another pair finally finished

I've blogged about these ad nauseum but they are done. The rib was pretty straight forward, the intriguing techniques revolved around knitting a sock from the toe up.

I thought the eastern cast-on was fiddly but effective (particularly being a tight knitter made it a bit more difficult). 

The short row heel worked out better than I anticipated. I like the sewn bind-off.

My mother bought me this beautiful yarn right when I first got into sock knitting. I love the colours and love the way the raspberry stripes came out. I needn't have worried about the yardage of the colinette jitterbug, they've added another 10g since many people were remarking on the low yardage. I could have added another inch or too, which is frustrating since they are toe-ups. Next time I'll have an electronic scale on hand and make an informed decision about when to bind off :-)

Holiday knitting goal #2 done and dusted.

deb's dazzlers

 It's been a bit of a busy time in terms of birthdays and my sock gift project. These socks are for my step mother-in-law, a bit of a mouthful but you know how these things go. Anyway it was a significant birthday and her favourite colour is purple. So I went searching for the right wool. It was a bit tricky to find a nice purple, but in the end I saw this wool that was quite variegated with aqua and a few other colours. The other nice thing was that the wool was from New Zealand, which is where she'd spent her birthday.

Given the variation in the wool I thought I'd stick with a simple rib. And I thought I'd give Ann Budd's On-Your-Toes another go. You can get the pattern in a free ebook here. It was good to practice the Eastern Cast-On again. Fun to knit a sock from the toe-up and good to practice the short-row heel again. I've ravelled it here.

Anyway, better get back to it. I've still got to finish my own version of these socks. I've made a bit of progress since I last mentioned them, finished the first sock and finished the toes of the second. The other socks I'm working on are a complicated lace pattern, so these socks are good for knitting while I'm out and about and don't have to concentrate too hard... :-)

w.i.p. wednesday

This is a crafting phenomenon which refers to 'work in progress' wednesday... where I can give you a sneak peak at how some of my knitting projects are progressing. Some will have to be more obscure than others...

First, here are some socks I'm working on for myself at the moment:

They’re called ‘on-your-toes socks’ by Ann Budd. It's a free pattern available here. They’re a pretty simple rib pattern that won’t get lost in the beautiful colour scheme of the yarn. They’re also an opportunity to try out some new techniques like starting your socks at the toe (most sock patterns start at the cuff) and also a short-row heel (rather than a heel flap). 

Here's the cool toe.                          And the short row heel.

They're on hold at the moment while I work on some more pressing projects, but I've almost finished the first sock. :)