What's my favorite knit?

My own. Only one like it.

Bramble Cable & Seuss Sock, sans toe

That's as far as one skein of Jawoll took me. I forgot that I'd purchased three of one (an early sock knitting expedition) and two of this one. And then there would have been those who might have read labels to confirm. Not I, evidently. Stay tuned for the toe solution.



The Bramble Cable is comfortable. Curiously, even though I was convinced I might be close to having just the right yardage, I ended up with two balls of the Rowan untouched. Happily, a colleague happened to exclaim (as she gushed over the sweater) that those were her colors. Guess I might do a little holiday knitting - or non-holiday - for her!

Did I mention?

I finished the Bramble Cable. Sweater there. Camera here. Picture later.

Side note: I'd have a Seuss Sock finished, too, had I paid attention to the amount of yarn the first pair of Jawoll socks took. Those were made in pre-journaling, pre-knittyboarding, pre-blogging days. Yarn was purchased in Maine. Seems I bought three skeins of one colorway and two of another. I have knit a nice leg length, a satisfactory heel, and skein one ends nicely RIGHT before the ball of the foot. There will be creative solutions to the rest of the foot. Not sure if I want to introduce another color or stick with the colors in the rest of the sock. At least the matching reinforcement yarn will add some continuity to the whole handmade and handknit affair!

Since I bought some Jawoll recently in Wisconsin in the same 2-skein portions, I thought about contacting the shop there to see if they have remaining skeins of the yarns I picked up. Or not. It would be wise, after all, to use what I have. If not, I'll be having a lot of creative socks. Maybe these will go Toe up and have substantial and contrasting cuffs. I'm just not much of a short sock person. One of a kind socks for me!

Meanwhile, I've started the second Seuss Sock. Thank goodness for all those thriftstore sock needles.

Flash & Use

Seems like a match.





I have acquired plenty. I'll acquire again.
For April?
Form and function to follow Flash.

One person's beach vacation

...is another person's stop at the yarn store sale.**

YUM. I'm going to have a productive spring break, I tell you. I can't write more now. I'm at the heel point for each of my carry-along socks.

Here's to Spring Break!

**(No, I didn't spend THAT much. It's the indulgence metaphor, natch.)

Knitting and naming

Last night? I stood in as a dresser, so I had backstage knitting progress on the self striping sock up until the point where I wished I had the reinforcement yarn with me. Ah, that striped Jawoll reinforcement yarn makes me smile!

Moved along to the brown sugar walker, which had had a frog back of two inches the other day for a couple misplaced decreases and increases. Only so much zigzagging that sock needs.

Oh. And I was told the self striping sock looked like a Seuss hat. You guessed it. They are now officially Seuss socks. You've just attended the naming ceremony.

This morning I undid the Bramble cable sleeve stitching, undid the bind offs and knit longer cuffs.
I kept myself steady as I started to consider the wisdom and longevity and trendiness of the flared cuffs. I did not frog back. Tomorrow, the last of the stitch up, I'm thinking.

Steps forward, Steps back

Picture updates didn't include an actual update. The pewter project is done. It's scarf scale - only two skeins of the yarn, over a foot wide and over 7 feet in length. Picture later, but I've worn it for a few days. Lovely and understated.

Stitched up a sleeve of the bramble cable this morning and discovered that the sleeves really should be longer.

Will undo tomorrow or Saturday so I can undo the bind-offs and lengthen the cuffs. SO glad I did the provisional cast on with the sleeves so I could tackle the cuffs in this manner. The real bother will be the spit splices. For each join there are three - one for each color in the twist.

Not happy about this extra snowy stretch of Winter to Spring, but it'll make for nice knitting time.

Pictures v. Words, or that Knitting Olympics Certificate of Participation

(Sorry I don't have time to resize the rest of the photos just now.)

So for starters, I did finish the Christmas grab bag socks. They've been mailed and received and approved.




Naturally this means commencing with a pair pour moi, the web-touted-walkers.




I thought this was a closeup of the above picture, but it's really mostly cropped. Still, the Wildfoote in Brown sugar is quite lovely. The light punches up the yellow and orange. In life, the browns and rusts speckled with purple and tiny hints of green are quite lovely.




Here are the sleeves from the Bramble cable. I did flare the cuffs a wee bit.
Funny, only YESTERDAY did I notice that my Midwest Ring blog neighbor did the same sweater, only in warm reds. She, too, dispensed with the contrasting mohair flounce at hem and cuffs.




I really enjoy this yarn. Pretend you're having a yoga moment where you let your eyes go soft.




PS. The longish strays above ARE the alpaca. On the sock? Yes, a cat hair.

I did haul this sweater out to tackle it. Worked up a little bit more here, and then tackled the sleeves. They're both at armlet stage, but no pics.




And then there's the LLLLemming scarf.





I used stitch markers briefly until I decided that this would be better with quiet, non-dropping, tactile markers, so I purled the to-be-dropped rows.





I really liked looking at the yarn, even peeking out of the small project knit bag.




This is one of the Lorna solids: pewter.




Great lesson in tones and color theory.




I left a length of this, as if a rose, at my grandmother's grave. Silk and wool and all the qualities they carry. Grey and understated and rich with color.
Yarn for a story teller and an unassuming caregiver.
This would have been hers, had things been different.

Absence

I've been absent from the blog.

Work life was demanding, although there are some photos coming of things knit during the Olympics. Think back. It was only a month ago. Work life has been highly productive, although that's not kept me from some steady knitting progress.

And my grandmother passed away. She was a sometimes knitter, a pragmatic quilter and crocheter. Everything was useful. I shared my knitting with her on every visit - naturally I'd have some along.

And I'm knitting like a fiend. I miss her. We all miss her. She was surely loved and surely loving.