The Great Sock Mystery

In my last post I mentioned a sock knitters group on Ravelry that I had joined. Every odd month they have a mystery pattern where "clues" are published once a week for four weeks. March was the first month I participated. The pattern was by Kristi Geraci and after the mystery was complete there was a competition to name the pattern and it is now named Belle Vitini.

The Year of the Sock

Last Year was The Year of the Dishcloth and this year is turning into The Year of Socks. For the simple reason that despite already having sock yarn I bought more last year. At the beginning of the year I had enough yarn to knit 11 pairs of socks. I have knitted 5 pairs of socks and am working on another pair so I should have yarn enough for 5 pairs of socks - enough to take me through to the end of the year. Wrong! I bought some sock yarn - just one ball, was given some sock yarn and the spousal unit bought me some when he was in Finland. But if I continue knitting at least one pair a month I will finish the year with much less sock yarn than I started the year.

To help me use all this sock yarn, I joined a group on Ravelry called Sock Knitters Anonymous for those addicted to sock yarn and maybe knitting a sock sometimes. Each month there is a theme and a chance to win (knitterly) prizes. The good thing about this group is the amazing patterns that other members reference or make; the bad thing about this group is the amazing patterns that other members reference or make.

To give you an idea, here's a (poor) picture of the sock I am currently working on.

Yes It's a Dishcloth

At the beginning of January I updated you with the last of the dishcloths. A good thing that I wrote in that post

But I doubt it will be the end for knitting dishcloths.

as I knitted another one this week.

I had the bright idea to make a dishcloth for a colleague - an Easter dishcloth. I came up with the idea on Tuesday, my last day in the office this week was Wednesday; so Tuesday night was spent knitting a dishcloth (and catching up with posts on Ravelry). The only good idea behind this exercise was using a pattern that I had knitted before. I made an illusion cloth that I had made as part of the mystery group last year.

Yes I did finish it and gave it to my colleague on Wednesday and she loved it.

The pictures aren't brilliant as I had to take them in lamplight.

Why Did You Pinch Me?

Last Wednesday was St. Patrick's Day. Which seems to be celebrated more outside of Ireland with many large North American cities having parades. There is also the ancient custom of inflicting pain on a person who does not wear green on that day. The first I had ever heard of this was when someone actually pinched me at work for not wearing green. In the litigious world of the US I should have sued them for physical and mental pain. Being British I had never heard of this let alone believed that a grown woman would pinch a temporary member of staff.

Fast forward a few years to Calgary, Starbucks and knitting group on 16 March. Discussion about what people would be wearing the next day, when our American pops her head up from her knitting on DPNs (we are so proud of her) and wants to know what the crazy canucks are talking about this time. It turns out that this east coast girl from Maine had never heard of wearing green and being pinched if you don't.

The next day at work I carried out a random survey of one and asked a guy, originally from Toronto, if he knew about the wearing of green and being pinched. He'd never heard of it. So is this something that started in the mid-west and spread west or did it start on the west coast and is spreading east?

Of course, like most traditions, no one knows how this started and the opinions on the internet range from it being started by school children to being a political statement.

The Olympics, Canada and the National Anthem

Well that's it for 2 years. The Olympics have finished. As they were in the country where I live, there was 24-hour coverage and I could watch most events live. Normally I watch NBC's Olympic coverage as I have found it to be superior to other networks but my feed was from Seattle, which didn't start until 9.00 in the evening (they had some daytime coverage). So I'm sorry Bob (Costas) I didn't get to watch you this year. Hope to see you in 2012.

There was much blogging and online news articles about the organization of the events. Many of them having no idea of the history of the Olympics and using their electronic forum to mis-informatively rant. For example, there was the English-speaking Canadian complaining about Michaelle Jean speaking in French at the opening of the games. And, of course, complaints about practicing. All I can say, is read your history before complaining.

The other interesting aspect of the reporting of these games were the complaints about Canadians celebrating. So many other nationalities took offense to Canadians celebrating when a medal was won. I didn't get that. Are other countries allowed to celebrate wins but Canada isn't? The Olympics were held in Canada, were the regular citizens expected to carry on with their lives and ignore what was going on in Vancouver/Whistler? it was as if the foreign press and bloggers had a picture of Canadians and when they didn't conform to someone else's expectation they were vilified.

