February’s Socks are Finished

 

I did not start any new socks in January as I still had a pair on the needles from December. But as I had a dearth of projects in February, I cast on a pair. I had been tempted to cast on this pattern in January as they fit the theme of Colorwork but held off as that theme would always come up again. But when February’s designers were announced and this pattern was by one of those designers, I knew I had to cast them on.

This pattern also fit my own guidelines as it has been in my favorites for a little while and added bonus that it is a free pattern. And I would like to say that it is a pretty amazing pattern to be given away.

So what is the pattern? It is Film Reel Socks by Alex Parker Mooney. There are five sizes and four different ways of working the short-row heels. Pretty amazing for a free pattern. Looking at the various iterations of this pattern, I decided that it didn’t matter what the contrasting colour was but it was best if it was very tonal. (Although there is one lovely pair where a different colour is used for each section.)

I used the white and orange left over from these socks and the black was left over from these ones. I was worried that I would run out of the black yarn but finished with about 1g left.

The colour pattern was five stitches and I could have stranded the yarn but chose to practice the ladder back jacquard technique as I have used it just once since making this hat. This was an easy pattern to use the technique as I was making extra stitches from a row of black stitches and getting rid of them in a row of black stitches. Before I started I read other resources as well as the hat pattern and it is interesting that some resources say to make all the stitches with a backwards loop whereas the hat pattern said not to do this for all t the stitches. At some point I will have to see what the difference is.

As I said it was easy to use this technique on this particular sock pattern. I used it on the entire sock but now they are finished, I wonder how comfortable the sole of the foot will be.

 

As this is a colorwork pattern the designer suggested going up a needle size. I’m not a fan of that so I worked a size larger than usual but went down a needle size for the foot.

I hope you will agree that they are a lovely pair of socks with the kudos going to the designer and yarn dyer.

 

One Month In

 

I wouldn’t usually give an update on plans and WIPs in the second month of the year, but as I was making a note of all my projects in progress at the beginning of this month, one thing hit me – I had no active projects. Which sounds strange as I have five projects on the go. But those projects are all long term projects – four blankets and a car project. I had no project which is my main, relatively easy project.

Of course this had to be rectified and I cast on a pair of socks. But this didn’t completely solve the problem of having a mostly easy project on the go as they have areas of colourwork, and a few days later I cast on some slippers. This latter project is back up for when both the socks and the mitred square blanket are not at easy stages.

A quick update on the blanket. The squares have all been joined into six strips of five squares and now I am edging those strips. Which gives me long rows of garter stitch to work on; definitely non-concentrating knitting.

Of course, I don’t want to have loads of new projects on the needles but these two cast ons fill a need to always have pick up and go knitting.

First Socks of 2025

 

In my last post of the finished mittens, I didn’t title it my first finish of 2025 as most of the knitting was done in 2024. And in the same way I feel it is cheating a little to call these my first socks of 2025 as 80% of the knitting was done in 2024.

I showed these socks in this post as I was working them separately but from one ball of yarn. The reason for doing this was I wanted to ensure I did not run out of yarn as I was using leftovers. And I still ended up with 4 grams left because I did not want to make the rib tops any longer. Writing about it now, I could have pulled out all the rib and worked the pattern for a few more rows and then worked the rib.

The pattern is Down the Rabbit-Hole and is ideal for self-striping yarn but does not qualify for the self-striping challenge, so I was very happy to make them for the literature challenge. The original pattern is written top down, I changed it to toe up and worked a short row heel. I tried a different way to work the short rows. Basically there is no wrapping or manipulating of stitches. The end stitches are all knit and then picked up when increasing stitches. I am not a fan of the end result but it was interesting to try. The other change I made to the pattern was to change the number of stitches on each leg so I could just work the pattern round and round and not have to think about working one extra or one less stitch at the start of the round to line up the pattern.

The yarn is leftover from these socks and the yarn for the heels and toes was from this sock. I am not a fan of working cuffs, heels, and toes in the same contrast colour and will pick two elements to work in contrast but for this pair I worked a couple of rows of stocking stitch in the contrast colour at the top of the rib before binding off.

 

 

The Advent Mittens are Completely Finished

Last weekend I sewed in all the ends and this week I blocked the mitts so I can show them off at last.

These were an advent knit Along over the first 25 days of December, although you could start the cuff before that date. There was not much knitting each day and when I did get behind it was easy to catch up. Except for the final day when the tops and thumbs of both mittens were knit. If I had opted for the fingerless mitts they would have been finished as the last day was just for two short thumbs but the other two options – full mittens or flip-top mittens involved a lot of knitting.

Each day’s knitting up to this point was between five and nine rows but the last day had 17 rows for the mitten top and 20 rows for the thumb. I completed the tops on the 25^th and the two thumbs during the rest of the week to finally get all the knitting finished by the end of the year.

It was nice to have an interlude that wasn’t one of the WIPs I was desperately trying to finish before year end and a quick project that wouldn’t be a WIP for ever. And to have a fun project at the end.

 

The Last of 2024

 

Here are the last two projects I finished in 2024. Both hats. One is the project I keep in the car and is the same basic pattern I make, usually using left overs, for charity. As it is a project that stays in the car I did not need to finish it but there is something about the WIP along that makes me finish everything.

 

 

The other hat is a project I started before I went on vacation last year. I wanted something easy to work on during the plane journey but not something that would be finished quickly. And I wanted something with circular needles so no danger of dropping a needle or crochet hook. A double layer hat fit the bill.

For all the projects I took on vacation I started them at home first so that if there were any problems I could sort them out before leaving. And it turned out that was a good decision for the hat. I started with the same pattern that I used for this hat which starts with casting on all the stitches for the rib brim. But this turned out to be too big; the yarn I was using was thicker than my original project. I found another pattern that went all the way from one end to the other and I just worked the increases until it measured the same as my original hat. I then had round and round knitting for the journey. 

The pattern I chose was a free one from Purl Soho but I added the rib brim as in the pattern I had made previously. The yarn is Annapurna Cashmere from my friend's stash, a merino/cashmere blend in sport weight so it is going to be really warm.