Right now it's looking like 2012 is the year of the sock. I'm hoping to eventually have enough hand knit socks that I can wear a different pair every day, using store bought socks for exercise only.
I'm currently participating in three Knit A Longs that contribute to my goal of more hand knit socks. (however my ultimate goal to wear all my own socks is going to take a bit longer since I've started giving some socks away...it's selfish to keep them all for myself!)
The first KAL is the Socktopus book KAL. I bought this book for two reasons:
1. The quite obvious reason that the name Socktopus, is quite frankly AWESOME! and while they say don't judge a book by its cover... I judged this one by its name.
2. When I looked through the book at the store I immediately thought to myself "Wow, I could actually see myself knitting ALL of these patterns" This doesn't usually happen, so I took it as a sign that I should buy the book.
Naturally I wanted to start knitting through the book as soon as possible, but I didn't really want to tackle this gigantic task alone..so I searched the great place that is Ravelry.com and low and behold....a group, dedicated to knitting through the entire book! And it started the very next month! (December/January). I had to hop on this bandwagon. Now.. I did get a late start, since I couldn't start socks for myself before finishing Christmas gifts for my family. Luckily the schedule allows 2 months to complete each sock, with one month of overlap so if you finish early you don't have to wait too long to start the next pair. So, right after Christmas I kicked off my mission to get through the book. So far I've made it through 3 pairs:
Kwalla:
Spring Shoots:
Vorticity:
3 down, 13 to go! I'm feeling pretty good with my results so far, and can't wait to see how the rest of the patterns work up in my yarn choices.
Now, since my eyes keep seeing patterns I want to make, and because in my mind I'm a much faster knitter than in real life I decided that just working through socktopus wasn't enough!
I discovered in my search for the socktopus group Sock Knitters Anonymous. And let me tell you, this is the beginning of the end, I'm now definitely addicted to sock knitting. The idea of this group is that each month there is a challenge that has one or more themes or techniques your pattern must fit into to qualify. They also host a Mystery sock KAL every odd month of the year. Lucky for me January's theme was flora and fauna, so my socktopus spring shoots also counted! Then once I finished those up (they were a quick knit) I decided to hop on the Mock bandwagon and knit some Blathnat socks. Ceara was recipient of this labor and she says she loves them! It was fun to knit the socks as each clue came out. I've never done a mystery knit before this and I think this experience made me more likely to try Mystery KAL's in the future:
Then, because two pairs for the Januarychallenge didn't seem like enough I also decided to conquer my first pair of man sized socks. Since Lane had been asking for a pair for a while this seemed like a good time to go for it. (Like I said, I'm a faster knitter in my mind)... And so I cast on a pair of "Snape's Stockings" from the January designer of the month. And here's what I ended up with:
I actually ended up finishing all the projects I started in January and only overlapping a few days into February...so maybe my hands are catching up with my imagined speed..(only slightly).
And on to the Feb. challenge! Slipped stitches. I love slipped stitch patterns and found what I like to think is my best yarn/pattern combination to date: Chopstick socks made in Ella Rae Lace merino:
The colors came out super cool with the slipped stitches and these socks are super soft!
As for the march challenge, I thought I wouldn't be able to juggle socktopus, SKA and my third sock activity Sock Madness! The ladies from Taunton encouraged me to join and so begins my first SM experience. It's a sock speed knitting competition. And the first round sock had cables in it, which made it conveniently fit into this month's SKA theme! The first round of SM is the qualifying round where people get put into groups based on finishing time. Then it works kind of like march madness (get it, get it?) and each round narrows down the amount of people that move on until 4 people are left at the end competing for honor and glory. Unfortunately this competion won't contribute to my personal sock collection as I have to make socks that fit a minimum of US women's size 7, as a person with size 6.5 feet, all of these socks will be too big. Looks like I'm making some socks for gifting! I finished my pair a little slower than I wanted, but at least I finished!
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| My toes only make it as far as the cables on these socks... the toe part is completely empty :P |
The pattern of these socks is called Dicey, and the idea is you roll dice to decide whether or not to cable each time a cable row comes around. It's a pretty neat concept. However, I was a little bummed with the amount of confusing wordings and inconsistent use of punctuation in the pattern itself. It made it harder to follow and I felt like I've never had to rip back and redo on a project as much as I had to do with these socks...But now they are done and I can move on to the second round!
Alright along with my massive amounts of knitting I've also had to tackle a lot of wedding planning. 2 weekends ago was my bridal shower, it was so much fun! But quite overwhelming. I wish I could have had more time to catch up with each person who came rather than trying to talk to everyone at once!
Lane and I also sent out our invitations, so I'm feeling relieved to know that the main things are covered: A place, my dress, food, and the guests! It's fun to see all of the details coming together. All we really have left to plan is music for the ceremony and a cake. I'm going to have to take more pictures of my planning process so that I can make a series of blog posts on my thoughts on wedding planning and what I've learned to pass on to people who are getting married in the future.
Alrighty well I think this is a good enough update for now. I'm using up all too precious knitting time to write this. So much I want to knit, and so little time! Hoping to have at least weekly updates from here on out, but no guarantees! Work is going to get really busy really fast, along with my wedding planning...
