Challenge Socks #6: Mermaid With Golden Hair

I can't believe it's May, let alone mid May!!! April practically flew by, with C's big birthday party, a lovely and long visit from my mother-in-law, the start of a wonderful new job, and more bouts of viruses running through the family than we ever imagined possible in a mere thirty days! May, too, is flying, with Mother's Day last Sunday, my birthday last Monday, and J's birthday today. These are busy, busy times! And in case you were wondering about whether I was still making progress on My So-Called Sock Challenge, I do have something to show for my long-finished March efforts:

I call them Mermaid With Golden Hair because the first line of "Mermaid Song" from Andrew Lloyd-Webber's Aspects of Love ran through my head practically the entire time I knit them. I can't remember the last time I even thought about that musical -- maybe a decade ago?

With these socks, the story is all about the yarn. Oh... My... Goodness! I can't say enough about how I love it!

It's Lollipop Cabin's organic, single-ply sock yarn, from right here in the Pacific Northwest. From their own PR: "Organic Wool Sock Yarn, individually hand-dyed using rain water collected from a wee little cabin located in the Pacific Northwest Cascade Mountains." 

Quaint, no?! Makes me want to go cuddle up with my knitting in that wee little cabin and listen to the rhythm of the rain beating on what I imagine to be a perfectly musical little tin roof before it tumbles into a rain barrel to be collected for dyeing!

I stumbled upon this yarn back in January, when my Mom was visiting. We spent a few days driving around to yarn stores, hitting not only our old favorites but also spreading out to catch some we'd never been to before.

The biggest score happened January 7 at Country Yarn in Snohomish. The shop doesn't have a website, but here's a link to the basic business info. Country Yarn is a real treat for the spinner, as well as the knitter, with a more extensive spinning selection than I've seen locally anywhere but at The Weaving Works -- and certainly a larger and more interesting selection of hand-dyed spinning fibers!

Among other things, I picked up enough Lollipop Cabin yarn for two pairs of socks (the other will be in lovely peaches), and my Mom picked up enough for a pair, herself.

You can get a visual inkling of just how cushiony, springy, densely wonderful this yarn is by looking at the bind-off edge of my socks. See how nice and round and tall the edge stands up? That's all the yarn's doing -- no photo styling!

Compare to the pursed-lip bind-off edge on the Jealous Zigzag socks my sister sent me last month (Brown Sheep Lamb's Pride Superwash) -- which are still getting heavy wear in my sock rotation -- or the similarly flat Fascine-ation socks (Koigu PPM) finished in February -- these socks are positively bursting with body!

Plus they are soft, soft, soft. And as I knit, I enjoyed the slight stretch sensation. A thoroughly enjoyable knitting experience!

Be forewarned if you're a fan of the highly processed: you will encounter little bits of VM in your Lollipop Cabin yarn. No biggie. It's not enough to be a nuisance. Just pick it off as you go.

The angle of this picture really highlights the golden tones:

I love this stitch pattern. You've seen it before on Aesthetic Entanglementz with my Pink Pagewood socks back in December 2008. It's a simple, 1-row, twisted knit rib worked over a multiple of 6 stitches, and I know you'll love it, too, so here it is:

Twisted Rib: K3, P1, K1tbl, P1

You'll notice that although it's made up of a completely symmetrical stitch pattern, the rib looks asymmetrical in the fabric. This is because the twist effectively nudges its stitch to the left a bit. I think it elevates the interest of the humble rib to a greater sophistication. It works equally nicely in a sleek trouser sock or a thick jeans sock. And if you're not a fan of swatching, you don't need to swatch the rib separately from stockinette to be assured of fit!

As you know, I never tire of the Eye of Partridge stitch on my heels. It's so pretty, and the stitch feels even in the back of my socks rather than ridged, like you get with the slipped rib stitch.

I realized in putting this blog together, though, that my sister and I do our heels slightly differently -- even though she also uses my MUMTU pattern. Here's the link to a picture of the heels she put on my Jealous Zigzag socks. Can you tell what's different?

That's right: I put Eye of Partridge on the heel extension (that little triangle-shaped area on the bottom), in addition to the heel flap; she doesn't. There's no right or wrong here -- it's just an example of how people develop their individual ways of doing things. She wears her hand-knit socks every bit as often and hard as I wear mine, and as far as I know she's never had to darn a heel, either. 

One last thing about the Lollipop Cabin. Our County Yarn shopkeeper, who knows the dyer, said this yarn is guaranteed not too pool. You can be sure my ears perked up at that! Now, I am realistic. I know that pooling in socks is as much a factor of gauge and stitch count as it is of some property inherent in the dye work (although I also think hand-dyers can do a better job mathematically predicting probable round-repeats so as to avoid the most unsightly pooling for the majority of sock knitters). I know that some pooling is bound to creep in. I just hope that it's not obnoxious. How did Lolllipop Cabin do?

