Finished: 2025 Advent Socks 2

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The 2025 Advent Socks #2 are done and blocked even!

Pattern: My own toe up vanilla sock “recipe” with 64 stitches and an afterthought heel

Needles: US 1s

Yarn: The Cozy Knitter Bliss Sock for the 2025 advent with contrasting white mini and an extra KFI Collection Teenie Weenie mini in grey.

This combination of yarns used accounted for 282 yards of yarn. Not bad for a women’s medium is sock. And I used up all of three yarns without adding scraps. I do realize now that one white toe is longer than the other. And I cut the heels in by where the colors changed and not by measuring both socks. In hindsight, I should have measured both. So one foot is definitely slightly different than the other. I don’t think by more than a couple rows. It should all work out fine for my friend. She wears these insider her Birkenstock sandals or just has house slippers.

Now on to focus on the black and white socks! Happy Knitting!!

Cast On: 2026 Comfort Blanket

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2026 has started out ROUGH. Add that to short, dark and cold days and I have been needing comfort more than usual lately. I decided to work with some of my handspun.

I have had my 2025 Pigskin Party handspun on my desk since the fall and this scrappy spin in a glass jar calling my name. None of this is a consistent weight or grist. And the colors are crazy so I decided to make a granny stripe blanket using a 5.0MM hook.

I chained 150 stitches and set to work. I very quickly noted that I needed to alternate skeins to help hide the variation in yarn and break up the crazy colors. So I have three skeins attached. One actively working across and one each on each side. I pick up the new color when I reach a side and drop the active one. I think this is making it look more purposefully crazy.

And when I work on this I try to stay centered and let go of the chaos. Many vibes are being worked into this blanket!

Found The Lost Tub

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I did a DEEP purge in my storage and laundry area this week. I took several bags of kids clothes to the local Boys and Girl Club as well some household stuff to the thrift shop. It felt really good to have more space!

And I did in fact find the tub of knitting items that I knew I was missing. Some of this yarn I had forgotten about. It was a lot of Caron Simply Soft and some chenille for blankets. And weirdly a ton of knit picks back from my craft fair days.

I kept some of the knit picks and put a lot of the rest into my donate pile. And reclaimed an entire storage tub!

Now on to the knitting part!

Now For The Heels

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The tubes for my 2025 Advent Socks 2 are fully completed and I’m ready to start the afterthought heels.

This recipient has slightly smaller feet than me. She is the one who gets my shrunk or slightly felted socks when they are too small for me. I usually make a 7 inch leg for my foot so I decided to cut in the heel at 6.5 inches to not knit quite as deep. This could be a disaster? But I was hoping to get something to fit her more custom than my hand me downs, lol.

I am using some contrast grey to make the heels as I used up all the white in the toes. The good news is that knitting stretches and some negative ease helps with fit and sliding down in your shoe. I’ll have to find out after I deliver her gift box!

Happy Knitting!!

Snuggle Cuffs

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It has been an eventful and cozy weekend. Both tubes for my 2025 Advent Socks Take 2 are close to done!

We had some snuggly fire time and watched a few movies. I powered through most of the rest of the rainbow and almost ready to bind off the ribbing. Just a few more minutes and then I can calculate and cut in my afterthought heel.

I will have to use some scraps or minis from my stash to do these heels. I need to do some stash diving to find the right mix. I am thinking a neutral grey?

Happy Knitting!!

Personalized Book Mark

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Jellybean has really blossomed into a reader as he progressed through elementary. We read a lot of his books together: Magic Treehouse series, The Bad Guys, Cat on the Run, etc. He learned how to make his own bookmarks at school and it covers his love of art too.

He borrowed my phone last week to google some images and he free hand drew me a bookmark for my new Christmas books! I love it so much and all the more that he gets my hobbies. It’s really weird having a “big” who share things with me 🙂

Happy Reading!

Many Stripes, Again

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My 2025 Advent Socks Take 2 are progressing nicely. I really haven’t knit many socks these past two years and I forget how fast they go.

I am not quite halfway but the stripes are progressing nicely. I do notice that without the flecks/contrast added that this stockinette is working up at firmer gauge. Not always a bad thing for sock, especially when someone else will wash/wear them. I’m hoping with the upcoming weekend that I can get pretty far.

Happy Knitting!!

Tossing The Stash 2026

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I have to admit that I love collecting yarn. And I hold that buying yarn is a completely separate hobby from using it. And I have still been feeling overwhelmed about how much I have and how many places it had scattered in my house. I couldn’t find my favorite sock needles and my WIPs were overflowing.

So I did a big New Year’s round up of everything that I could see or remember from the house and pulled all my yarn storage. It filled my California king sized bed….

I did the stash first and sorted through all the yarns and redid the bin storage. Checked everything for water or bugs and made some decisions to keep or toss. I think I got everything back into (less) stuffed bins and grouped nicely. Not to mention an entire bag of acrylic and novelty yarn from my early days that is going to donate.

I also tossed all my project bags to cull my projects. I frogged or abandoned seven projects and reclaimed like 10 project bags back into my stash. I found so many needles, stitch markers and tape measures and put back into my tool storage. I also consolidated all my WIPs I still love into one large tote bag. I was proud of myself and only pulled yarn for one new project. More on that later…

I really need to get into my laundry room and storage area to clean. I think I am missing one tote of knitting related items that is in a stack somewhere. I also have three totes of kids clothes to sort and just overall reorg the storage area to be more usable. Sigh….so much adulting!

Happy Stashing!!

Cast On: Rhiannon’s Socks

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A former coworker got a really cool new big kid job and I wanted to celebrate. She is always jealous of my handknits and is a genuinely kind human. So I decided to make some socks for her.

I had some Urth Uneek Sock from my 2023 Christmas yarn haul hanging out in my stash. Not going to lie that I chose this because it was already split for socks and wound up. Saved me those steps and I could get right to the knitting.

She has a size 7 foot, which is smaller than me, so I cast on 60 stitches for these. I haven’t decided if I am going to make an afterthought heel or do a heel flap and gusset. I think the latter would fit her better? It’s kind of nerve wracking making socks for someone else’s foot in so long, lol.

Happy Knitting!!

Cast On: 2025 Advent Take 2

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I still had the other half of my 2025 Cozy Knitter Advent left. And I have typically quickly cast this on instead of putting it back in stash. Figured why not do that again this year.

I am making this set specifically for a friend who is having a rough go this holiday season. Her feet are just slightly smaller than mine so I cast on 64 stitches instead of my 68. I used the last drabs of the contrast skein from the advent kit to do the toes. I just knit until that sparkly white ended and then started the stripes.

I’m hoping to crank through these fairly quickly to get her a TLC box mailed with her Christmas gifts and some extra care items for her.

Happy Knitting!!