Cattywampus

Lookie lookie what I got!

Well, now I am sitting around in my house in wool socks when it is 96 degrees outside.  How about that?

My Sockapalooza Pal, Eve, sent me an absurd amount of goodies!  Look at all this stuff!  The socks are in Opal yarn in the Embossed Leaves pattern, aren't they pretty??  And look at that STR - Mustang Sally, one that I had often drooled over, but never quite got around to purchasing.  I am totally blown away!

And really, what are the chances that my downstream pal is named Eve AND my upstream pal is named Eve? 

This is a good representation of the color. 

I had to take them off b/c I got really hot and in the process noticed that the AC needed to be reset and it was 77 in the house, no wonder I got hot - 77 & wool don't really mix!

So, since I had to take off the socks, I'm gonna go break into the candy.  ;-)

Thank you thank you thank you Eve!

Sockapalooza Socks - Complete!

HAH!  I have finished my sock pal's socks FINALLY.  I wasn't really in danger of not finishing, I just didn't exactly hurry.

You may or may not remember, but I dyed the yarn myself with jacquard dyes.  I'm not exactly a scientific dyer, so I couldn't repeat it if I tried and I'm pretty hit or miss with the dyeing, but it's FUN and when it works it's REALLY fun.  When it doesn't work, I just dye over it.  ;-)  The yarn is henry's attic kona fingering superwash, which I think takes the dye really well, but it is REALLY fine, almost bordering on a heavy lace weight.  I easily got 10st/in on size one needles.

This is the Sieze Diamondback pattern except, of course, I knit them toe up b/c I wanted to make them as tall as I could (my pal likes the high leg) and I had to add a bunch of stitches & I did some increasing up on the calf.  Define bunch?  Okay, I think I did the foot with 70 stitches for a large woman's foot and then increased to 80 inches to accomodate the curve of the calf AND make up for the slipped stitches.  I decreased down to 68 stitches to do the ribbing on the top.

So now I just need to decide what else to put in the package, I have a few goodies, but I was thinking about maybe including something else...

Sockapalooza socks moving right along

I finally started working on my sock pal's socks last week and I was really worried that they would go slow, especially b/c my sock pal has larger feet than I do and this is very thin yarn (Henry's Attic superwash that I dyed) but things are really moving right along.

I turned the heel this morning and started the Sieze Diamondback pattern - it's hard on the thumbs, but it's looking pretty good.  The pattern is cuff down, but I prefer toe up, so I am doing them that way - I always feel like I"m on the home stretch once I finish the heel, not entirely true but it motivates me to chug along.

Now if only I can stay so motivated this week & maybe I'll finish them BEFORE the deadline - how UNUSUAL for me!

Sunday Dyepot

I decided to dye yarn for my sockapalooza pal because the pattern I want to use requires more than one skein of yarn and I wanted it to be a hand dyed yarn, but I wasn't willing to fork out the $40 that would cost to buy it.

I had a half pound skein of Henry's attic kona superwash, which is about 1100 yards, so half of that, about 550, should be plenty for the Seize Diamondback pattern.  I figured I'd need more b/c this pattern is written for heavier sock yarn than I'm using, but I can put the cable pattern on the back regardless, I just adjusted the numbers for light fingerweight.  And I'll keep the other half until I'm sure I have enough, then I'll probably sell it on etsy.

I wanted a nice blueish blend of colors, not distinct blues, but all blendy to make a sort of color fade through the sock & allow the cable on the back to show up better, so I decided to try kettle dyeing.  It was fun - though I need a wider mouthed kettle if I continue to do this b/c I had to stir it a bunch to make sure the whole skein was dyed.  I couldn't duplicate these colors if I tried, I didn't write anything down, I just mixed & poured & mixed & poured until I was satisfied with the variety of blues and purples on the skein.  I did it that way on purpose, I wanted a one of a kind skein for my sockapalooza pal.

So voila!  Here it is - I'm quite happy with it.  I don't know if you can see the purples in there, but it's a lovely turquoise, blue, darker blue & purple color fade.  Too bad I didn't write it down, eh?  lol

And since I had out the various dyeing implements...

These will be up on my etsy shop later in the week.  They are still drying & then I need to reskein them & get some good photo light.  The red & green are both lace weight, the blueish one is sock yarn.