HO Friday: Double Vanilla Socks

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Happy Friday all! Today I have a HO instead of FO, lol

This sock really flies along and I managed to complete the leg on my first Double Vanilla Sock. I had just maybe a yard or two left from the first half of the skein.

Now….this is the sock I ripped back and reknit with four extra stitches because it was very skinny. And the finished sock fits but it has no negative ease. What this means is that I could have probably done with only adding two stitches instead of four. It bothers me but not enough to rip back and redo again.

These socks will be just purposely be for tooling around the house like slippers. My next step needs to be is the get the toe of the second sock on the needles ASAP to avoid SSS (second sock syndrome).

Happy Knitting!!

Knitting In The Wild (Safely)

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I have been slowly and safely dipping my toe back into “normal”. Not going to lie it causes me a lot of anxiety after the last year and I still stay 6 feet away and wear my mask. But so far this week alone I have played volleyball, took Jellybean to his favorite park and took myself out for a beer tasting (during non-busy hours). I feel lucky to be fully vaccinated as are many around me and have hope that there is a light at the end of the tunnel.

Along for the trips this week was my Mom’s Christmas Hat. I have gotten past the brim ribbing and into the hat. I am flicking this to make the process faster and to keep building my muscle memory.

And for my beer tasting, for those interested, I tried three new to me beers at my local brewery The Happy Basset. From left to right I had a Mango Sour, Belly Rub Red Ale and a Kolsch. All three were good but my favorite was the sour and I took home a to go container of that one!

Happy Knitting!!

Cast On: In The Light, Pink Version

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As promised after finishing my green In The Light I promptly put a third one on the needles. This will be my pink version and I already can’t put it down.

I chose to go back to the fringed version for this one. I’m starting with a white skein with rainbow speckles from Black Trillium Fibers and then will progress to a Knitted Witt Victory sock skein in pink with rainbow sprinkles and finish up with a OOAK skein from KirbyWirby.

This bright and pink yarn is making feel more spring-like and peppy. I am enjoying the process of this pattern but I think in this case I really want the finished thing more!

Happy Knitting!!

One DK Weight Heel

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My Double Vanilla Sock is growing much faster in its current iteration than it did in the first. The foot literally took no time at all and the heel only one evening’s worth of knitting.

At this point I decided to be smart and weight my yarn ball. After that I weighed my sock. And then did some math and pulled enough yarn off the ball to have split the skein in half. This was done as a precaution and to prevent running out of yarn on sock two.

I think for this pair of socks that are likely to be worn as house slippers, I will knit the leg largely in rib. This will give a nice snug fit and perhaps keep the sock on my foot while its not going to be a in a shoe.

Happy knitting!!

Garden Start

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Well, its after Mother’s day now so it’s safe to start our garden in earnest here in Kansas. But first I thought I’d share what we put in April for cold heardy plants.

First up, we have a whole bed of onions (left) we chose a mix of white, yellow and red this year to mix things up. The only other thing I would have liked would have been some shallots. And on the other planter is overflow onions and some cauliflower.

In our main bed we put two more cauliflower (they might get ripped out and transplanted later in favor of some broccoli. And then we also put in three different kinds of romaine. The hubby and I really enjoy fresh salads and fresh greens on our burgers and sandwiches.

The next plan is to add tomatoes, peppers, broccoli and possibly some zucchini. I think we need a separate planter for the zucchini as the last time we planted it TOOK OVER.

Anyone else feeling the garden itch this year?

FO Friday: In The Light

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I had the pleasure of attending a virtual professional women’s conference this week. It was 7 hours on zoom learning lots of cool things. But the upside of the virtual conference is that I got to knit all day. I decided to challenge myself to finish my In The Light. And you know what? It worked!

Pattern: In the Light by Casey Day-Crosier (Rav Link)

Needles: US 9s

Yarn: Cloudlover Fiber SW Merino Sock in the Mag Mel and Mojito colorways and One Twisted Tree Prime Fingering in the Forest Floor colorway

Mods; I added tassels to use up more of my skeins of yarn

I am super please with this project and how well all the yarns played together. The two Cloudlover skeins I used at the beginning and end were HIGHLY variagated and you know what? Holding them double really helped blend the yarn. The One Twisted Tree was more of a speckled tonal and gave a nice blend to the middle.

This patterns is addictive and uses SO MUCH SOCK YARN! With the modified tassles I used approximately 1,077 yards of yarn and most of each skein. I had the most left of the middle Forest Floor color. Now this is the simple version and it does use less yarn than the fringed version. I’m okay with that I like the simple elegance of this version.

I’m already itching to cast on a third In The Light in some lights/pinks. I can’t help myself when a pattern is this good and burns through so much sock yarn. Not to mention its helping me with those pesky “pretty” skeins of variegated yarn that I can’t help buying but never know what to do with.

Happy Friday and Happy Knitting!!

Outdoor Sock

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Spring appears to be here in full swing, even though we had snow in April. I slipped outdoors while PB was napping and the boys were watching a marvel movie. To accompany I chose my Double Vanilla Socks.

I had lemonade, shade, knitting and a podcast in my ears. It was far too fleeting but enjoyable. I managed roughly three inches of sock foot redo after I had ripped all the way back to the toe. Its amazing how fast DK sock yarns works up compared to fingering weight, lol.

Happy Knitting!

Wishful Knitting: Scrappy Marl

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I am still doing a decent amount of wishful knitting centered around using up scraps or holding fingering weight double. This week’s pattern search is the Scrappy Marl by Beata Jezek (Rav link)

For this one I can foresee using some of my larger scraps up that won’t be large enough for a memory blanket square. Maybe even some of small scraps for when I reach the crown decreases? The best part of this project is that I can just add and drop colors as I want because there is no right or wrong.

And this feeds nicely into my 2021 hat knitting kick and dovetails nicely into using up small scraps. I think this might be my carrot to get me to finish my Mom’s Christmas hat. Because arbitrary knitting rules, lol.

Happy Knitting!!

Collecting Project Bags

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I can’t help it…I’m a collector. Just like my mother even though I will never admit that to her. And since I consider myself a knitter with a capital K some of my most recent collecting revolves around project bags. Do I need more? No. Do I want to expand my collection….you bet.

My most recent addition is from Bags by Jojo of the Cozy UP Knits podcast fame. Jodi is the mother of four knitters (and a knitter herself) and I enjoy their weekly podcast. I have been seeing them show of these bags for some time and I finally broke down and shopped the last update.

They use spoonflower to make custom fabric around their brand/family. So I picked up a medium zip bag in the Cozy Up Knits fabric and a small sock bag with drawstring in the Jojo fabric print.

They are sewn quite well and lined beautifully. I was drawn to the purples and blues because those are my happy colors. I haven’t decided what projects to put in these bags yet but I have added them to my collection!

Happy Knitting!!

Cast On: Purple Rain Socks

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My sock needles/project bag were getting lonely and cold so I decided to cast on a new pair of toe up vanilla socks after I had finished my Toxic Oreo Vanilla Socks.

I went downstairs to my sock yarn stash and rooted around. Being too lazy to get out my swift and ball winder….I selfishly pulled some already caked sock yarn to start my next project.

This is the KFI Collection Painted Sock I picked up on my accidental yarn crawl a few months back. And this yarn has the bonus of already being split for socks. My plan is to knit toe up vanilla socks with gusset heels and just let the gradient fall where it may.

I haven’t knit with this yarn before and I’m not sure how the guage will work out. These could be shorty socks rather than mid-calf socks. But the great benefit of toe up socks is that you can literally work until you run our of yarn!

Happy Knitting!!