What I made, by Sharon

You may remember that in December I said I was doing a secret test knit. Well, now I can reveal that I was testing a pair of Alma socks, to match my Alma Cardiga n. I started by dying some white sock yarn, because I wanted the socks tan and orange, like the cardigan: And then I used some leftover orange (the gift that keeps on giving).  They were really fun to knit.  Susanna is a great designer, and obviously shares my love of matchy-matchyness.   They were quick to knit and are very comfortable. The fact that the pattern is aligned differently on each sock is a me issue, not an issue with the pattern. After all that, I still had orange yarn left over, so i made a reverse pair of shorties. I knit exactly the same pattern, I just left of the whole leg. So fun! The pattern is currently exclusive to a the Bombed Yarns Sock Club sock club (that I didn't hear about until after it was sold out). it will be widely available next month - which give you enough time to knit ...

As everyone knows, I try to keep as small a stash as possible. It's not that small, it fluctuates between 15 and 25 kilometres. The other day at knit night I announced that I had decided I needed orange socks, but I didn't have any orange sock yarn. Kris piped up "I've got orange sock yarn". Sonia announced that she had orange sock yarn - Collinette Jitterbug, a discontinued yarn I adore and Kate said she had some that she had ordered one day when she was not feeling well. I pointed out that it was very nice that they all had orange sock yarn, but that was their orange sock yarn, and I am a big girl who can buy her own yarn. Sonia then decided to give me her orange yarn - not one but two skeins of Jitterbug, which was once my favourite sock yarn, but has been discontinued. It's the perfect shade of orange, and knit up beautifully into Cookie A's Sake Socks. I had put off making these socks, because every knit stitch is twisted and there are cables on ever...

 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.

When I decided to make a sock with the left-overs from my Rose Cardigan, I wanted it to be purl side out. The jumper is knit flat (so much purling) so I decided to knit the sock inside out so most of the fabric would be knit, rather than purled. It does mean that the cabling is "backwards" and, unless I made a particular effort to look, mistakes go unnoticed for a lot longer than would happen if I could see it in the course of the knitting. Luckily I know how to drop stitches down to fix cables, which was required more than once! I was worried that the gusset picked up stitches would look messy. When I mentioned this to Brent, he provided me with his sock pattern, which happens to look equally good from either side. I don't think that was quite the reason he designed it, but I'm pretty happy with how that went. The only other thing I didn't consider is that the toe is also inside out, and, off the foot it looks a little odd.  As you can see, the one on the left is...

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...

I decided to do Stephen West's Contrast Blast mystery sock knit-a-long on a bit of a whim.   It was four clues in four weeks, I had plenty of left over yarn in stash and there was no reason not to. Unlike Stephen's Shawl mystery knit-a-longs, which I have participated in the last three years, and will probably do again this year, it was a bite sized commitment, usually taking two knitting days each week. The techniques we used were fun, lots of texture and variety and, like the rest of Stephen's knit-a-longs, a really great, chatty community on Ravely.  Look at that heel. It's beautiful. What about the finished object? Well, I think my socks are slightly too big for me, but going down a size would have made them too small. They are quite comfortable, but the purling near the ankle makes them sag down and look a bit like the Michelin man. They are certainly cute, and comfortable enough. I wouldn't wear them hiking, but I mainly wear vanilla socks hiking, so that'...

I just finished a jumper for Australian's Knitting for War Affected Kids (AKWAK) when Susanna of Sanna and Co  put out a call for test knitters for a basketweave sock , I initially decided not to participate, because we have enough socks  (and also I'm currently obsessed with slipped stitch cable patterns). But then i realised that the socks went down to small sizes, so i signed up for the six-year-old size, to match the jumper. Are they not the cutest things? Now i'm going to do a hat and a cowl, and call it a set. AKWAK's includes gloves in their sets, and I'm not sure why I'm so resistant to knitting them. That I can think about after I've finished the next two pieces of this set.