If you have never been to a sporting event in Canada, you cannot imagine what it is like to hear the National Anthem. Everybody sings it, and they mean it and believe in their country. They know they live in the best country in the world. And sure if you want to move here we'll make you welcome. It is very hard to describe the atmosphere if you have not experienced it. And that was the one thing that the non-Canadian announcers deemed OK for the Canadians. You can celebrate Gold only by belting out your National Anthem.

Fire in the Sock Chimney

I have waxed lyrical previously about the wonders of the internet and how you can found out something about anything. Through this marvelous means I was directed to Lucy Neatby and her method for finishing sock toes. Her method is to start in the middle of the toe and work to each edge. The web page had photos with explanations - seemed straight forward. So one afternoon I sat in a sunny window and finished my sock.

Here is a picture of the sock with the rows of waste yarn

and here is a picture of the finished toe.

Did you spot that there's something wrong? The toe isn't finished. I managed to get the stitches back on the needles and finished the toe. No damage.

So when I finished the second sock (remember I always knit two) I decided to have another go at the sock chimney. I made a couple of changes; as I tend to knit my socks inside out I continued working this way and worked only a couple of rows in waste yarn and left the stitches on the needles.
I was hoping by doing this I would be able to see more clearly where to sew. I opened the web page and followed the directions again but after a few stitches I realised where I had gone wrong previously - in following the waste yarn I had followed the line of the first row of scrap yarn whereas I should have been going into the stitches of the last row of main yarn. I took out my yarn and started again and ended up with this nice toe.



I like this method of finishing but don't like the three ends that have to be sewn in. It is definitely easier to work from the wrong side and it is not easier if you keep the stitches on the needles.

And here is the finished sock.





The pattern is Rick from Cookie A's new sock book and the yarn is Regia 4 Ply worked on 2.75 mm dpns.

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

OR: How Happy Can One Girl Be Over A Bag?

There are so many knitting and crochet books available these days which is a huge change in the last 10 to 15 years. I frequently have a quick perusal of the books in the library as I nearly always find a book new to me. One of these books was Not Your Mama's Crochet which was edited by (at that time) a local designer. One of the designs was a bag made from what I call carrier bags, the plastic part of the now redundant question "paper or plastic?"

I duly saved the required number of bags but didn't do anything with them. Mainly because I didn't want to go to the work of cutting them up and crocheting them to end up with something embarrassingly awful. But in the interests of using up my stash (used bags count as stash?) and because I didn't crochet at all in 2009, I decided to go ahead with the project.

Basically there were three parts:- cutting the bags into strips, joining the strips and crocheting the bag.

So let the excitement begin.
Here we have the bags waiting to be cut up. In the interests of full disclosure they are from the Co-op but they are not the current design. These ones have green and some black print. I used my rotary cutter and three was the best number to cut together. They were very staticy (is that a word?) and clung together.



Here are the bags now cut into strips.




I was full of grand ideas and I was going to join the strips into one big ball before starting to crochet but that soon got boring. I'm not sure how many I joined before I started, but once started I joined strips in as needed. I put all the strips into a bag and just took them out as they came, I didn't plan the order of the pattern. At one point, I joined a new strip at the beginning of the round so I counted how many strips were needed for a round, I then put three times that number to one side for the handle round and the rounds after. Except as you know the best laid plans.....when I ran out of strips instead of unpicking my work back to the beginning of the round, I took some strips from my saved pile to finish the round, thinking it wouldn't matter as I had over estimated. No such luck! I needed a few more strips to finish the last round and the bags I had used were old so what was I going to use, but in the bottom of the bag where I keep carrier bags I found some old design Co-op bags to save the day.

So here it is in all its glory.




The finished size is approx. 25 cm width and 19 cm depth and I used just over 18 bags. The handles were purchased at a fabric store.

Last of the Dishcloths

When I had finished December's dishcloths I started on the ones I had missed during the year. There were three. One I had unpicked and not restarted and the other two had been "clued" when I was away.

This was the one I had started and given up, I think because it was too big. So this time I cast on less stitches to work 2 pattern repeats instead of 3 and worked slightly fewer rows. the pattern was originally for a washcloth and I think it would work well for that; not that I have ever made a washcloth. (Face flannel for the UK readers.)




Don't you love this one? It's not very big and works fine for washing-up but not cleaning but who cares when it is cute. Added bonus it takes very little yarn.



This is the last one. it is hard to see what it says when you see it in the flesh so I don't know how well you will be able to see in this photograph. It says Thank You and the other part is supposed to be a rose.




