Socktoberfest?

Eileen is making me look like such a slacker. But that's only because she's on fall break and can knit to her heart's content (so I tell myself). I actually have gotten some knitting done, hurrah!



My first Pomatomus is done except for grafting the toe; my worries about having enough yarn for three pattern repeats on the cuff were completely unfounded. Question: when you have a fair amount of yarn left over from a sock, do you start the second sock with that yarn, or do you use a second ball so you won't have to weave in any ends?

I found knitting Pomatomus kind of tedious; I love how the sock looks on but I guess I'm just not that into pattern repetition. However, I've (necessarily) gotten over my hatred of ktbl, which is good as it's used everywhere, and on like all of Cookie's awesome socks. I did run into a snag while knitting, though:



I had a needle that felt a little off, so I'm guessing it's been cracked awhile. That's the second needle from this set that I've broken (though at least this one wasn't in a stupid way), but I absolutely love the Brittany birch needles so I might just go ahead and buy another set. Since I'm knitting socks anyways, and it's October, I wonder if I should just go ahead and say I'm doing Socktoberfest?

I'm finding that red is, like everyone says, hard to photograph. This is Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock in Red Rover; it's as bright as the second picture but with all the color variations (from plum to rusty orange) in the first picture. I'll try and get a decent photo when they're finished : )

My mom sent me ribbon in her last package, so my Summertime Tunic is officially finished. The knitting has been done for weeks; I was waiting for the ribbon that she said she'd sew for me. So here is a finished shot, dark because it was late afternoon and I am too lazy to brighten it up in Photoshop, because I'm generally too lazy to even post most of the time, so at least it's up.



It seems very large on me. Mostly just too long, but also a big bulky. I think I'll let it hibernate over winter and see how I feel about it & what's fashionable. And maybe in the meantime I'll find a well-lit place to take photographs of objects I'm wearing. This post is also an experiment with Flickr (thanks, blue lace fiesta for explaining the arcane workings to me!), so we'll see how it looks. I really want to be able to put in whatever size pictures I darn well feel like, but I'm using Flickr right now because of Ravely. Ahh, precious, precious Ravelry.

Catch-up

It's been a long summer without posting; partly because there wasn't much knitting and partly because la soeur and I were together much of the summer, negating a need to post photos of our knitting for each other (which was one of the main reasons for this blog). I have moved from Toronto to the Midwest and am now in the Bay Area for the foreseeable future. So what have I done, knitting-wise?

Finished Tubey. FINALLY. It's a shame it got to be so annoying, because I really like the sweater. I have pictures up on Ravelry (which is AWESOME), but as I have not yet figured out how to set Flickr photos into webpages and I'm too lazy to go and upload more stuff into photobucket, no photos on the blog for now. Anyways, they're dark because I haven't figured out the best time & place to take photos in the new apartment.



Reading-In-Bed Shrug! I love this; I wear it every night. The color is somewhere between the two pictures. My gauge was totally different than the pattern called for, but I didn't like the look of the lace on larger needles, so I knit as directed and it was fine. Except for the part where I ran out of yarn when I got to the ribbing at the end, so now I have to figure out what to do with 135m of GGH Soft Kid . . .



I've also begun Pomatomus! I had intended the lovely Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock Multi in Sherbet, but my wonderful new LYS (I have a LYS!!) did not have it. However, they had five zillion other colors, so I'm using Red Rover, which is also gorgeous.



I'm doing the pattern as directed, meaning three pattern repeats for the leg. Top-down socks always make me nervous, as I'm paranoid I'm going to run out of yarn. I have big feet, it's a distinct possibility : ) So I think when I finish the third repeat I'll just try them on; if they seem too tall I'll just rip them out anyways. I'd just really, really rather not have to rip out an entire foot. But one good thing about taking forever on projects is that I spend less money on yarn--since I'm a poor grad student, I've only been buying yarn for specific projects.

Oh, and I bought some cute little beaded stitch markers from Mad Caterpillar--wow that looks weird, I don't know when the last time I wrote "caterpillar" was--and they were packaged adorably. The other side of the label was a little sheep sticker!



I also finished the Winter Capelet below, and knit the Summer Tunic from Interweave (both also on Ravelry). My mom sewed some ribbon for me, as I'm horrendous at sewing in a straight line, so I'm just waiting for her to mail it to finish it up. E and I both got Debbie Bliss Cathay for it during our crazy European adventure, and knitting with it was such a delight! But I guess I should save anything more to my actual post.