What I made, by Sharon

I decided to make a fun pair of sneaker liners, as a simple project to work in public while I knit the bigger, more complicated Agave top. I thought it would be fun to knit them in conjunction - two at a time, but on separate needles. Finally I thought I would try the HiyaHiya needles and compare them with Chiaogoos for sock knitting. I actually bought the HiyaHiya circulars a little while ago. One was slightly bent when it arrived in the mail. I straightened it out and it seemed fine, but that should have told me everything i needed to know. I also seem to need to keep relearning the same lessons, because I made the same observations about the two brands' double pointed needles back in 2019. I cast the first sock on. the HihyaHiyas are very pointy, and split the splitty yarn quite a bit and bend if I lever too hard. After completing the cuff, heel and first set of stripes I cast the second sock on using a Chiaogoo circular. It is pointy, but not sharp. After completing the cuff, ...

It was meant to be a quiet weekend - Leon and i got our 2nd COVID boosters (the bivalent one) on Thursday, and we both had side effects that felt a lot like COVID. It was a brutal 26 hours,a and then I got better. On Friday i was too fatigued to knit! Aweful. i wasn't too tired to read, and I'm reading Miranda Saphire's A Light in the Dark , which is a sexy, feminist retelling of The Beauty and the Beast, so much of the day was spent lying on the couch reading. On Saturday I went to the gym and then had the rest of the day for whatever I wanted (after cleaning the house of course. We always clean first, and then do the relaxing). I finished the sneaker liners with the SHaG heel.  I really like the heel, it's the same fit as a heel flap and gusset, but much tidier. Then I made a cat toy  That was meant to be a gift. Which would have been great, except I left it on the bed and Willow decided it was great to play with. Successful cat toy, failed gift. I'll make ...

 I'm currently obsessed with  Birgit Freyer's  slip stitch helical socks. I bought a book of six patterns, and plan to make at least two of them for Leon and a couple for me. i started with the Xara socks. They are a marvellous confection of 1 x 1 cables, helical stripes and fun! They are a very good way to use up partial skeins of yarn, and you know how I love to use leftovers. They do lack stretch in the leg, which is why this pattern calls for 80 stitches in the leg. it's a German pattern, and is very well thought and and well written and also suggests  you use whatever heel and toe you like best. For this first pair, I went with the heel-flap and gusset. It's my go-to. I've tried a lot of different heels and always come back to this, because it just seems to fit best. in the past I've used an afterthought heel, a sweet tomato heel, fish lips kiss, hat heel, fork in the road heel, Crystal heel, you name it. I seem to have used the most variety on s...

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  ...

Sorry about the nighttime-photos, things are getting a bit hectic around here. It just occurred to me, I should have brought these to work with me and then i could have had day-light photos. Oh well, I'm not letting perfect be the enemy of good. You could say that about these socks too: Yep, they have a different number of rows. Also they were written with four rows in between patterns - apparently i failed in reading the worlds simplest chart. The pattern also called, very specifically, for wrap and turn short rows. I always use German Short Rows, which i did for the first sock. For the second I followed the instructions, and i have to say,i still hate wrap and turn. It's gappy, and hard t see where you are at, although in the finished product there is not much to call between them. Anyway, I have a complete, if not quite identical, pair of socks, and i got to try a different kind of heel and a different toe. They are not my favourite for me, but the socks are very cute. They...

I had 38 grams of yarn left over from Elton , so I decided to make - what else - a pair of sneaker liners. It's always either sneaker liners or baby jumpers, isn't it? I knew it would be yarn chicken, and I don't really enjoy that game, so I found some black yarn of a similar texture and searched Ravelry for "bees" and "socks". I found this adorable free pattern called Free Bees .   It's written as a toe up pattern, and I chose this opportunity to try out the Hiya Hiya Flyers, which are like flexible double pointed needles. I didn't like them - as expected the short length stressed out my hands.I also found the second needle stuck out weirdly, in strange places.  It was fun to try, and now I can pass the needles on. I knit the rest on my beloved DPNs. I did the first sock as written (except I substituted the toe and the heel, so I guess that's a very broad definition of "as written"). I knit the second sock top down, so my...

I finished my latest pair of sneaker liners ( Roxy by Trudy Hertaas , and wore them today. Knitting these in Socks Yeah , which is a fairly thin sock yarn reminded me of a solid fact: there are three things that affect the final size: 1) Needle size 2) number of stitches AND 3) yarn thickness.  Which is to say these, knit on my usual 62 stitches and 2mm needle size came out quite small. But I wore them today and they are rather perfect. I reversed the pattern for the second one. I was thinking about just eyeballing it as I knit, or rewritting it in excel, and then I wondered if my (work) photocopy machine could mirror the image. It could, and it worked, so that made life fun and simple. I also changed the side cables: the pattern had one extra long cable, which I didn't realise, so when I saw my sock had one longer cable I "fixed" it. After I realised what had happened, I left the cables equal, because to me it looks better that way. And now I'm back to ...

I finished the Treetops jumper on Wednesday, so I did what I always do when I need something to knit and have no time to plan: I cast on a pair of sneaker liners. I wanted to do helictical single row stripes, and was trying to work out a way to do an afterthought heel, but by casting on the heel provisionally and then knitting in, when I found the Fork in the Road sock pattern. It does exactly that, although it uses a hat heel. Since a normal afterthought heel doesn't suit me that well anyway, I decided to go for it. I cast on in the first pub of the evening, and knit the ribbing. We left the first pub, partly because we were always going to, but also because they turned the lights down and it was kind of dark. We got to the second pub, and I tried to cast on the heel stitches using Judy's provisional cast on in two colours. I still think it's possible, but I was 4 beers down and struggling. The bar tender turned the lights down (why do they do that?) He saw me looki...