A week or so ago I finished the Xena socks I was knitting for Leon. I love this technique, it looks so cleaver and is so easy. It's just helical stripes and 1x1 cables in a pretty intuitive, charted pattern. I used Sarah Jordan's SHaG  heel, which doesn't interrupt the stripes, but still provides the fit of a heelflap and gusset. What went wrong was something about this technique, combined with some other factors in my life, has borked my right shoulder. Which is a nice change from my left shoulder hurting, which it does if I spin without the exact right posture.   Anyway, I'm rehabing the shoulder, and I'm still allowed to knit, which is the main point really. Because when I can make projects as fun as this, why would I want to stop, or even slow down?

I don't know what's going on around here. Normally I knit a big thing and then some smaller projects and then another big project, but for the last bit I have been leaping from giant project to giant project. I spent July knitting a brioche cardigan, September knitting a brioche jumper, October knitting a giant shawl and now I'm knitting a man's hooded jumper that will probably take me until December. In between finishing the brioche jumper and starting the shawl (which was the Twists and Turn MKAL ) I knit one sneaker liner. This took me two days. Then I set it aside, thinking I would finish it in the breaks in the MKAL, but, unlike in previous years, I had no breaks in the MKAL. So last weekend in Marysville I knit the second sock. These are Joji's Flores s ocks. It's the second time I've knit them and I adore them. They just fit so well. Add to that that the multi-colour is my own hand-dyed and this project removed two separate yarns from my stash and  ...

 I've made two pairs of long socks recently - these beauties in my  colours that fall down terribly and these in autumn colours that stay up like nothing else, but don't match my general aesthetic - which is pink and teal.  I've ridden my bike to the gym, done a full deadlift session and ridden home again with only having to adjust them once. The problem is that I have theme colours, and these are not it. So I decided to reknit them in pink and teal: The pattern was even better the second time around, maybe because I was knitting with colours that make me so, so happy.  I wore them to the gym today - riding there in the rain, deadlifting and then coming home and they required no adjusting at all. Also, the colours make me so very, very happy.

  I just got out of COVID isolation, and it is so good to be back in the world. That said, I was lucky - although i was quite tired, I felt more like I had a (very) bad cold than anything worse. I was coughing and snuffly, but I didn't have brain-fog or exhaustion. And that meant i could indulge in some of my favourite things - reading, crocheting and knitting. I tested positive on Saturday night, and I'd just cast on the toe of a toe-up test sock by Kat . It used some very clever and simple techniques, and I really enjoyed knitting it this pretty Stranded-in-Oz yarn. It was a very relaxing knit. The pattern should come out in July and I recommend it.  When I wanted something that used a little more of my brain power, I crocheted squares from Granny Square Flair. I did 9 different squares. So fun and I learnt so much. I also finished the final square from Granny Square Academy. Now I have 30 squares done from there, and have realised that I Iike variety in my ...

I know these look like a tiny pair of calf length socks, but they are long in the sense of it took me two weeks to make them - and they are a size 5, 56 stitch sock!  I don't know what happened. it's a very simple pattern - I was knitting Rachey Coopey's Gardner's socks , but then I crossed the cables the wrong way in the ribbing and decided I wanted them simpler than the originals anyway. Also, Kris (who these are for) feels the cold so i wasn't sure of the wisdom of lace socks for her. She also feels the bumps on the bottom of handknit socks, so I made "princess soles" - I pearled the bottom of the sole. Anyway, they are very sweet socks and I hope she enjoys them.

 I finished the  long socks I have been working on since sOcktober and they are magnificent. They fit perfectly, and nothing, and I mean NOTHING will make them fall down.  It's a great pattern, using the principle of start with a tight cuff, and then put in a calf gusset, and then reduce back to where you started.  So, I'm very happy with these. The problem is these autumn colours are not my most favourite. They are Stranded in oz club yarns, and they are gorgeous, particularity the gold glitter main colour, but I really prefer teal, or pastels. In fact I used my perfect colour pallet is in the teal socks that I knit in May this year.  The problem with those socks is that they start with the maximum number of stitches, and reduce from there. And they DO NOT stay up. you can see the problem in these photos. i guess if they were knit quite stiff they might stay up, but the Half-baked Hand-dyed self stripping is beautiful and soft.  I know I should rip ...