Wibbly Wobbly.

I took a significant knitting hiatus over the summer, and came back with a vengeance.

Timey Wimey.

I tried very hard to make them symmetrical, but the dye was uneven, so no fault of my own. I still love them.

...stuff.

Stripey socks are cool.

Delicious Felici goodness.

Two skeins each of two Felici self-striping yarns, Time Traveler and Abracadabra. Felici is DELICIOUSLY soft and smells like fresh wool. The most exciting one, of course, is the Time Traveler colourway:

Wibbly Wobbly.

The Pirate and I have decided on the Jaywalker pattern for the socks. We both adore Jaywalkers, and they are appropriately wibbly-wobbly while still maintaining the integrity of the stripes.

Also, I only had to chop a small amount of yarn to make the skeins start in the same spot.

The small clump is the sacrificed yarn. Woo!

So excited to start these!

I need to do two questions today! Yesterday got madly busy, and today was, too, but tonight is nice and calm and relaxing, and I can finish up the week with a double post. Enjoy!

Saturday:

Revisit a past F/O

Bring the fortune and life of a past finished project up to the present. Document the current state and use of an object you have knitted or crocheted, whether it is the hat your sister wears to school almost every day, or a pair of socks you wore until they were full of hole. Or maybe that jumper that your did just didn’t like that much…

I’m sort of revisiting two past projects: My first socks ever, and my favorite socks ever.

My first socks ever were simple stockinette, top-down, flap-heel socks. Knit with Invicta Coloris, which was not a fantastic yarn but self-striped nicely with entertained me, and slightly loose around the ankles, they were my Very First Socks and I wore them to the end. Well, one to the end. It got a huge hols in the toes and repair proved impossible. Sad, considering the remaining sock is still very intact and wearable.

My absolute FAVORITE pair of socks, the ones I wear all the time and not a sign of wear yet, are my second pair of Jaywalkers.

I knit these a few years ago, from Regia sock yarn in the colourway “Canyon”. I made sure they lines up all symmetrical and pretty-like, and tried them on the whole way to make sure they fit right. They are dream socks. Snug, comfortable, warm, durable. Very little sign of wear yet, and I wear them as often as my store-bought socks. Easy one of my favorite, most-worn FOs yet.

So yeah. Socks. :)

See what others blogged about for Day 6!

Next… today, Sunday! The Sunday given topic, a yarn you love, didn’t really interest me (I don’t love any one or two specific yarns, I love many equally) I decided to choose the wildcard topic:

All Tooled Up

Do you have a particular knitting/crochet tool or piece of equipment that you love to use? Maybe it is an old bent pair of needles that used to belong to someone special, or a gorgeous rosewood hand-turned crochet hook that you just love the feel of? Write about what you love it.

I loveloveloveloveLOVE my Denise knitting needle set.

I got it secondhand from a friend of a friend, in great condition. I was a bit skeptical when I purchased it, as I had never used the needles and have used some plastic needles before with little success… but I adore them. They warm to the touch and are just a bit flexible like bamboo, but with slickness like aluminum needles. The interchangeable-ness is so useful for so many projects, especially now that I tend to knit most straight items using circular needles. Now that I have a good interchangeable needle set, I never want to be without them.

See what others are blogging about for Day 7!

Knit and Crochet Week was a HUGE success! I had a blast reading other bloggers, commenting, and making some new e-friends along the way. I hope those of you who caught my posts enjoyed reading them, too! I did my best to crack my blogging knuckles and keep the posts mostly interesting. :)

Keep blogging!

I’m pretty positive it happened when everyone visited for Winterlude. My body has a tendency to incubate viruses for a long period of time, generally three weeks or so. Given that, this one’s right on the money. It also is no coincidence that the Pirate has it too. At least I have someone to commiserate with.

The housemates (Matt, the darling boyfriend, and Joel, our new roomie and pal from Scouts) are busy downstairs, playing Halo 3 with friends and otherwise being nerds. I came upstairs to get some of my freelance work done, and to have time alone with my DVD player and my blues.

…all that blue.

