What I made, by Sharon

In October 2014  I hatched a plan to knit every pattern from Rachael Coopey's completed "What would Granny Weatherwax Knit" club, while listening to Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels, on which the club was based. In October 2016 I finished the last sock from the club. This is what all 12 pairs look like together: It worked out really well. I knitted 6 pairs for Leon and 6 pairs for me, all from stash yarn.   Some of them are not as fresh as others, having been worn hard for 2 years, while others are pretty new. It was such a fun project and I love each and every sock. So, what now? I'm still going to listen to Discworld when I knit socks, a novel every couple of months paired so well with socks every couple of months. I'm undecided whether I am going to go on another sock mission, or be more free and unstructured. I am eyeing Cookie A's Sock Innovation . It's one of the first sock books I ever bought, I Iove every sock in it and I'v...

I really don't know why these socks gave me so much grief . I knit the first one up to the toe, and then ripped back a repeat, because I thought it was going to be too long. I then knit the toe, which turned out to be enormous  leaving the whole sock too long. I knit the second sock one whole repeat shorter, and started decreasing every row half way through the toe, leading to a shorter sock, a shorter toe and a sock that fits perfectly: I then ripped back the first sock  and knit it to match the second, and here it is, the final pair of "What would Granny Weatherwax Knit" club socks, Conina:

but it is different , I promise. I am reading the same book ( City of Blades ) but, because I have been carrying the paperback around with me all week, it's looking a bit battered. The book itself is good, and it's not a difficult read, it's just that last week I was right at the beginning, and this week I am heading towards the rather exciting end. I'm knitting with the same yarn as last week, but this week I am knitting Conina   socks, from Rachel Coopey's 'What would Granny Weatherwax Knit" club. Loving them, despite my s truggles following the directions. To go with it I'm listening to the next Discworld book The Last Continent ,   which is ok, but seems to have become a little lost in the middle. I'm sure it will find its way again. And that's me for another week. Do pop over to Ginny's b log. Hopefully you will be able to see what she and the rest of the yarn along have been up to, but I know she's been having computer iss...

Last night I cast off Vitamin D , and it's current blocking, I'll try to get some photos later in the week. This morning, on the train, I cast on the next "What would Granny Weatherwax Knit" sock. I guess I should have learn my lesson about c asting on on the train , because I cast on an apparently random number of stitches. Ripped it after one round. I then knit to my work meeting, and back from my work meeting (it was in the suburbs, not one of my country trips) and realised I had placed the second lot of double decreases in the wrong spot. Rip again. I reknit those rows, but at I was doing it I realised that on the first repeat I did the double decreases one way, while the pattern calls for a centred double decrease. I looked at it, decided it was fine and left it. Hopefully I can actually follow the fairly straightforward instructions for the rest of these socks, rather than continuing this 8 rows forward, four rows back dance.

I can't believe I haven't made a pair of socks for Leon since February. But here they are, Greebo the second last pair in Rachael Coopey's " When Granny Weatherwax knits socks " club, and the last pair for Leon.  I LOVE them. As you can see, they are mirrored, front and back and top and bottom.   Leon is not so sure, and thinks he would have liked socks that were identical better, but I say give it a try, the idea will grow on you. I love the yarn too. Still working from the bottom of the pile it's Dyed by Hands Yarns Tough Stocking , and it provided such great stitch definition. From my point of view these socks are a total winner. I'll get back to you in a couple of months and we'll see if Leon has come around to the concept! 

As I suspected from the beginning , the yarn was rather too busy for these magnificently patterned socks. Despite this, I am very happy with them. They fit perfectly, and are super comfortable. the pattern is cleaver, mirrored and running down the outside edge of each sock. I did have to wrestle with the feeling that they were taking forever to knit, but that is a consequence of choosing to knit complicated socks. I don't know why I am always in such a rush to finish things. Anyway, those are thoughts to ponder another time, for now I'm going to put on my new socks and be joyful.  

You may have noticed a little something about the sock I'm knitting in the last post and that's that the yarn is just a little bit busy for the pattern I'm knitting. I knew this from pretty much the beginning of the sock, but I'm persevering because the yarn is so pretty, and I can't see where else I would use it. The thing is, I bought the yarn at the Sock Summit in 2009, and sometime between then and now I stopped knitting plain socks. I'm all about cables, and lace and complexity. I enjoy knitting fancy socks, and I enjoy wearing them. So, while hand dyed yarn is still fine, I now tend to buy semi solid yarn, with the emphasis on the solid.  Six years ago though, I was knitting plainer socks with busier yarn. I'm persevering with  this combination though, even though it is not perfect, because I think the yarn is pretty and should have a chance to be used, and because it was on the bottom of the pile . 

