Category: knitting

Posted in knitting

ThWIP Thursday – SOCK!

Posted on by Laura Kate

Back from Wisconsin and fresh off my no.1 cable needles is this fancy sock – the first of a pair for my beloved husband. It turned out to be a pretty good travel project, as long as I confined my knitting to daylight hours. Under artificial light, the tiny stitches were very difficult to navigate.

I used Kate Davies’ pattern for the Mary Delany sock, with some significant modifications. The first was to make it wider to fit a man’s foot. Fortunately, choosing a larger needle got me most of the way there. I also substituted a 6 st. by 7 row stranded pattern for Kate’s 37 stitch diamond flower pattern.

This pattern is found in 750 Knitting Stitches, the Ultimate Knit Stitch Bible. It worked up beautifully with a light solid and dark-to-medium variegated yarn.

This sock is knit from the toe up. When I got to the cuff ribbing, I switched from a size 2 to a size 1 needle. For a looser bind-off, I went back to the 2..

Now to quickly cast on its mate, before losing enthusiasm for the project!

If you’d like to try this pattern, here is the link.

https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/mary-delany

Posted in knitting

Cast-on Monday: World Traveler Socks

Posted on by Laura Kate

Here we go a-stashbusting among the leaves so red. Fall is here in all its glorious splendor. I am working my stash again – this time to eke out a new pair of socks for Bill. He is down to one pair of LauraKate knit socks, the poor man.

This time I have three (3!) skeins from the stash. I am working from a Kate Davies pattern called Mary Delany.

https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/mary-delany

This project’s yarns originate from three different continents.

My North American selection is a multi-hued beauty purchased at the farmer’s market in North Madison three years ago. Two skeins were acquired from a British native who was rearing sheep in Wisconsin, spinning and dyeing the wool. In 2020 I worked one skein into a hat called Rose Window.

https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/rose-window-2

I honestly do not know anything else about this yarn, except that it is a two-ply sport weight. I know that the maker eventually returned to her native land.

My South American yarn is an alpaca blend from Peru.

I was given several skeins by friend Kathy who is allergic to wool. Its composition is alpaca, wool and acrylic. This may be my third project using this yarn. I do hope to high heaven that I can finally use it up.

And from Europe comes the remains of a skein by West Yorkshire Spinners.

I purchased this in Madison also and made Bill a pair of socks last year. He absolutely loves them. There is enough left of the skein to form the toes and ribs of this pair.

This sock is constructed from the toe up. I am using the 2-needle system, superior to working with four straight needles in avoiding dropped stitches.

I found that the stranded pattern used in the Delaney socks was too feminine looking for Bill’s taste. Instead, I chose to use Diamond Link and Dot from the 750 stitches ultimate knit bible – my well-thumbed reference book for stitch patterns.

I marked out the chart onto big graph paper to make it easier to use. This will become important when I’m travel knitting, something I see in my near future.

Posted in knitting

Cast Off Monday: Parade of Mittens

Posted on by Laura Kate

It didn’t take long for me to work up TWO pair of mittens sized child medium.

Once I got into the rhythm, I completed a mitten in a few hours each evening. The pattern made it easy to match each one to its predecessor. The yarn was soft and bouncy with a good contrast of values.

My mascot mouse approves highly.

And here is the left-over yarn. Just enough to save for future repairs.

It was a good week for busting stash!

Posted in knitting

Cast-On Monday: Time for Mittens

Posted on by Laura Kate

Knitting mittens is like eating tortilla chips with salsa. They go so fast and are so much fun that it’s hard to know when to stop.

When my grandson was a toddler, I think I made four or five mittens in the same yarn. I was operating on the theory that, since they are easily lost, spare mittens would come in handy.

This time around I am using the purple and pink Elision yarn for the third time. That’s extreme stash-busting in my world. The skeins were purchased for Lu’s simple sweater, to complement a hand-painted merino wool skein she had selected.

Earlier this year, I added a pale blue color to make her a balaclava.

Friday Finish: Child Balaclava

That left a full skein of purple and a partial of pink. I am using a basic pattern to get my stitch count and proportions right……

https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/zen-little-fingers-and-toes-part-1-mittens

…….. but substituting a different stranded pattern: a favorite from 750 Knitting Stitches published by St. Martin’s Griffin, New York.

Diamonds in the Snow has a 6-stitch repeat. It works perfectly with my cast-on count of 36 stitches. In colors selected, the pattern looks more like Posies in the Meadow.

Now if I can only use up both colors at the same time.

Posted in colorwork, knitting

Cast-Off Monday

Posted on by Laura Kate

Shaking things up a little bit, with a Cast-Off Monday post. Since I have failed utterly to document my progress on this knit, I’ll start at the end of my work, and just mention the beginning.

This colorful wrap is a result of raiding my stash. Much earlier this year, I pulled full and partial balls that sorta went together. After matching the resulting yardage up with a pattern, yarn and copy of said pattern were shoved into a bag. Eventually I had five bags of future projects hanging in my yarn closet.

It was time to start this one. Sorrento Wrap is designed by Sian Price-White and calls for two colors of yarn – dark and light.

https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/sorrento-wrap

https://images4-g.ravelrycache.com/uploads/CloudForestStudio/674348453/webp/20200114_083517_small2.webp#jpg

I had selected five different yarns for this project, with the intention of working the extra colors into various sections of the shawl.

Almost immediately I discarded the rayon blend red (in the upper left of the bowl) when it proved to be too flimsy. All other yarns, with the exception of the warm pink yarn, are by KnitPicks. The two blues are Gloss in fingering weight. The multi is a Stroll hand-painted. I’ve forgotten where I got the warm pink fingering weight.

After I finished my cast-off today, I stepped outside for a quick photo shoot.

Diamond and chevron sections are visible here. That diamond stranded section gave me trouble while reading from the row-by-row instructions in the pattern.

I ended up charting it out.

Another modification made was to add a few matching beads to the chevron border.

The section with the light blue stripes features diamond mosaic stitch pattern. That was my favorite. I’ll want to work this mosaic pattern into a future project.

Fresh off the needle, the shawl looks pretty awkward. Once I’ve blocked it and woven in ends, I’ll get another photo, then decide if I like it or not.