What I made, by Sharon

Today being the last day of soctober, I finished my last pair of socks for the month. I made a variation of Purl Soho's Sporty Striped Socklets which is basically a top down, heel flap and gusett simple shortie sock. I striped it more than the pattern said, which turned out to be a good move, since since I ended up with less than a gram of the main colour left over. I do have enough of the pink for a blanket square.I have sadly fallen behind on the sock blanket square knitting (only doing two this month so far) so I will get caught  up tonight and then move on to non-sock projects. In fact, my next project is on 6mm needles! But more about that next week.

I'm writing this on Tuesday, because tomorrow we have tickets to see Harry Potter and the Cursed Child and I can't imagine that after 5 hours of theatre I'll have the time or energy to post. I am so excited to see this. we'd been umming and ahing, because it's very spendy. last week Elise won tickets in the F riday forty lottery , and saw it on Wednesday, and this week Leon won! So that's what we are doing tomorrow.  In knitting, it's still sOcktober, so I'm still knitting socks. I decided to end the month with a pair of shorties from left over Socks Yeah! I love that yarn, and I'm pretty happy with the first sock. So traditional - top down, heel flap and gusset, double point needles. The reading isn't going as well. As promised I started The Messenger which is a NetGalley review book. I hated it from the second page. There is a lot of exposition, the main characters thoughts are very repetitive, it's written in a dual timeline, but...

I made a pair of spiral rib socks, with leftovers from my first and third pair of socks for sOctober: I'm quiet pleased with how they came out, although there are some weirdnessess: I did the first sock with the rib spiralling to the right, by using a K2tog ,(pictured on the right) and the second one I used a SSK, so that the rib would spiral in the opposite direction. The first sock came out smaller and tighter and the ribs are puffier: So that's a bit weird. But they fit, they are comfortable and fun and feel like they are the same size when on. Also they used up all but 5 grams of the self stripping and 13 grams of the sparkle yarn, so I'm calling that a win.

This week has rather flown by, and my blogging schedule got thrown out, and not it's Thursday. But I love my unravelled rambles, so here goes:  In reading: Barracuda by Christopher Tsiolkas. I have not read him before - T he Sla p sounded horrendous. This one came up one day on the Kindle Daily Deal (which I'm check every single day) and I decided to take a punt on it. I'm glad I did. It's marvellously, if heartbreakingly, written. I complained that my previous read, A Million Dreams didn't have a strong sense of place.This book does - and it's set in Melbourne. I actually went to one of the sister schools of the boy's school that the protagonist attended, and the story - about class, and place and people, rings very true to me. All that said, it is a teeny bit affected, flopping around through time, with a main character who doesn't talk much, but thinks a lot.  After I finish this (in the next day or two) I'm going to try to catch up ...

What to say about this pair of Cusp socks, pair three of sOctober 2019? The sock design looks quite intimidating in the book (Cookie A's Knit Sock Love ) but the knitting of it was fairly straightforward, and I love my yarn / pattern combination - especially when viewed with Regan, the cardigan that this yarn was left over from. I was suprised that these knit up in a week, I thought the heavily charted pattern and twisted rib would slow me down, but I guess the fun of them kept it all moving well.  The main weirdness of these socks is that the first one was just a smidge small /tight (although I often find that socks that are quite firm on first wearing are the best in the long run) The second sock is perfect. when i showed them to Leon, he could see which one was tighter, but thought the tighter one looked better. Oh well, they both feel good on, and are so pretty and sparkly. I love using up left overs, which is why my next socks are going to use the rest of this ya...

I knew that we were going for a day hike with Shoni and Lu on Sunday, and I knew I didn't really want to be knitting a highly patterned charted sock in the car. So I knit the first Cusp sock down to where the patterning ends, and then started the second from the inside of the ball of yarn.   Now, I know there are lots of fancy ways to knit 2AAT socks. My way is old school. I have 9 2mm sock needles (a mixture of HiyaHiya and Chiaogoo) and I use 4 for each sock and the 5th / 9th as a working needle that moves between socks. It works for me. The hike was marvelous, straight up a small mountain near Healsville. We saw King Parrots, including one that hung around and let us get very close, wallabies and the cairn on the top of the hill. I also managed to get the first sock done. Now onward into second sock land.  

It's been a big week in NetGalley land. I started reading A Million Dreams By Dani Atkins. It's pretty good, although in order to avoid spoilers, the blurb completely fails to accurately reflect what the book is actually about. It's a good read, accurately compared to Jodi Piccoult with relatable flawed main characters. There are a couple of small things that are bugging me disproportionately,like that it is set in a generic English city. And I get not every book has to have a really strong sense of place, but she describes parks, and suburbs and I keep wondering if it's Manchester or Devon. I don't know why this is irritating, the writing is good and I'm three quarters of the way through after three days. Although I think it might be about to take a turn for the over dramatic. We'll see. The other review book is knitting book!It's Baby's First Knits by Debbie Bliss (which I would link to, but it's not up on Ravelry yet, even though i...