Pretty darned well! The patterning remains even -- without being icky-stripy -- in all but one area: the gusset. That's the only spot of pooling ... and it's not surprising that the color would sit differently in this area since it's where stitches get increased.

So a big thumbs-up to Lollipop Cabin!

Best of all, I think there's enough yarn left to make a follow-up pair for C, my own little mermaid with golden hair. She'll be thrilled!

My So-Called Sock Challenge Tally (through 4.14.11):

• December (1): Marshlands for My Sister 
• January (2): Twin Ribs for Mom, Fascine-ation for Me
• February (2): Sleep Socks for C, Get Smart Socks for Me
• March (1): Mermaid With Golden Hair for Me

Total: 6 pairs in 4 months

The Details:

Pattern: Mash-Up Magic Toe-Up Socks (designed by me)

Started: March 1, 2011

Completed: April 14, 2011

Materials: Lollipop Cabin Softsock, 2 240-yard skeins, colorway 1804i

Needles: US 2 / 2.75 mm

Gauge: 7.5 st/in

Primary Stitch Count: 60

Confession 2.13.11

Like a dieter deliberately withholding from friends and loved ones any indication that s/he is dieting until she's had some success and is sure she's committed, I've been keeping a secret. Today I go public.

My So-Called Sock Challenge: 

December 2010 through November 2011, 

I will knit no fewer than twelve pairs of socks. 

It's self-imposed. I need to knit down my stash. 

Historically I've prided myself on having a very small and tidy stash, purchasing new yarn only as-needed for a new project and rarely having more than one or two extra projects' worth on hand. After coming down from the euphoria of a few indiscriminate buying binges in 2008 and 2009, I now have a luxury of beautiful yarns (especially sock yarns) that, frankly, borders on the obscene. The magnitude became all-too-apparent when we moved last spring and I gathered all the skeins that used to be scattered around our old, much-smaller house into a single location at the new house. Too much... way too much.

The rules of the challenge are simple: Produce at least one pair per month of the challenge. That's it. Nothing rigid like "must begin and end during the same month" or "must cast on a new pair the first of the month." Twelve months equals twelve pairs (minimum). If I get ahead and finish twelve pairs early, great! I'll consider my challenge successful. In that case, I may or may not stop early. We'll see how I feel about it if that happens.

My only confidant about the challenge was my sister, and she decided to participate in solidarity -- which I love! She created a more rigid challenge schema for herself, though, so we're not doing exactly the same thing. And á la the Yarn Harlot, she also already picked out what yarn's she's using, selected patterns for each, and set up monthly kits. Not me! No, I'm winging it all loosey goosey on-the-fly. 

My So-Called Sock Challenge Tally (as of 2.11.10):

• December (1): Marshlands for My Sister 
• January (2): Twin Ribs for Mom*, Fantastic Fascine Socks for Me
• February (1 so far): Sleep Socks for C

Total: 4 pairs in 3 months

I already blogged about the Twin Rib socks for Mom. I decided to count these in my challenge, even though they didn't use yarn from my stash, because they use yarn from my mom's ample stash -- which aligns them with my goals for the challenge. My challenge, my loose rules!

You also already saw a bit about my conundrum (now resolved) with the Sleep Socks for C.

Postings about socks already completed are on their way. A new pair will hit the needles as soon as I finish my Bridgewater Shawl (which may... may... happen as early as tomorrow).

Mind you: This challenge won't completely deplete my sock yarn stash. It will make a good dent, though!

Anyone who wants to join us in our So-Called Sock Challenge is welcome -- no application necessary. 

Goal!

Early last spring, just before things got crazy with my job and the move, I achieved a milestone: I spun singles that were both fine enough and consistent enough for me to ply into a viable, fingerweight sock yarn! The fact that I'm only just now writing about it should be some indication of just how fantastically life intervened.

The story:

When my Aunt Mae died late last January, I flew back to Ohio, and my sister and mom (who still lives in Ohio but had been visiting my sister) drove up from New Orleans. They picked me up at the Cleveland airport on their way into town. No sooner had we finished our hugs than we started plotting which yarn stores we could hit on the way to Mom's house. Mind you, Beth had been driving for 20 solid hours, proving two things: our compulsion for fiber borders on the masochistic and, apparently, is also genetic.

