and knitting.  Somewhere in the vastness of the Internet, I found instructions for these:  Dryer balls.  Yep, you read correctly.  And here is a photo of said dryer balls:

If you click on the link above, instructions will appear magically.  You can use these felted balls instead of fabric softener sheets.  It actually works, provided the load isn't too heavy.  I made four balls, but will make another batch and have enough for larger loads.  Of course, if you like the smell of dryer sheets, these will not give you that lovely Spring-time aroma.

The link above will lead you to the instructions; however, there really is no magic to it and despite the blogger's exhortation to wind the balls "just so" you don't have to.  The instructions call for worsted weight Fishermen's Wool.  But you don't have to go out and buy that either.  I used repurposed feltable, fingering weight yarn from projects that just didn't work out.  I just had to wind more yarn to get the same size.  Also, I knotted the yarn together when it ran out and continued winding.  The only thing I had to do was to do the exact opposite of my mother's instructions.  Instead of winding the ball loosely, the balls of yarn had to wound really tight.

Oh, and if you have cats who like wool, shut the dryer door after removing the wash or the balls may end up in the cat's food bowl.   

For a change a pair of non-short row socks

Happiness is finding two skeins of hand-spun yarn that you didn't realize you had.  Spun by my youngest daughter from Corriedale roving.  The color is a light gray with a tinge of perriwinkle and I mean a tinge. The yarn is spun in a heavy sock weight and tightly twisted, so it should wear well.  I think I found just the right pattern for it.  The pattern is by Sonja Koehler and can be found on Ravelry under Sonja's Sockenland .  While the pattern is written both in English and German, the group  is almost all in German.  It's a good thing I can still read German; however, my writing abilities have deteriorated over the years.  At times, I have difficulty remembering which words are masculine, feminine or neutral, particularly with words that have been adopted from American English.

The name of the pattern is "Pfaffenwinkel" or Priests' Corner.  I was hesitant to use the name since the word "Pfaffen" was a slightly or not so slightly derogatory word for "priests," depending on the region you lived in,  and I definitely lived in an area where few people were catholic.  While most Catholic children went to a Catholic school, there were a few that attended the local village grade school. We certainly had our "priests' corner" on the school yard and more than one fight broke out on the line of separation. Of course, when I was a child, girls didn't fight. Once I started 5th grade, I went to a secondary school for bratty and precocious girls.  I have no idea what today's school system in Germany looks like, but in my time those kids who were smart went to a different school starting with 5th or 6th grade.  There seemed to be none of the sectarian separation I experienced in grade school. 

But back to "Priests' Corner."  I did what most of us do when we want to find out something:  I googled.   And here is what I found and it's in English.  I also found out the name was given to this part of Bavaria in the 18th century due to the large number of abbeys and pilgrim churches.  It's only taken 73 years to learn that this area of Bavaria had a nickname. While it is a beautiful area, in my opinion the Black Forest and the rest of Swabia are even more beautiful.  Old regional rivalries are hard to bury.  For those in Michigan think of football:  UofM vs. Ohio State. 

And there is enough yarn left to knit another pair of socks.  Yeah!

Knit on Merrily.