I had a whole post prepared in my head about taking my time, and how I'm trying to enjoy the process and not just rush, rush rush. this was brought on my knitting the enjoyable but (I thought) slow Cassadae socks by Rachel Coopey. But they weren't slow at all, and I finished them in 9 days. Admittedly two of those days I was off work - nothing like a mid-week weekend to up my productivity. Please excuse the photos - Leon ran the Melbourne marathon yesterday, and I felt a bit bad asking him to stand up to model socks. Now I've got two choices. I can stick with my original plan, go steadily, knit blanket squares, be sensible. OR given that it's the 14th, which means there are 17 more days left in sOctober, I could get my head down and knit Cusp and then use the leftovers for the heels and toes of a spiral rib sock combined with the rest of the Richmond Knitters yarn. If I do that I should just have time to pop out a pair of sneaker liners with the left overs...

Yes, more finished spinning! I bought three braids of this fibre from Kathy's Fibre at Bendigo in 2016, and started spinning it soon after. I've only spun one of them, which is all I need for my current plant.  It's a rainbow self stripping and I spun thin and tight, and then chain plied to keep the colour runs intact.  I'm going to spin up 200 grams of the Bendigo fibre I just bought and ply it with some grey mohair which I haven't bought yet, but I am currently obsessed with mohair, and make a Waiting for Rain Shawl in dark grey, with rainbow tears, kind of like this one:  Photo copyright and project by EmmeSpins I think it will be really fun. Also, at the rate that I spin, I'll be able to knit the other two shawls in my queue, and the other 16 things in my queue before I need this. Still, I never know how my productivity is going to go, and I am pretty keen to get this stunning yarn on my needles.

It's been a bit of a week. I've been poorly, so I was off sick on Thursday, and took it easy on the weekend, and was off again on Tuesday, and today (Wednesday) I had planned leave. Leon is also home sick (which is more of a concern, since he is running the Melbourne Marathon on Sunday). What all this adds up to for me is lots of time for reading and knitting, so it's not all bad. I'm working on my second pair of sOctober socks, the Cassidea socks by Rachel Coopey. I'm sort of doing them two at a time - since the cable pattern on the cuff requires following on a chart, but the rest is quite simple cables, I'm knitting the cable chart at home, and the rest when I'm out and about. It's not a fast sock, but worth it for the stunning results. I'm reading The Incomers  by Moira McPartlin. Set in rural Scotland in the 1960s, it tells the story of Ellie, an African woman who has married a white Scottish man, and moved to Scotland. I'm about a q...

My favourite way to knit socks is cuff down, with a heel flap and gusset on double pointed needles. So, to start sOctober I knit a pair of Mystic Spiral socks, toe up, short row heel, magic loop. Why did I do this? I liked the pattern. Simple as that. I really like how they came out – It would have been easy enough to convert them to top down, and, while I have preferences I can knit, and enjoy both ways. I loved knitting with Dani’s yarn, and the way this pattern manipulates the self striping yarn. I'm especially fond of the way the heel came out - changing colour right in the middle: There was one weird thing in the pattern – back to back ktog and ssk, which led to ladders on the first one, so for the second one I separated the stitches. Much better. I tried to make them exactly matchy matchy, and got fairly close. When Sally saw these she said "I hope you are not going to be offended,  but those socks remind me of the Cat in the Hat". Offended? No,...

I've been trying to reduce my stash so that I buy yarn to put on the needles directly for projects, rather than having things marinate in the stash box for months, or even years. This has been an interesting exercise. I have gone from a high of 26 kilometres, to a more modest 9715 meters (just before I bought all the yarn in this post!). It has also meant that when I want to knit something, I have to buy yarn. most recently a hat for Rachey meant a trip to Morris and Sons, and some baby jumpers meant an order from Bendigo Woollen Mills. I ordered the Bendigo yarn a week before I needed it, and got the shipping notification a full week later. Grr, so annoying, so I west to Morris and Son's and bought the yarn for the baby jumper. Which I finished before the yarn arrived. Oh well, now I have it in stash for the next time I want to knit a baby girl jumper. I also put an order in with Kate Davies, with yarn for the Greis dress! I'm using the exact yarn and colourwa...

Last year the Richmond Knitters has a lot of fun with sOctober, and this year is going to be bigger and better than ever. we had a cast on party on Monday, and I really do love a knit-a-long. That said, I'm trying to keep it under control, and to continue to knit at least one sock blanket square between projects. So, my plans are: Mystic Spiral socks with my Richmond Knitters Christmas yarn. You can just see the yarn and toe in the photo above, and I finished the first sock today - I'm a bit sick, and took the day off work, and feel grotty, which sucks, but at least I got a sock finished! Then I'm going to make a pair of Rachel Coopey socks for Leon using Socks Yeah, that I mainly want to make because I want to combine the leftovers with this fluro pink to make a pair of sneaker liners. Then I'll make another pair of socks, probably with blue sparkle yarn , for me I love some sparkle. So, my plans are (relatively speaking) fairly restrained, but I'...

Ah sOctober, the funnest month of the year! I started some Mystic Spiral socks with the Richmond Knitters Christmas yarn last night. We are lucky enough to have Dani, from Half-baked Hand Dyed as a member of the Richmond Knitters. Knitting with her yarn is always a pleasure, and self striping is always so much fun.  If you want to knot more about my sOctober plans, come back on Thursday, where I will fully expand on them for once Upon a Sock. In reading this week I finished Still Come Home by Katey Schultz. It was a NetGalley review book, and as mentioned last week I was feeling a bit of trepidation, because I've had a bad run of review books. Well, this was fantastic. It was an modern American army book, but the story was told carefully and I really liked all the characters. The various points of view added depth and nuance to the book. It was definitely a winner. My full review can be found on Goodreads here . Then I started Forever is the Worst Long Time and tha...