We landed at KNOTS (Knitting on the Square) in Chardon, the quaint little town where my husband grew up which is, conveniently, just a 20-minute drive south of my mom's current home. At KNOTS we chatted with the wonderful owner, Kate Jackson, and found so many great things. We were surprised to find spinning fiber at all, let alone her healthy stock of indie-dyed beauties. Kate was flabbergasted that we went straight to her shop before even getting to our destination! We picked up several kinds of fibers and colorways. More on my purchase in the future -- the subject of today's post is this lovely:

Dancing Feet Roving by TomBoy Yarns.
4oz or superwash Blue Faced Leicester.
Colorway: Jewel Tones.

They may be common colors, but they spoke to me that day... and the BFL was just so luscious.

Jump forward to April. Joseph and I had just signed a contract to purchase our new home. With the pressure to pack and move within six weeks crushing down upon me, I made what seemed then to be a logical choice: I spun the entire 4 ounces on April 5 and Navajo/chain plied it the next day. The whole time, I was thinking, "This could be socks," and behold:

380 yards. Sock yarn!

I cast on and madly knit the toes, foot, and gusset before I had to get serious about moving.

Flash forward to November. With four glorious months of parental leave stretching out before me, sanity and space returned and I found my creative energy restored. Out came the socks!

Pattern: Mash-Up Magic Toe-Up Socks (MUMTUS) by Zhenya Lavy (workshop pictorial, Ravelry page, downloadable PDF of the condensed pattern)
Primary Stitch Count: 52
Started: April 28, 2010
Completed: November 28, 2010
Materials: My Navajo-plied handspun from Superwash BFL, Jewel Tones (Dancing Feet Roving by TomBoy Yarns)
Needles: US 2 / 3.00 mm

I used a mock cable stitch with alternating twists for the leg:

This Mock Cable has a simple, four-row repeat:

1: *MT, P2, K2, P2* repeat

2 & 4: K2, P2
3: K2, P2, *MT, P2, K2, P2* repeat

(MT = Make Twist. K2tog but don't slip off needle. Insert needle back into the 1st stitch and knit. Slip both off needle.)

Blocked 

My handspun was a joy to knit. I found myself stopping to admire my work much more frequently than usual!

I have 26 grams of the handspun left -- that's about 23% of my starting quantity. I only used 77% of my fiber... about 266 yards. This confuses me. The yarn looks and feels like fingerweight, but it knit up like a higher grist. Hmmm... Thoughts?

Doesn't the color flow beautifully through the fabric? I didn't do any special spinning techniques to manipulate the color. I just let things fall where they may in the spinning and Navajo plying processes.

Before blocking. Squishy and luxurious!

They're definitely a fraternal pair, which would drive my sister crazy, but I'm good with it!  It's most obvious here:

I know it's generally preferable to block before photographing, but sometimes I feel like the blocking renders a "sterile" picture. In their pre-blocked state, they shine with all the charisma of the kinesthetic experience they have to offer!

When all was said and done, they didn't take all that much touch time to spin and knit... but they ended up being a seven-month project. Yikes!

Sadly, last week Kate announced that she's selling KNOTS to spend more time with her two little ones and prepare for the arrival of a third. Congratulations, Kate! I've really appreciated your approach and your fun voice in the newsletters. 

I'm praying someone wonderful buys the shop. As my mother-in-law says, "It's such a nice addition to Chardon Square." As I see it, a yarn store is perfect for a serene, historical setting. I'd be all over it if we still lived in Ohio!

What Was I Thinking?! (What Do You Think?)

Last night I threw caution to the wind and cast on a pair of sleep socks for The Girlio without checking gauge first.

Here was my thinking:

1. The number of stitches cast on at the toe is somewhat irrelevant since I just need a handful, and to be off by one or two would not make or break the socks' fit.
2. The toe increase section itself would become my gauge swatch! The sock would be knit in stockinette, and because it's a sleep sock that won't be getting hard wear, I wouldn't reinforce the toes or heels. Conditions were right!
3. I knew I wouldn't overshoot the right stitch count for circumference before having knit plenty of fabric to test gauge.
4. I really wanted to knit up some handspun I'd made on my trip back to Ohio and Pennsylvania late last January for my Aunt Mae's funeral. It's been a year, and I've been thinking about her a lot.
5. The handspun had been languishing and needed just this kind of inspired moment to get it on the needles. Back when I made it, C was wearing an orange coat, so these 185 yards of yarn would have made a great little hat or skinny scarf. Now she wears a light purple coat. Not so good. But for sleep socks? Wonderful!
6. It's a heavier yarn -- mostly worsted -- so they'd knit up lickety split!
7. C would love them. This is a girl who uses three of those grain-filled foot-warmer things you heat in the microwave each night.