I have decided not to make the dishcloths from the Yahoo Group this year. After all how many cloths does one house need? But I doubt it will be the end for knitting dishcloths. I still have some balls of yarn untouched as well as a load of left overs. Despite having made this decision, I had to stop myself from buying dishcloth cotton in Zellers just because it was on sale.

Photo Round Up

I caught up with posting photos of my projects made in 2009 and just have to post photos of projects finished near the end of the year.

Firstly here are a couple of pictures of the baby blanket I made for a colleague. The first is the finished blanket and the second is a close up when it was in progress so that you can see the pattern and yarn more easily.




And here are a couple of scarves. The first one I called Really-Using-Up-The-Stash as I had used yarn left over from a larger project to make gloves and then the yarn left over from the gloves was used to make the scarf.



This scarf was made with the same yarn as these gloves but I added in some multi-coloured thread to give some colour to the yarn.

Resolution Time Again

This year I have decided to make some resolutions. I am going to read all the books and knit all the patterns on my lists. To achieve this I am going to give up work and sleeping.

OK so that's not going to happen; although it would be nice to be able to knit and read whenever the mood took me but in reality this has never happened. The periods of my life where I have not worked, I have felt guilty whenever I took a break during the day and I find that I actually read and knit more now that I am working.

Looking back at what I have written in previous years I have to laugh at what I wrote last year about it getting boring knitting scarves. How come I still managed to knit 5 in 2009?

My aim for this year is to use the yarn I bought in 2009. Not sure how this will work in practise as I purchased quite a few balls of sock yarn in the sales and as I like to knit patterned socks they are not a quick knit any longer. I will continue to use the odds and ends of stash yarn that have been around for a while.

And I'll continue to read and look after the house and love my family. (And hibernate in the winter.)

The Year in Review

So as we come to the end of another year it is time to reflect and consider on the last 365 days. According to Ravelry.com I had 40 projects for 2009 and despite my intermittent posts, I have posted photos of most of them on this blog.

Let me start with what I didn't do in 2009 - crochet. I don't crochet very much but this year, I didn't crochet one thing. Not sure why this was apart from the obvious, if I'd really wanted to crochet I would have.

Of the 40 items, there was one I started and completely unpicked just before I finished; one I started in 2008 and still isn't finished; and there were a couple of items started right at the end of 2008 that were finished in 2009.

And I have already lost one glove from a pair I knitted.

The Dishcloth group I belong to has instructions for 2 dishcloths each month. Out of a total of 24 I made 21 cloths with another currently on the needles.

So to sum up my 40 items are as follows:
21 dishcloths, all for my house;
4 pairs of socks, one pair still in progress, one pair for spousal unit;
5 scarves or wraps, all for me which sounds a bit excessive when counted up!;
3 pairs of gloves or mittens, one pair for spousal unit and one glove has been lost already;
1 hat for me;
1 bag for me;
1 sweater for spousal unit;
1 tea cosy, a gift;
1 baby jacket; unpicked;
1 baby blanket, gift;
1 shawl, still in progress;
Oh and I've remembered the charity sweater I knitted this fall.

It is surprising looking at this list as I felt that all I have knitted this year are dishcloths but it would appear that I have made a lot of things for myself. Didn't realise how many scarves I had made although one is still wrapped around Winnie the Pooh.

The other thing that this list doesn't show is how much stash yarn was used or, in other words, how little new yarn I bought for these projects. And when I bought new yarn, any yarn left over was immediately used for another project. The yarn for the sweater was purchased especially for that item and the left over yarn was immediately used for the bag. One of the scarves and pairs of gloves were from yarn left over from old projects; another scarf was from yarn left over from gloves; another pair of gloves was from yarn left over from socks. It actually feels good to use up yarn rather than put it into the stash for who-knows-when. The only other yarn I bought was dish cloth cotton when it went on sale and the yarn for the baby blanket.

Currently on the needles are a dishcloth (which would be finished except I'm on the computer!), a shawl, a sock, and a sweater for charity. Although this frightens me to think I have so many projects on the go, they range from super easy to need lots of concentration so they each have their place.

On the reading front, to save you counting all the books on my bookshelf, I have read 103 books. Not quite 2 books a week but that number includes picture books which shouldn't really count as a whole number for each.

And on a personal note for the year, I still have a wonderful husband. Happy anniversary dear one.

Year End Dishcloths

Here are the dishcloths from November and December.

November had a Christmas theme with a tree and an angel. I like the tree but am not sure how practical the angel will be. It is hand size so may turn out to be useful.