And the tissues, cannot forget the tissues. But seriously. It’s common knowledge that I have a general fascination for all things blue. I try to vary that as much as I can in my knitting, especially because when it comes to knitting, I -adore- a rainbow of colours. Still, though… I often fall back to at least some bit of blue.

Those are the projects-of-the-current-moment. But before that, I finished my Jaywalkers.

They were a fast, fun knit, and I would totally use Regia Canyon Color for another pair. Gorgeous yarn, gorgeous, simple colours. And, being such vividly-striped yarn, makes for GREAT Jaywalkers.

As soon as the second sock was cast off and the socks were put on my feet,  I cast on for the new pair of socks.

The first of a pair of Lighthouse Gansey socks, in the newest Knitty issue. I’ve waited for a basic, nicely-designed sock to use the Reynolds Soft Sea Wool I bought in Pittsburgh, and this sock fits the bill. Plus, Soft Sea Wool, Lighthouse Gansey… it all seems to fit well. In this case, the blue seems to be a good choice.

I should also mention that this yarn is so absolutely delicious to knit with. It’s extremely soft, has a beautiful amount of stretch, and, well, I adore it.  These will definitely be an enjoyable knit.

And yes, I -am- truly that pale. My skin white-contrasts right out of every closeup photo. I want to harness it as a talent, but have no idea how.

I made a small KnitPicks order last week, to get some Crayon for some toys I’m making. I decided to also pick up a skein of Wool of the Andes in the Mist colorway to swatch it for Rogue.

Rogue is going to be my first sweater attempt.  I’m nervous, because I’m fully aware that it’s not the easiest sweater to take on. However, I have done intricate cabling, and I have loved this hoodie ever since I first saw it. This yarn swatched up well for the in-the-round swatch, and I’m now knitting a flat swatch.

I also have to give mad love to Leanne for selling me an inexpensive set of Denise Interchangeables. I’ve been using them nonstop. They’re so comfortable and warm up really easily. <3  I’ve been using them to swatch for Rogue, as you can see.

I have the blues. But not entirely in a bad way.

Have an obligatory chinchilla.

Now, it would come to pass as mostly a coincidence, that five out of the seven people who came for AwesomeCon are knitters. Even odder still, two of those five people are straight males. The oddest part of all?

One of the two non-knitters, another straight male, was a convert by the end of the weekend.

Now, this wasn’t out of the blue. We were chatting on IRC several weeks before his arrival, and he had mentioned many times before that that he would like to learn to knit sometime. I mentioned that myself and the Pirate (who was another of the AwesomeCon attendees) would be more than happy to take time to teach him over the weekend, and maybe even get him started on a scarf that he wanted to make.

Sure enough, we had him addicted by Saturday night. He went home with nice bamboo circular needles, two skeins of Cascade 220 in a brown heathered shade, and an inch and a bit of a garter rib scarf. <3 He’s been knitting ever since! Happiness.

I should mention that this same friend (his name is Brandon) brought me a lovely gift of this shirt:

Be still my beating heart. This will have to do until there’s a Ninja equivalent.

I also got delicious gifts of yarn. Delicious, delicious yarn.

Blue Moon Fiber Arts’ “Socks That Rock” lightweight in Jail House Rock. A wonderful gift delivered to me from one of my best friends, Janis, by my bestest friend and her roommate, Dusty, who visited for the weekend and is one of the guy knitters I mentioned. <3 Janis also sent me a lovely thinking-of-you card, which is extremely thoughtful considering she’s been having health issues herself lately. <3 I’ve never knit with STR, so it’s exciting!

Noro Kureyon Sock, from my darling sis, the Pirate. Pirate also brought me some yarn with a more interesting backstory…

A delicious alpaca-wool blend in some of my favorite colours. She bought it while piss-drunk at Pennsic War this past August.

 I love my sister.

My darling bro got me some Lorna’s Laces at WEBS on the way up to visit here from CT. I adore the colorway. Not sure what to knit with any of this yet.

But it’s given me inspiration to motor through my second Jaywalker sock.

This photo is outdated. I’ve just finished the heel gusset decreases, and al knitting down the foot. :)

I also picked up a new amigurumi book, and pulled out my crappy acrylic yarn and crochet hooks. Just for a bit of getaway from knitting. I’m a crafter of all trades. :D