I cast on while watching old episodes of Nip/Tuck on Netflix before bed (my current guilty pleasure... I had turned my nose up at it when it was in syndication, but I'm loving it now). Semi-dark room... a wickedly delicious absinthe cocktail at-the-ready... an equally wickedly delicious episode to watch... and I was in heaven, zipping blissfully along on my US 4 needles without really looking at what was going on.

It all seemed so perfect!

But this morning, when I picked up the socks to admire my handiwork and (I thought) celebrate my great success with this seat-of-the-pants cast on, I saw it:

I'd spun the yarn thick-thin.

Fergus!

I guess I have two choices:

1. Frog them and come up with a different project for the handspun, or
2. Keep going and call it a worthy experiment. It's not a severe thick-thin and doesn't seem awful so far. And since they're sleep socks, she won't be putting them in shoes or putting her weight on them enough to be irritated by the irregularity of the fabric.

What do you think?

Basic Instincts Shawl

This is a story about yarn and instinct.

When I bought two 50-gram skeins of Cherry Tree Hill's Fingering Alpaca in the Spring Frost colorway in Spring 2008, I had every intention of knitting them up into a cozy pair of socks.

Then I lost my interest in the yarn, and it sat in my stash until January 2010, when I wound it into cakes and took it with me to Orcas Island -- again, intending to make socks.

While on the island, I knit up a gauge swatch. A pretty little thing: so light and delicate and beautiful. I caressed it. Showed it to my mom. Caressed it some more. But I couldn't bring myself to cast on. The swatch was beautiful, yes... but there wasn't a chance I was going to use this yarn for socks. Despite CTH's recommendation that it would make a fine choice for socks because of the 1% nylon binder, I didn't trust it would wear well enough for socks for me.

Rather than end up with the heartbreak of discovering such an error only after having spent precious knitting time completing an ill-fated pair, I left the yarn to linger for yet another year -- this time in the bottom of my wip knitting bag. From there it would needle me with constant reminders that I needed to find it a suitable project.

This January 1, I threw caution to the wind and with little more than a vague idea of what I was doing, I cast on and just started knitting. The result is my Basic Instinct Shawl:

With just two 50-gram yarn cakes and a desire to make them go as far as possible, I decided on a basic triangle construction, knit side-to-side. (Truth be told, another reason I took this approach rather than starting from the bottom, center-back and working my way up is because I can't stomach knitting those interminable long edges along the tops of shawls in one go.)

Starting at one side corner, I knit with increases every second row until my first yarn cake ran out; then I used the second skein to decrease every second row until I reached the far corner. This way I could use every last bit of yarn and trust I would have enough to get me through both sides. Thoroughly stressless!

One important criteria for me was that the finished shawl be fully reversible. Nothing's worse than fiddling with a shawl or scarf to keep the right side facing out on a non-reversible piece!

I had no desire to either make or wear a skimpy little bandana-sized shawlette, as I've seen done with so many sock yarns on Ravelry. To maximize my 100 grams, I found myself drawn to one of the most basic of stitches -- an airy faggot stitch turned almost into a whisper by using a larger needle than normally called for with fingering-weight yarn.

Please forgive the less-than-aesthetic background on the image below, but my strategy worked so well that I had difficulty finding a well-lit space in my house large enough to spread out the finished piece for a picture!

To avoid creating a shawl with just a big sea of unbounded openwork, I inserted five garter-stitch dividers along the way: one at center back, one at each shoulder, and one to be visible in each corner of the front. Because the shawl is knit sideways, these bands of garter form pretty vertical lines and add textural and visual interest.

The garter bands have more density than the faggot stitch, but they are bordered on each side by slightly larger eyelets formed by the yarn over that is, otherwise, drawn into decrease through the faggot stitch. I find this very pleasing.

A four-stitch garter edging on all sides completes the piece.

It was a relatively quick knit, taking just about 10 days of actual knitting, done mostly in couple-hour-increments after the kids went to bed at night. I also took a break from this project to knit up the fingerless mitts for my mom before she left.

I simply adore the way this shawl turned out! The fabric is warm around my shoulders, but it's also so light and airy that it can be folded and bunched without creating bulk.

This gives the piece wonderful flexibility because I can also wear it around my neck as a cozy cowl...

... if I can pry it away from my daughter!

Pattern: Basic Instincts Shawl (designed by me, pattern to come)

Started: January 2, 2011

Completed: January 17, 2011

Materials: Cherry Tree Hill's Fingering Alpaca, 2 skeins, 100 total grams, Spring Frost colorway

Needles: US 6 - 4.0 mm