project – In The Rounds

Once Upon A Sock – June 2019

(Okay, this is a day late… oops!) This may be one of the least exciting Once Upon a Socks to participate this month, because, not much happened! After April, where I felt like I was exclusively knitting socks, I was eagerly looking for something different to work on, and that became my Flying Vee shirt. Because of my excitement over this project, not much sock knitting was done!

I got a few more rounds worked on my pink and black vanilla socks. Sock 1 knit up with a few movie watching adventures, and part of the foot of Sock 2 were worked on while at a City Council Committee Meeting (exciting stuff, huh).

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Photo courtesy of last month – image this month’s is past the heel, and the second stripe of black is being worked.

I’ve also been working not-so-diligently on a pair of socks for my grandfather, and it struck me that why my enthusiasm isn’t great is probably because of the yarn. I’m using Kroy, a workhorse of a sock yarn if ever there was one. While working with it, it feels like a heavier sock yarn than others, and this extra bulk, while I’m sure it will make a cozy pair of socks, is rather annoying to work with on my beloved 9″ circulars. Because I’m not enjoying working with this yarn, I’m not working on this sock more than others. Hopefully, once I’ve finished the Flying Vee, I’ll try to avoid casting on another sweater and dedicate myself exclusively to these socks, at the very least to get ONE of them done.

About Once Upon a Sock: On the first Thursday of the month, a number of sock-knitting bloggers share their progress with the theme “Once Upon a Sock,” an awesome initiative co-ordinated by Paula @ Spin A Yarn! It’s well worth checking out the other posts because it’s always interesting to see what other people are looking at; it’s like sock yarn eye candy!

Flying Vee is Flying

Earlier in the Spring, I felt like all I was knitting was socks. Please do not misunderstand; that is not at all a bad thing. My warm toes are always happy for socks, but I was really wanting to start something new. I had quite a bit of sock weight yarn in my stash (shocking, I know) and really wanted to make a garment.

I was really pleased when I found Flying Vee by Stephanie Earp. It is a fingering weight shirt which could either be made with long or short sleeves; I’ve opted for the short sleeve version. I loved that it had the middle panel where a fun sock yarn really could pop. I had two options in my stash, and with the help of Soper Creek Yarns, we narrowed the choice to Riverside Studio Supersock Superwash Merino Nylon Fingering in Raspberry and found an amazing Cascade Yarns® Heritage to compliment it as the main body colour.

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Here are the two yarns, Cascade being the dark blue (and although this photo doesn’t show it, the heathering is pink), and the light blue/pink/purple is the Riverside. The bag likely dates to the 70s, and it is new-to-me, likely owned by my great-grandmother who was a member of the York-District Guild of Weavers, Spinners, and Dyers.

Well, this t-shirt has been flying off my needles. I had a few moments of confusion around a modification provided to allow for more ease at the waist. There were two of us, and I would consider us (my friend, especially) to be confident and competent knitters, and at times we were interpreting these short row instructions completely differently! My default go-to move is simply ‘I’ll just try it and see what happens.’ I’m pretty happy that I only had to completely frog it once!

It’s an interesting construction; rather than being knit top-down, or bottom-up, it’s knit from side to side, and the centre ‘V’ is achieved through short rows. The front is completed, and I’m making very good progress on the back. Hopefully I’ll have a new shirt ready for wear in the coming weeks!

Once Upon a Sock: May 2019

When the first Thursday in April came along, the date that is typical for releasing the Once Upon a Sock posts, I was walking thousands of steps all over Montreal, then trying to recover onboard a Via Rail train back home. Needless to say, I didn’t write anything sock-y last month.

For May, I am pleased to show progress in a few pairs. The last time I posted about my Leo and Roxy socks was for March’s Once Upon a Sock; they were finished in time for the Montreal getaway, keeping my poor, tired feet nothing if not warm.

I also finished my plain stockinette socks, a good go-to pair for ‘keeping the hands busy’ knitting. The yarn is Opal, and it does this fabulous, effortless self patterning thing, making the socks look far fancier than I ever intended. I haven’t worn these, nor have I decided if I’m going to be selfish and keep them, or if I’ll tuck them aside…

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While in Montreal, I bought a gorgeous skein of Biscotte self-striping yarn. This is my second Biscotte skein, and I LOVE this yarn. It is unbelievably soft and lovely to work with. Over the Easter weekend, I took myself to the movies, cuff completed, and ready to start the leg.

Once again, I am completely enamoured with a simple stockinette sock, where all I’ve had to do is knit over and over. I essentially got the leg worked up while watching Shazam!, worked on the heel and gusset through the following week, so by the time I sat to watch Avengers Endgame, I was ready to work the foot.

And then, this happened:

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While I LOVE working on socks, I may not be as sock happy through the next month. I’m really itching to find a different project, something less sock-y, more time involved… maybe a sweater or t-shirt is on the horizon… off to Ravelry!

Challenge in Progress – Soper Creek’s 2019 Yarn Challenge

For over a decade, one of my LYSs, Soper Creek Yarn, has run a Yarn Challenge, where they prepare kits of a particular yarn, and they challenge knitters to come up with something creative using that yarn – more can be purchased, but ONLY that yarn can be used. FOs get put up in her display window and voted on in store and online. I’ve never won, but for the last three years, I’ve enjoyed playing along.

This year, I knew exactly what I wanted to make with the yarn. Years before, I’ve laboured over what to make, never quite sure. Not this year. I had the pattern in mind, I bought the yarn, and I cast on later that night.

The pattern and work in progress will stay secret until after voting because thems the rules and I wanna play fair, but I can post pics of the yarn in cake format!

The yarn is Briggs and Little Sport, and it’s woolly and wonderful. It has that wonderful wool smell, and this probably weird, but I keep smelling my project. It has that distinct scent, wholesome, slightly barnlike. As well, I LOVE the colours selected by Tina this year (last year’s was rather challenging for me, but I guess that’s the name of the game).

The project is very much in progress. Looking forward to sharing pics in a few weeks!

In case you were curious, here are the links for previous years’ challenges

2016 Yarn Challenge

2017 Yarn Challenge

2018 Yarn Challenge

She carried a watermelon

A friend is expecting her first daughter and may give birth anytime soon. Her baby shower was this past weekend, so naturally I’ve been knitting away for her gift. The mom to be loves Dirty Dancing and has been making jokes that through the pregnancy has been feeling like she’s carrying a watermelon. The gift for the baby:

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There were two patterns for this set:

Watermelon Baby Cardigan by Stitchylinda Designs
Watermelon Baby Hat by Stitchylinda Designs

I knit a few more rounds than the hat recommended, and I think I knit an extra two rows to the length of the cardigan. Otherwise, these were really sweet patterns to follow.

The pattern technically calls for DK weight yarn, however, in the pattern notes, the design remarked that her yarn worked up like a worsted. I had the green Cascade 220 Superwash in my stash, so I bought two balls of white, one of which was dyed pink in my slowcooker. I’ll never get tired of home dyeing yarn!