No Socks!

What is a girl to do when her hand knit sock drawer is empty?? And it’s 25 degrees Fahrenheit? And her toes are cold?

Well, she has to wash her socks! I only have 4 pairs, and 3 pairs are every day pairs…one is  a pair of house socks.

In a 2 bedroom, one bathroom flat, sometimes the sink is not the best place for these things…so I use a mixing bowl. I fill it with some Eucalan and warm water.

I throw in the pair of socks, one by one…first up are my Squishy Socks out of some Regia 6 ply followed by my Technicolor Socks in Pagewood Farms Denali Sock.

And my ???? socks I can’t find that I made a project page on Rav…I don’t even know what the yarn is…they were the first real pair of socks I made after my House Socks made from Jarbo Yarns Raggi.

Next up I just need to roll them out and lay flat to dry…only 24 hours between me and toasty toes!!

How do you block/wash your knits?

❤
Jenna

TGIF

Yes, that’s a little throw back to my childhood. We would sit down as a family and watch the TGIF Line up on TV as a family. Cheesy, but fun 🙂

This week in St. Louis, the temperatures have felt like fall. For instance, we opened all our windows yesterday and the thermostat in our house read 65 last night before I went to bed. I’m wearing a cozy sweatshirt and PJ pants, not to mention my awesome Christmas socks!

I’ve been reading all over blogs and Ravelry about knitting season. This change in the weather has definitely prompted a desire to knit everything, even more than I was feeling. Now instead of just knitting on my WIPs, I am scanning my yarn cabinet, Ravelry queue, and my physical library to pair up yarns from my cabinet to knit things. Any things. Just something to put around me and keep my warm. Forget knitting for other people, I’m feeling selfish and very, very motivated.

Plus it helps that I’ve finished a few things. Let me show you those!!

First up, the MariGOLD Slouch hat!! I even blocked the thing!

I love the color. I love the cables. My only reservation is that it’s big. Like big! Lots of slouch. I know that’s the point, but I’m not quite convinced. It’s still drying, so when it’s done, I will take some live action photos of it on an actual head.

I also cast on and finished a Little Red Riding Hood cape for a dear friend’s little one. She contacted me when I was home visiting my new niece and helping my mom organize her stash. I found this darling pattern, Capuchon, hurried over to Michael’s to pick up some fun, hard-wearing, kid-friendly yarn in the Red Heart Shimmer, then went home to raid my mom’s needles and cast that bad boy on.

The pattern is written to start at the neck with a provisional cast-on, then knit the cape down, come back pick up the neck stitches to work the hood. I decided I didn’t want to do that, so I cast-on from the bottom up, did a little math and away I went. It has this adorable raspberry stitch border along the bottom.

It was easier to do than I thought. I held the yarn double and knit it on US 10s. I did a 3 needle bind off at the top of the hood. I used a bowl to steam block this thing on. I wanted to even out my stitches and help the borders lie flat.

Overall, I love the thing. Super easy to knit. I used a satin ribbon that I threaded through the fabric around the neck. I didn’t want to do anything permanent.

I’m mostly impressed that it fit 🙂

It’s just too adorable. I made pretty thorough notes on my project page in case you want to knit one from the bottom up too…I only made the notes for the 12 months size. Should be a good starting point though if you want to do a bigger size.

You may have also noticed that I blocked these two items. Aren’t you impressed? Especially after my Knitting Confession a few Mondays ago about it. It really does make a difference. I have another awesome blocked object to show you. I guess we could count this as a FO as well on this lovely Friday.

It’s my Follow Your Arrow Shawl. I know I’ve posted about it a lot. I love it and blocking the lace made a huge, HUGE difference. Before:

After:

She is beautiful. I can’t wait to wear her.

Have you finished anything lately??

v’s & bumps,

Jenna

These are my confessions…

So I’ve been reading Brandy’s blog, Stitched Up in Toronto and she started this fun link up about knitting confessions. I thought since it’s Monday, I’d join in! From Brandy’s post:

“Like most things in the world, knitting has a set of rules and conventions. Sometimes, we knitters break them. This is my knitting confession.”

Here we go!

I don’t block my finished projects. With the exception of the Gefn fingerless mitts (after I read this post by the YarnHarlot and felt inspired)

 

I sent as a gift and my Citron shawl (which is a little small for my broad shoulders).

This is insane. Especially now that I’m undertaking my first garment that is supposed to fit me, my Whispers sweater. I even knit a gauge swatch because the yarn was not what the pattern called for and I ended up going down a needle size, but I didn’t block the swatch, I just went with it.

I’ve got 74 projects on my Ravelry page, and I know I’ve done a few more that I didn’t document and I don’t block. I find it tedious. I don’t feel like I have a place to properly soak the objects. I don’t even know how to pin out lace, nor do I have the proper things for that like wire & pins. I have some basic mats that I bought to just pseudo-pin the Citron shawl on it (with safety pins!). I know that it is fantastic for the wool or fiber just to clean it up and give it back its bounce. Or even to even out the stitches. Or any of the numerous benefits of blocking a finished object.

All of the projects in my possession (I could find since the move) that I’ve knit.

All the ones I didn’t block 🙂

If you want some more reasons to actually block, just read Stephanie Pearl-McPhee’s post I referenced earlier. Or all the other knitting blogs and such out there.

In fairness, I am planning to block the lace Follow Your Arrow Shawl so that the lace will show.

Maybe this could serve as a confession & a resolution. I really think I could benefit from taking up blocking 🙂

v’s & bumps,

Jenna