Normally I do a lot of my reading and knitting when I'm out of the house. I read by the river at lunchtime (here's my view) and I knit with the Richmond Knitters , or at the pub, or on public transport , everywhere . Since we got home from our little trip nothing has left the house. Not my book, not my knitting. Unusual.  While we were away I started reading Prep . I got a third of the way through, and decided it was just a telling of some girl with low self esteem's school life, but nothing really happened. It was a bunch of loosely connected incidents, with a protagonist who is never happy , no matter what happens . Which I would say is also true of Magda Subuski's memoir as well. I'm persevering with the memoir, but I  gave up on Prep and picked up Rachel Herron's recently released book The Darling Songbirds . It's just lovely. I love the main character and, while the plot is predictable, the journey is so enjoyable. I haven't been r...

I finished my ninth pair of socks from Rachel Coopey's Discworld sock club this week. These are for Leon, and they are called Ook . Named after the Librarian at the Unseen University, the yarn was a perfect match for a sock named for an orangutan. Knit in Cascade Heritage , they were delightful. Portable , fun, easy to memorise, a fabulous yarn and pattern match.    I only have one observation, and its about me as a knitter. For the first sock  (on the right above, on the left below) I picked up the stitches, and they were not very nice. They are structurally sound, but a bit wonky and not nice looking. For the second sock I picked up the stitches and twisted them at the same time, and look how much nicer they are. A neat row of perfect stitches.    And now a final picture of the back of these lovely socks:  

Draco Nobilis  is the eight pair of socks I've knit from the Rachel  Coopey " When Granny Weatherwax Knits Socks " club. In the Discworld, 8 is a magic number, and these were pretty magical to knit. Going down a needle siz e made a huge difference, and the fabric feels really nice, as well as the socks fitting me better than the rest of the socks I've knit from this club. I love the colour of the yarn, as well as the fact that it is tourist yarn , but, because of the mulitcoloured nature of it I was worried about the pattern getting lost. Looking at the finished socks, I think the pattern breaks up the pooling nicely. Going with my aim of taking from the bottom of the pile I used a yarn bought in 2011. Well seasons, it can now fly out into the world as Draconis Nobilis - glorious dragon socks. 

This is the first week for three months that I haven't been knitting a Kate Davies pattern! Never fear, everything else is going very nicely and is thoroughly in character. I'm knitting another Rachel Coopey When Granny Weatherwax Knits Socks club pattern, Draco Nobilis. To go with it I'm listening to the next Discworld book, Maskerade . I'm enjoying both the sock, the book and the pretty colours in the yarn. I'm reading The Storied Life of AJ Finkry by Gabrielle Zevin. It was one of author Rachael Heron 's recommendations, and she just has the best taste in books. So it's a good week on all fronts. Make sure you click over to Ginny's blog to see what she, and the rest of the yarnalong are up to this week..

  I finished my Weatherwax socks yesterday.  I like them, although they haven't photographed particularly well. They fit, but they could be tighter. Since this seems to be an ongoing theme, it seems like it's time to go down a needle size when I'm kitting socks on two needles. So, the lace isn't quite as obvious as it could be. The other reason is that I am a lazy photographer and Juniper wasn't being a very good photographer's assistant.  I deliberately modified the pattern so they were the same length. I accidentally  modified it so the pattern repeats more on the left foot than the right. I'm claiming it as an homage to the original asymmetrical patter.  

I was happily knitting away on my Weatherwax socks when I read the heel instruction for the second sock. These socks are mirrored so I read the instructions carefully. the I scratched my head and read them again. The I shuddered and said "NOPE". As written, and on purpose the left sock is seven rounds longer than the right sock. Why? Why would I do that? Why would anyone do that?  

Last week I finished Mort socks, the sixth pair I have knit from Rachel Coopey's D iscworld Sock Club. They were very pleasing socks, with a mirrored cabled pattern down the outside of each leg. The other this that made these socks pleasing was the yarn / pattern combination. I dyed the yarn myself, and it came out the perfect colour for this project, a dark black with purple undertones which rather matches the description in the Discworld books of the colours of Death's garden. (If you haven't read the books, this won't make any sense to you. Go read them. Start at the beginning with The Colour of Magic).  So now I'm halfway trhough knitting the socks from the Discworld sock club, six down, six more to go.