This cloth is a simple cloth that turns into a gift bag but I will be keeping it for myself - note the Christmas yarn which I also used for the pattern for mid-December.


I like this pattern although I dislike patterns which produce a curved cast on edge and a straight cast off edge. This pattern would look very nice in a scarf if you knitted two halves and joined in the centre.

Nothing Like a Sale To Force a Decision

A little while ago I wrote about wanting a new stove and how hard it was to make a decision. When we went out yesterday, I suggested going to Future Shop "just to see what was on sale". They had some stoves that were on sale for just two days. Thanks to all my research I knew which one I wanted and now I have a new stove. (Well almost I have to wait a couple of weeks for delivery.)

Oh and I did buy some sock yarn on sale but more about that later.

Boxing Day

Today in Canada like many other countries of the Commonwealth is Boxing Day. Which is the day for sales but I'm thinking it is a day to stay indoors and do your own thing. The sales will still be there tomorrow.

We had a really nice day yesterday; at one point, boy child was playing PS3, spousal unit was reading a book on art and I was knitting a sock. All happy doing our own thing and then getting together periodically to play games. I stomped on the opposition in a word game but was truly beaten in monopoly.

The cats slept through the whole thing.

Happy Christmas

There's More to Life Than Dishcloths

So I've brought you up to date with dishcloths but surely I must have made something else?

Checking my blog and Ravelry, there's a hat, two scarves and a pair of socks that you don't know about.

One scarf is really lacey and started before the baby blanket, otherwise the others are easy projects that act as a peon to the holes. I don't have a decent picture of the lacey scarf so I'll post later.




Knitted from this pattern although as I was using totally different yarn I had to make changes to stitches and row count. The yarn is Sirdar Snuggly 4-ply that I had bought in a closing down sale. I started a baby jacket that I really didn't like and unpicked when I had almost finished. Not wanting to put it back in the stash where I knew it would lie for a very long time, I immediately cast on the scarf. I like the scarf but I think it would look really nice in a thick yarn as suggested in the pattern.




I needed something easy to make but with a bit of interest and this fit the bill. And I used yarn from the stash. I used two colours of Brown Sheep Worsted that I had left over from a bag I made a while ago. I just kept knitting until the hat fit. I wore it when we had our first snow and it is going to be really warm when the cold weather sets in.

And finally a pair of socks knitted while on holiday this summer. I don't knit socks very often these days as I like my socks to have patterns so they are no longer a mindless project. I used this pattern and the yarn is Patons Stretch Socks. The yarn is really comfortable to wear, unfortunately the pattern doesn't show very well with this yarn.





And that's it until I find the urge to link "this" again.

Too Much Choice

Or if I tell you what I want will you get it for me?

I need a new stove. Some may argue that as I already have a functioning stove I don't actually need a new one. So I desperately want a new stove. (For my truly English speaking public a stove is a cooker.)

When we moved into this house we needed a new stove because the one with the house was pretty disgusting. We saw one on sale at Home Depot and bought it. It wasn't self-cleaning and in my naivete I decided that was not a problem. Nearly 4 years later I am sick and tired, literally, of sticking my head in an oven with loads of chemicals.

The first port of call was the website for the store where I bought a fridge. (We really needed a new fridge as the old one was leaking and choosing a new one was easy as they don't make many small fridges with freezers on the bottom so I had the grand choice of 2.)

A few must haves - electric (no gas in the kitchen), smooth top and the all important self-cleaning oven and a decent manufacturer. I did find one I liked and as it wasn't on sale I looked at another store to check their price which turned out to be quite a bit cheaper but I didn't know delivery fees or fee for taking away old stove also I hadn't bought anything from this store before.

I asked a colleague and she said the store had a bad reputation and suggested another place so I looked at their website and it is a much bigger store so has much more choice which is way too confusing for me because what is the difference between stove a and stove b apart from the price. It is hard to tell the difference between products from the same manufacturer. I should just go back to my original choice as it is a small store with limited options and less confusing.

At this point I need to comment on spousal harmony. I do really like my husband apart from one thing - he's an engineer. In other words he just doesn't think the way most normal people do. Dear husband, you are not going to live a long and happy life by asking what makes the oven dirty.

Don't Call them Rags

One thing in life that annoys me is when people call things by the wrong name or mispronounce the name.

Dish cloths are a good example. They are not rags (unless, of course, you really have torn up old clothes to make them). Most people have their favourite type which they buy. How can something you pay money for be a rag?