Last month I wrote about my sock draw, and Kate asked me "Could you please write a post about knitting socks specially for exercising? Recommendations for patterns, construction and yarn types?" And I would be happy to, because I have thought about this a lot. In fact I've tried a number of heels and, when I started knitting sneaker liners in a serious way, even published a rough pattern for my favourite pattern at the time. I later decided I hate afterthought heels, although I do like the way they look in stripes they are fiddly to work and I always get holes on the edges. I have done fish-lips-kiss heels, sweet tomato heels, hat heels, all the heels. After a great deal of thought and wear I've realised that the challenge of sports socks is that, over time, they shrink through the heel. A heel flap and gusset seems to fit and wears the best. To accommodate this phenomena, I do 16 rounds of ribbing, rather than the 12 I used to do. It doesn't seem to matte...

As soon as I finished my  What The Fade shawl, I knew I wanted to use the leftovers to make faded monstersocks. I had already used some to make sneaker liners, but I wanted a fade. I bought the How I Roll pattern,  pattern, which is basically Rose City Rollers with a fade. Her technique is a little different from the blenders I have used before. I quite like them - if I had done more maths I could have made them more matchy, but the first one I got through the fade too quickly. I really should try to take a break from making sneaker liners, I have a draw full, but I find them such fun to knit. I wear a pair every single day, and often at the gym I run around in nothing but my socks, so they do get worn, seen and appreciated.  

This post contains more discussion about a bunch of things I've written about before -destashed yarn, sock needles and sneaker liners. Last Monday MooreCat destashed some left over sockyarn, and I snagged 50 grams of Arne and Carlos self stripping Regia. She warned me that it was only 50 grams - which is enough for a pair of Sneaker Liners for me and my size 6 feet.   On Friday I cast on some Rose City Rollers. I took the opportunity to knit with the KnitPicks wooden 5inch 2mm that I bought after socktober last year. I enjoyed them but in two small socks I broke two of them, so they are not really a viable long term plan. I finished the sock on 2mm Karbonz, which were ok, but not perfect. I'm hoping someone at EYF has the new Addi needles to try. I finished the sneaker liners on Sunday - I had enough yarn left over to do a square on my sock yarn blanket. Now onwards, to knit some garishsocks for my father . I do love the way the colours in the socks reflect the colo...

These little sneaker liners are by Trude Heretaas, they are called Mellom and there is not much to say about them. Like all of Trudy’s other patterns, they are simple, effective and free. I did reverse the pattern on the second sock, because that’s the way I roll. The yarn – Wollmeise Blend is so, so lovely. It’s soft and the colour is amazing. We’ll see how it wears for socks, because I’m not always a fan of cashmere in socks, but this has nylon as well. I loved the Blend soooo much that I have used up all of the three skeins I bought, all but the tiniest leftovers. This project was a delightful way to spend four knitting days – also, I recently bought a teal Lululemon outfit (seriously,dark teal tights and bright teal t-shirt) and now I have matchy matchy socks. That’s what I call happiness.

This weekend we celebrated the Richmond Knitters' 10th birthday with a high tea, because the Richmond Knitters like to do things in style. There was an amazing cake, organised by Sonia, and a trivia completion - where I came equal second and got lovely goodies for it. I also discovered that I have knit 115 pairs of socks - which is quite a lot. Most of all I reflected on how much I love this group of women (and Brent). These people who understand my going on and on about sock gauge, who have introduced me to so many wonderful things and who know how to have such a good time. (The photos all belong to  Sonia, because I failed to take any) I also finished my Rose City Rollers  this weekend. With the beautiful weather, on Sunday we went and watched other people run the Melbourne Marathon, and then sat on our balcony, just relaxing and enjoying the sunshine: and taking pictures of finished socks with cats.  I am very happy with them, they are a...

unusually enough, its been three pairs of socks in a row! I found Rachel Coopey's Mixalot socks, and thought they would make perfect sneaker liners. They are basically designed for left over sock yarn, and we all know I'm trying to use that up! I'm waiting for a delivery of Buchaille for Leon's winter set. Since it is rather late in the season to start knitting that, I want to be able to get it on my needles as soon as the yarn arrives, so I wanted to knit something quick. Because last week was busy, and some other reasons, it took me a week to knit these little beauties. Now I'm just finishing things off, and hoping that package comes in the post tomorrow.

After finishing my grandmother's shawl I planned to make the next Cookie A sock club socks, but the pattern and yarn hadn't arrived yet, so I went to my Ravelry queue and looked for something to knit that would take less that a week, because I really wanted to knit the club socks as soon as the patterns and yarn arrived. Near the top of my the list was Breeze from Knitty. I used some pink yarn that I dyed with Ursula . This was quite a fun, interesting knit, although I'm not sure how comfortable they will be in my bike shoes, they will definitely be fun at Pilates.

About four years ago I bought 12 pairs of anklets from . www.catchoftheday.com.au Due to that website being a little bit ... odd I think i ended up with 18 pairs. I wear them every time I ride, which is at least 5 days a week. Since I knit me first socks at the end of 2008 I haven't bought socks. Now it strikes me that soon my old sneaker liners are going wear out. So, I could buy some or I could make my own. I already have three pairs of anklets, and a bit of time before all my shop bought anklets go to sock heaven. So I started with a Priscilla Gibson-Roberts plain sock, from Interweave Knits Favorite ( sic ) Socks. PGR has spent a lot of time investigating what she thinks are the best design for socks, and basically it's a short row heel followed by a short row toe. Which is what I did here. Now I have small feet, so basically I knit the heel, did a couple of stripes and knit the toe. I don't like working short row heels and toes. The only way I can describe it is ...