What I made, by Sharon

 I knit Kris' socks, and they micro striped! This pattern is 60 stitches, 4x1 twisted ribbing I wasn't expecting that, based on the yarn in the ball - I never saw it in the hank, but I still wouldn't have predicted it. I was pretty excited to knit Monkey socks (64 stitch lace pattern) with the leftovers. I had an image of how the stripes would bend with the pattern. It looked very nice in my imagination and plans. When I started knitting I very quickly realised that this was pooling, rather than striping. The pooling is quite funny - Leon describes it a pink sock from another dimension superimposing itself on a striped sock from our dimension. The bright pink doesn't go all the way around,a nd they are mutchy poolier.  They look a lot better now they are done and I love them!   And I get to be matchy matchy with Kris, so double bonus. I also had the fun of knitting Monkeys again - first time since 2010, and it is such a fun, easy effective sock pattern.

I knit Suska's socks by Andrea Mowry. They are quite plain socks, knit with a strand of mohair, held together with sock yarn on 2.25mm needles. They are warm and fuzzy, and (unsurprisingly) don't fit all that well in shoes. I knit the smaller size and while they do fit, they are pretty firm. I think they will make lovely socks to wear around the house, but I don't really need more house socks. The Stephen West MKAL socks are perfect house socks and also don't fit that well in shoes.  I did the first one inside out to reduce purling. For no particular reason I knit the second as directed - which meant a lot of purling. Normally I complain about doing tons of purling, but for some reason this time it was fine, although the second sock is just a tiny bit looser, and fits a tiny bit better. These were fun to knit - and they were toe up and magic looped, two things I rarely enjoy. A toe up sock with a heel flap and gusset is something I enjoy: The pattern was clear and like...

Half-way through sOctober and I've finished my first pair of socks, a broken rib with an interesting heel construction for Leon (the pattern is Reverso , free from Knitty). The most interesting thing about these socks is that they are knit in Blacker Yarns , a 50 percent mohair / wool blend that is woolen spun. They were the oldest yarn in my stash -  I bought it at Edinburgh yarn fest in 2018, so it was time to use it. The colour is more beautiful than it looks here, they dyed it on white and coloured wool, so it has a lot of variation and depth of a commercial yarn. Yes, Juniper REALLY wanted to star in these photos!  So why might these be my only pair of sOctober socks? Well, I'm focussed on the Shawlography MKAL (new clue tonight!) and I'm also embroidering and spinning, so between all that there isn't as much time as I would like. I'm going to cast on a pair of knee highs, and I think that will take me well into next month. It's still a celebration of my fa...

I've been celebrating sOctober with enthusiasm since 2011, and I intend to continue the tradition this year, although a little more muted, since I'm also doing a Gnome MKAL and Westknits MKAL. In between I plan to make these socks for Leon, using the oldest yarn in my stash, bought in Edinburg in. I think I'll cast on on Sunday, so I'll have them largely done by the start of the MKAL next Saturday. When I get Leon's socks finished, I've got a lovely pair of knee highs in mind, the Emilia Socks by Erin Kostashuck.  I don't think I'll get all this done in sOctober, but that's OK. A couple of years ago Brent tried to start Sockvember. It didn't take off, but that what these socks might turn into! Meanwhile, I'm starting sOctober mindfully, with some long put off mending, because we may as well start the month with all the socks mended and well. I seem to have been saving the darning for a special occasion, and starting sOctober seems a specia...

Juniper loves a photoshoot. I finished my (first) pair of sOctober socks for 2020, the Slippery Slope Socks by General Hogbuffer. They are a great knit - they look so much more complicated than they are, once I got the hang of the pattern they were intuitive and fun. I had to decide between the grey or white for the background, and I'm still not sure I made the right decision. I might make these again sometime I have left over self striping but with the light back ground. Oh, it could be a good way to use up multiple small balls of self striping, since the whole sock only used 25 grams of the contracts colour. And 49 grams of the grey. I ended up with 7 grams left over. Close one!

This year Sonia (the founder of the Richmond Knitters) organised a content for sOctober - or Socktober, as everyone except me likes to call it. The categories were: I was fortunate enough to win in two categories, one for most creative Ava patterned socks, and one for any socks made with HalfDyed handbaked yarn. The prizes were all ridiculously lovely sock yarn, donated by Sonia. I feel particularity lucky, because the first yarn I got was this: It's Skein yarn "Bendigo or Bust" which they dyed for Bendigo this year, and by the time I wandered over to their stall at 2pm on the Saturday, it was all gone. I also got this skein of Half-Baked Handdyed yarn, which seems fitting and it stunning. It was a very fun month. Now, lets see if I can resist knitting any socks at all for the next month or two. Thanks to Sonia for organising, donating and all she does for the Richmond Knitters.

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.

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...

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,...

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...