It's a cloth, give it the respect it deserves for the job it does. OK that's a bit of hyperbole. But I have never called my dish cloth a rag and now I make them they are a revered part of my kitchen.

Since joining a mystery KAL, I have been making 2 dishcloths a month (apart from a couple missed in the summer) and it is a while since I've posted pictures so here they are. Some of the pictures are scans as that is the best way to show the knit/purl patterns.

Ever Increasing Circles

Looking back through my knitting notebook it would seem that all I have been making are dishcloths. That is because I have been making a baby blanket.

So I got to thinking about the different ways to make a blanket and the disadvantages of each.

The blanket I am making is circular. I started off with very few stitches, the first rounds go quickly so you think the blanket will be finished quickly but, of course, as you add more stitches each round takes longer so the blanket is no longer such a quick knit. (Even though when you start a circular blanket you know the later rounds will go much slower than the earlier rounds, your brain ignores this each time.)

Another way to make a blanket is to make lots of squares (or rectangles or hexagons) and sew them together to make a blanket. The advantage is the sense of achievement when finishing a square and seeing them pile up but the thought of sewing them all together puts me off such a project.

You could always start with the required number of stitches for the width and work until the blanket is long enough. This way you're not going to be fooled with the speed of early rounds but you do have to cast on a large number of stitches which I am not too keen to do even though with a circular blanket you end up with many more stitches.

My initial thoughts came up with just these three ways to make blankets but then I thought of a couple more which don't seem to have the same disadvantages of these methods.

Corner-to-corner. Starting with 1 or 3 stitches you increase at the beginning of every row until the blanket is half the size and then you decrease at the beginning of every row until no stitches. The advantages are that you can work until half the yarn has been used and then start decreasing; just as you are fed up with each row taking longer they start getting shorter. The immediate disadvantage is making sure that the increases and decreases look similar.

The other method, which I am not sure I have seen used, is starting off with the final circumference and then decreasing to a few stitches. Two disadvantages I can immediately think of are the large number of stitches you'd have to cast on and if you run out of yarn you can't stop as you'd be left with a hole so if you couldn't get more of the same yarn, you'd have to add complimentary yarn or start all over. But at least each round would go quicker as the stitches reduce in number.

The blanket is actually finished, just when I thought it was going on for ever, but I have to cast off. Another problem when making blankets - and another argument for using a method where you end up with few stitches - is making sure the cast off is not tight but also neat. I have a month to achieve this.

An Example Of How Bad I've Been

This post was originally titled Summer Holiday Knitting and written at the end of March. It refers to my knitting on holiday last year!

So after the aborted glove attempt. I turned to socks.



The yarn is TOFUtsies., bought especially for holiday knitting. The yarn is a mix including cotton so an ideal summer sock.



The pattern is from The Little Box of Socks which was a present from my mother-in-law.

I liked the pattern and as I wasn't going to be finishing the alpaca glove anytime soon, I worked a pair of fingerless gloves using the same yarn and pattern.

So Easy To Get Out of the Habit

What is my excuse? When I haven’t posted on here for a few days it is so easy to think to myself, “well I haven’t written for a few days what difference is one more day going to make?” And then it got to “I haven’t written on here for so long – it better be good, oh I can’t think of anything earth-shattering to write.”

There has been some knitting going on. Mostly dishcloths which don't seem too exciting to write about but I will post pictures as an incentive to post here more. Mostly I've been working on a baby blanket for a colleague and I can post some pictures of that too.

So check back soon for updates.

A Thanksgiving Disaster - Averted

This past weekend was Thanksgiving in Canada. Monday is a holiday but families have their meal on any of the three days. From what I can ascertain the meal is pretty much the same as American Thanksgiving.

We celebrated last night and invited 2 English families to join us - one of which have been in Canada for just a couple of months. The nice thing about having the meal in the evening is that I had the day to prepare the meal and didn't have to prepare everything the night before and get up early to put the turkey in the oven.

It was all going well with no rush until I removed the turkey from its packing. Phew the smell. The turkey was off. Had to pack it back up, find receipt, and husband hot footed it to the store to get another one. This he accomplished within half an hour so I was not too delayed in the cooking. Although it was not a pleasant experience for him having a stinky turkey in the car and he felt really sorry for the guy on the service desk who had to accept the rank animal.

One good thing came from this. The turkey was refunded at the price we paid and then husband had to buy another one. Well they were now half price. So at least we saved money for our troubles.