Sock Madness Continues!

It has become apparent that one week was not enough for my current obsession. Please bear with me for one more day (and then hopefully I can move on — at least here even if I do suspect that I'll be knitting nothing but socks for a few more months) full of sock links. I MUST share them as I've found some great things pertaining to knee-high socks.

• I will definitely have to find some gold sock yarn (other than the koigu from my cowl because, since making some socks from jitterbug that more or less felted on my feet on the first wearing with shoes, I'm paranoid about my sock yarn choices)
• Beautiful cashmere yarn for socks (and beautiful socks from the yarn)
• One more from knitty
• Vintage sock patterns!

And a quick note on heels as concerns the Debbie Bliss pattern:

I had never had a sock pattern before that called for heels made exclusively from short rows, I'd always had patterns using a heel flap. So, on attempting the Debbie Bliss sock as written and winding up with a diagonal row of holes from the heel to the ankle, I've rewritten the pattern and decided that these short row heels are for the birds. If anyone is interested in the new stitch counts, please let me know.

End of Sock Week

It seems that Sock Week is a short week. I had fun though!

To make up for the short week, I have a basic sock pattern for you (.pdf), should you feel so inclined.

Sock Week Day 4

Socks, as much as I like wearing them, don't seem to want to stay put on me. Whether they are short or tall, store bought or handmade, they all fall. This is especially a problem with these pink, linen blend socks I started about a year ago. They're from Handknit Holidays which is a fantastic book. I want to make at least half of the projects in it. I finished the first stocking quickly but then, when it would only stay up for about 3 walking steps, I never finished the second. I think I'm going to finally either get some garters or sew some elastic in to motivate myself to finish the second one.

It is proving exceedingly difficult to find garters that are meant to hold socks up. They all seem to be mostly decorative. Does any one have any other suggestions for keeping over-the-knee-socks from becoming slouch socks or places to get plain garter-type contraptions? Especially as I am working on another pair of tall socks at the moment!

P. S. Just in time for sock week, look what was posted on the purlbee yesterday! I may just have to do a few pairs of these too. I may never want to knit a sock after a few weeks of this mania!

Sock Week Day 3

I missed Sock Week Day 2. But really only here. I met Joetta and Co. last night for some knitting fun and worked a lot on the grey socks that I posted on Monday. So today I of course have more sock patterns I'd like to use since I'm about halfway done with one sock of the pair I am making now. These are all from knitty. As if I needed more patterns to tempt me!

Spring Forward
Hedera
Quill Lace

Sock Week Day 1

I've had poison ivy on my feet for about 3 weeks now and haven't been able to wear socks at all. But I do love socks. So, in honor of the poison ivy finally starting to go away (I am VERY allergic to it), I have decided to declare this Sock Week.

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For Sock Week Day 1 I have to share my current obsession with the new Debbie Bliss Magazine. I'm not much of a magazine reader but occasionally find one that strikes my fancy and this one seems like it will be one of those. I can't stop looking through it! I has bags and a knitting needle case and men's patterns and even a recipe for scones. And it has TWO pairs of socks that I love. I have started on the tall ones as the magazine came out when I was looking for a pattern for tall socks anyway (I even had yarn already picked out!) and I may just make the short ones for my next project.

Gallery Wall

I didn't realize that what I was working on could be termed a Gallery Wall exactly but, after seeing a lot of examples on Abbey Goes Design Scouting lately, I guess that that's what I have. And since I've finally finished it after getting the photo on the lower right framed (it is a 1915 photo of Bath which P & I bought on our trip there in 2005), and since it is an official Thing, I thought I'd share it here. It only took me 3 years to get it done.

The other photos, in case you're wondering are:

top row: 2 random prints whose matting I like very much (from Target, purchased when I got my first apartment) and then an antique portrait, in a convex-glass frame, of P's great aunt and grandfather as babies

center: a reproduction engraving of Castel Sant'Angelo in Rome, which I bought at a bookstore when I was there for school in 2003, an antique print of Rome, looking from above the Piazza del Popolo, purchased on the same trip as the one above, and a Blackbird Designs cross-stitch that I did in 2003 at the height of my Blackbird Designs / cross-stitch mania.

bottom: another antique family portrait with convex glass, this one of P's other grandfather, an antique photograph of lumberjacks, including P's great-great grandfather and great-great-great uncle, and then the photo from Bath.

Vintage Paper Swap

I was only one day late but I got my vintage papers in the mail for Abbey's Vintage Paper Swap. They are on their way to a lovely person in Australia! I hope that she finds more uses for them than I did — a lot of them were from my inadvertent stash of vintage paper things. (Inadvertent because I HAD, at one time, intended to put them to good use. But that didn't happen and didn't happen so they've moved on to a better home!)

There are also a few things in the package from the West 78th Street Greenflea which I had never been to before. This was a Bonus Outcome of this swap since I went there expressly to get some paper. And did I ever find vintage paper! There is a whole booth with nothing but vintage postcards and 2 of the most knowledgeable and friendly flea market vendors I've ever run across. I'll have to be really careful about how often I venture back over there!


I also put to good use a lot of the cute little envelopes that I have from my stationery store days (they were samples, destined for the trash, so what choice did I have but to take them home and hoarde them until I now begin to feel that I may someday put all of my mismatched envelopes (all sans cards, of course) together in one place and die when they fall and crush me!?)

Happy Labor Day (here's a hat!)

Today was a good Labor Day. Very quiet (and I've had very few quiet days over the last month). And since it was quiet, I finally got my adjustments to the hat pattern in Rebecca Magazine written out. I, along with just about everyone else I know who knits, loved the Foliage hat pattern from knitty. And I got some Malabrigo yarn with the idea of making it. But, right about that same time, I saw this pattern in Rebecca No. 36.

I decided to use the idea of the pattern running all the way to the top that I liked so much in the Foliage pattern along with the different lace rib pattern from the Rebecca hat and this is what I came up with.

And here are adjustments in case you'd like to have one as well. It's still hot here (it actually got cool over the last week and now hot again today and yesterday) but I know that I'll be happy to have the hat to go along with my collection of new scarves and cowls when it gets cold.

Work pattern as printed until row 35

Repeat 11-16 once more

BEGIN DECREASE:

Start repeat again but this time, on the 4th row, p2tog rather than p2 ea time (so the rib pattern reads: *p2tog, k3*, repeat between *)

*p1, k3* rib repeat for one row

*p1, yo, sl 1 knitwise, k2tog, psso, yo* repeat

*p1, k3* rib repeat for one row

*p1, k3, p1, place next 3 stitches on a cable needle and hold in front, k2tog, k2tog, knit 3 stitches from cable needle, p1, k3* repeat 3 more times

*p1, k3, p1, ssk, k3, p1, k3* repeat 3 more times

*p1, k3, p1, ssk, k2, p1, k3* repeat 3 more times

*p1, k3* around

*p1, yo, sl1 knitwise, k2tog, psso, yo, p1, sl1 knitwise, k2tog, psso, p1, yo, sl 1 knitwise, k2tog, psso, yo* repeat 3 more times

*p1, k3, p3tog, k3* repeat 3 more times

*p1, place next 3 stitches on a cable needle and hold in front, k2tog, k2tog, knit 2 stitches from cable needle* repeat 3 more times

*p1, ssk, k3* repeat 3 more times

*p1, ssk, k2* repeat 3 more times

*p1, p3tog* repeat 3 more times

8 stitches remaining – draw tail through all 8 stitches and pull tight

work in loose ends