I went to take pictures of the latest pair of socks I finished for Leon ( Gaspode , by Rachel Coopey, for those following along at home). Now, taking pictures is often a struggle for me, but its a pair of socks, and I couldn't be bothered following the rules of good picture taking - go outside, make it interesting, whatever. I decided to take some happy snaps in the living room.   Tarragon loved the idea, and decided to be in all the photos. I found these socks a little frustrating to knit. they were simple, but have a different pattern on the front and back of the leg, and I found it interrupted the natural rhythm of the knitting.   I really liked the yarn / pattern combination. I've had the yarn in stash since before I started blogging, and was excited to take from the bottom of the pile.   I thought Leon would be happy with it - it's all his colours (being dark brown, grey, hunter green, blue). It turns out that Leon likes all these colours - but not t...

I said previously that I had been wanting to knit orange socks since 2013. The odd thing is that what motivated me to make orange socks that I bought orange shoes. Now, matching orange with orange is a terrible fashion idea, as illustrated here:   It’s how I do food matching as well – oh a rich chocolate cake, lets put an oatmeal stout with that. Coffee mouse goes with Baileys, obviously. So, not a sophisticated approach to matching anything. Even though I’m doubtful about wearing the orange socks with the orange shoes, I love them. The colour is so lovely and the pattern is really attractive. Well, they  are when they areon. The socks have a weird shape when they are off, probably because of the massive amount of ribbing at the top.   Put them on though and the lace gets stretched out, the ribbing hugs my calves and they are perfection. Not only that, they were such a fun knit. Easy to memorise lace is my absolute favourite thing...

Given that I just bought a new sock knitting bag , I decided it was time to knit some socks. The next pattern in the Discworld sock project was Eskerina and I have chosen some Mosely Park yarn.   It’s a Bamboo Merino Nylon blend which doesn't even appear on their website right now. I bought it at Bendigo 2013 .  I was looking for orange yarn, because I don’t have any orange socks.  It has been pointed out to me that this is more of an apricot than an orange, but either way I love it. It has an amazing variation of colour for something that is essentially a solid colour and is knitting up into a dense, soft, wonderful fabric. It also shows off the lace pattern really well. I am a bit shocked that I wanted orange socks a year and a half ago, and it took me this long to get on to knitting them. Still, better late than never, and these are turning out to be magnificent socks.

Yesterday I finished the Teppic socks. These socks were the perfect combination of an easy to memorise pattern, but enough interest to stop them being boring. Last week was one of those weeks were I went everywhere, and these socks came with me. I cast on the first sock on a train to Ballarat, and finished it on a plane to Mildura. The second sock was a bit more mundane, but did come to Packenham and Northcote with me. One of the things I've noticed about these Discworld socks is that the pictures in the patterns do not do them justice, and, in my opinion, the original yarn they were knit in is almost all far to busy for the patterns. This one has delightful detailing with a honeycomb pattern down the sides and a sort of broken rib down the front. The Stranded in Oz yarn that I used for these did pool a little more than I expected, but I think the pattern stands out anyway. 

Welcome to this weeks Yanalong, hosting  by Ginny. Pop over to her blog to see what she, and the other yarnalong peeps are knitting and reading this week. When I left the house this morning I was half way through my book, which is The Great Christmas Knit Off . It's chick lit, which is fine, but Christmas is not a thing for me. In fact, if I consider anything about Christmas, it's to say "bah humbug" and have another bottle of wine. But Rachel  tweeted about it when it was on pre-release and started reading it this week, and you know how I love a read/knit/do-the-same-thing-as-other-people along. I'm quite enjoying it. It's light and pleasant and you just know everything is going to be okay in the end. When I left the house I had knit the first of the next pair of Discworld socks, Tepic . And then today I went to Mildura for work, so I did get a start on the second sock. Like the rest of the Discworld Sock Club  it's a good, sold interesting knit. Th...

I've discovered that one of the reasons I blog and Ravelry my finished objects as soon as they are done is that it is really hard to remember what I did two weeks ago! So, I wrote about the dramas in starting The Colour of Magic Socks. Well, if finished them. I didn't run out of yarn, although I only had five grammes left, so it was closer that usual. I had to make the toes left and right footed, I've got small feet and I couldn't get the pattern done before the toe decreases started: I'm happy whit how these turned out, they are comfortable and pretty and I just love the wyay the pattern and the yarn plays together. I also knit the second Cadeautj e slipper. I'm very happy with these and kind of want to knit a pair for myself, even though I love wearing my ugg boots when it's cold, but these seem to warm and wooly...