Feather and Fan Tofustie Socks, FO

Feather and Fan Tofustie Socks
Originally uploaded by sunasak

I got these fine summery socks finished on Friday afternoon. They worked up really quickly and were easy to do. Even though I don't like the way short-row heels fit, they certainly are easy! The only part of the socks that didn't work out terribly well was the garter stitch top edging, which wants to curl down. I have seen others put different tops on these, but I like the way these look when behaving nicely. I enjoyed how the green sections swirled and the rest of the colors mixed nicely.

Tofutsie definitely looks better knitted up than it does in the ball. Run out and buy some just for the antimicrobial properties of the chitin!

And I enjoy Wendy Johnson's patterns--visit her at Wendy Knits to see what you'd like to try!

Next...

I'm already well into the foot of a sock out of Panda Cotton. WOOO does that yarn feel nice!! I picked a wimpy baby kind of overly pastel colorway, but it will be nice and summery. The socks are called Forget Me Not, and are an anklet style with a nice picot top edge, which I found linked from the Crystal Palace site's collection of socks from their yarns. However, it actually comes from the Fiber Dreams blog, which is most enjoyable in itself There's a typo in the pattern where you are starting the gusset. It says:

Needle 1: S1, K5, place marker, K5.

It should be S1, K4, place marker... because there are only ten stitches there. Otherwise, a dandy pattern with sweet little florets on it (yes, I am telling the author, LOL).

Pie

In other news, a couple of days ago Sheri at the Loopy Ewe posted a blueberry pie recipe. That very day, my pie-crazed 14-yr-old son made us one, and I would like to report it is a delicious pie that is probably good made with other fruits, too. Her learned that it takes a while for a sauce made with cornstarch to start to thicken, but once it starts, it goes quickly ("Moooom, it's not thickening...MomDude, it's getting too thick!" "Well, take it off the heat, son!") Here is a link to a photo of our pie.

Um, do any others of you have children who call you "MomDude"?

Fiesta Sweater Complete

Fiesta Sweater
Originally uploaded by sunasak.

Not the best picture, since it was taken at night, but it shows that the Fiesta Sweater ended up with arms and a neckline!

This one was a big experiment for me, to make teaching top-down sweaters more interesting. I made up the rounded V neck because I didn't want a total V. When I had finished the sweater, I edged it with a picot hem, which worked out fine--it's not folding out nor in (I have a shirt on under the sweater).

There was some fun pooling on the sleeves and a couple of places on the body. I like pooling, so sue me! Sleeves are in the columnar pattern that the bottom of the sweater is (from an old lace book I had), only in the green. And the insertion can be found in Knitting on the Edge or many other pattern books. It's common.

Why is this sweater in two unrelated colorways? Well, ya see, I ordered three large skeins of this wool, cashmere, and angora blend. They are big skeins (all the orange is one skein), but it turns out not quite enough to make a sleeved sweater. The other ball (yellow and blue) I think will be a vest of some sort. So, I mixed and matched. It looks very Hippie Chic I think.

What has surprised me is that the Fiesta Sweater doesn't look too bad at all on me! I don't look gigantic and it doesn't wash me out (thanks to my festively colored hair I guess.

My hope is to post a more clear photo of this later, when it is not rainy or dark. It is both today. On the Flikr stream, there's a picture of the back, too.

Fiesta Sweater Close Up

Fiesta Close Up
Originally uploaded by sunasak.

Here's a close-up of the Fiesta Sweater so you can see the patterns I used. The top shows a simple yarnover grid. It was fun and easy, except boy howdy it was hard to keep from forgetting to do one. There's also a hole-free zone in the front that I'd accidentally put holes in sometimes (I did this because, of course, the pattern didn't work out evenly, since I winged it.

The middle is the leaf insertion. I got it fairly smooth by joining two body stitches every third right-side row, then when picking up on the bottom, adding those stitches back. I like the leaf pattern a lot. It's a lot easier than it looks. It's fun to add an inserted element like that!

The bottom was supposed to be slightly wavy, but didn't come out that way. It's a yo, k3tog pattern, like a mini feather and fan, but too mii, I think. It did add the verticle lines I'd hoped for. The idea is that it would make my hips look smaller (as if the insertion didn't make my waist look bigger). The same pattern repeats on the arms, where I let it get bigger and bigger for a few rows at the end, to make a slight bell. The garter stitch edging at the bottom was going to be something more interesting, but since I ran out of the orange-ish yarn I couldn't repeat a more interesting thing on the sleeves. So, oh well.

An experiment that was not a total failure!

Fiesta Sweater, in Progress

Fiesta Sweater, in Progress
Originally uploaded by sunasak.

Yes, it's bright. Yes, those colors don't really go together. It's a long story. I'll give more details when it is finished, but, to whet your appetite, this sweater is made from wool/cashmere/angora blend that I got with Jody got in a co-op purchase. It's from Alaska; that's all I remember. There's a Schaeffer product that is the same blend that the LYS sells for $96 a skein (big skeins).

Why did I make this? I was teaching a top-down sweater class and did not want to make another plain one (here's a link to the previous one) even though the Silk Garden one is lovely. So, I put in a hole pattern I saw in Vogue Knitting on a totally different sweater, then made up an interesting (to me) neckline. Since I knew there was not enough yarn to make the whole sweater, I added a leaf insertion from an old lace book I had (found it in Knitting on the Edge, too). As you can see I also did a different pattern on the bottom and arms. Whee.

I do like top-down knitting. I hate seams, even though I am finally good at mattress stitching after over 40 years of knitting!