Laverne Socks No 2

 I haven't picked up my knitting needles since I finished these socks in July.  What with one thing and another, but now it is cooler, and I have received the hint that I am not sitting down enough, it was time to look through my knitting bag, sort it out and think of something interesting to knit.

When I came to pack these socks away, I found that I had knit the same pattern back in 2016.  There they were nestled up in my stock of new socks box. 

I've decided to move along and knit some wrist warmers to send to my sister.  I'm trying out a pair to judge the construction as I would like to knit ones that are longer in the arm for her.  I found a pattern on Ravelry called Spatterdash which I am attempting, but may well try different patterns after all, they are probably a little quicker to knit up that socks, and will make surprise Christmas Presents.

With all the challenges to use less fossil fuels, but the importance of keeping warm and comfortable, I think that wool will be making a great comeback, not that it ever fell out of favour in this household.

Nexus Socks Complete

 

Came across this pattern again when I was sorting out my old copies of The Knitter.  Always loved this pair, and nicely photographed in mango, a favourite colour of mine.  Knitting this in WYS blue, which happened to be in my stash.

I looked up the meaning of Nexus: an important connection between the parts of a system or a group of things...

That sums up the pattern: a lace cable pattern and wave pattern interspersed with some other stitches.  I though it would do my head in, at first, but using colour coded markers to separate the groups, and keeping a log checked off after each row, I have managed to build up a rhythm and enjoyed this project.  Knitted in blue West Yorkshire Spinner sock yarn.

Just in case Kay is looking at this...I am still using the bag and scissor keep that we made in our little Kenilworth WI craft group under your excellent tutelage.  So many happy memories.

Thistle Socks

 With another 'plant named' socks on my needles, I find comfort in knitting in those odd moments.  These have been on my needles since 12 December 2020, so have been knitted over the Christmas period, and should be finished before the end of January. This hand knitted pair of Thistle Socks will then be stored in my box of socks.

When I could no longer fit all 'The Knitter' magazines in all my boxes, I realized that it was time to review why I was keeping them, and what I should do going forward.  I ditched over 100 magazines, tearing out patterns that may appeal, and the majority were sock patterns. It was a very hard thing to do, as there is so much eye candy.  I still have another 59 stored! I've also stopped my subscription to the magazine.  I have sufficient patterns to use, and enough yarn to knit up for at least three years. 

I have a few more magazines till the end of the current quarter, and my interest was piqued by an article on historical knitting of Welsh Wigs: an interesting article and so well written up Penelope Hemingway.

The enter and they leave the newly knitted sock depository.  

In the garden at the end of October - Six on Saturday

The Propagator under whose wings we shelter has been busy refurbishing his nest, but will still be keeping a beady eye on his brood.  You should see his sweetpea seedlings...

Another week of rain and wind, and having developed a mood of acceptance, find pleasure in the garden at the close of the month.  I have heard over and over how grasses are so wonderful this time of the year.  Apart from Hakonechloa and Phalaris, I have none with the lovely seedheads, and don't really have an urge to grown them here as the garden is so small.  I have enjoyed watching the waves created on other plants particularly the fuchsias which have arching flowering stems, and Salvia Amistad as they are buffeted by the gusts.

 (1) Orchid Coelogyne fimbriata

This little orchid is enjoying the rain. This plant comes from The Writhlington School Orchid Project, acquired when one of their students came to talk to our gardening club. Our Chairman bought the plant and I was delighted when Alison gave me a nicely rooted cutting a year or so back. It is my only little orchid . Isn't it great that a school project has given many students a wide range of skills and knowledge through this project.  

(2) It time again for planting garlic.  I was delighted with the success and harvest from growing garlic the first time this year.  The cloves are still firm and look like they will keep in good condition until I can use them up.  I have therefore selected the best plump cloves and planted them out.  Mr S found my marking each one with an old icelolly stick quite amusing, he now understands why I sometimes buy him a multipack of mini ice cream lollies!  I've been saving these for a few years, and really if I don't use them for something like this, I may as well throw them out. I use these to keep track of where I was planting for spacing etc., and no doubt will be checking on where those first green pointed garlic shoots emerge during the next few months.

(3)  'Fledgling' plants are enjoying the rain like this Geranium sanguineum 'Nana', newly planted a few months ago, and flowering for the first time.  Hurrah geraniums are not the go to plants for garden molluscs!

(4) Each good gardener deserves a rest sometime.  One of my favourite birds to watch from the conservatory is the Robin.  My grandma used to call it Robin redbreast, and I thought this was very strange and almost thought she was being funny using 'baby language' to big me at eight or nine years old.  Well just how wrong was I...leaning lots of interesting things about Robins from this book, including the use of the term Robin Redbreast.

(5) Every good gardener deserves good socks.  I'm starting some socks for a gardening friend, and I have some West Yorkshire Spinners yarn called 'Robin'.  A little bird told me I could sneak that in as  it is a 'rainy gardening day' activity! I have no greenhouse in which to potter.

(6)  Jo Hynes is coming  to talk at our Garden Club next month.  She has the National collection of cyclamen, and I have checked, and sadly she is not bringing any plants for sale.  

Ought I to get myself organized and pot some of these little seedling up to share? I've just noticed the two have different leaf shapes.  Yes I have some named varieties but these two  came from seed 'foraged' a few years ago.  If I had a woodland, I would have one half carpeted with hederifoliums, and the other half with coums, with a few patches for other springs bulbs.

Crenate Socks by Rachel Coopey

Another pair of socks..following a great pattern but with a few tweeks.  Up a size needle to 2.75 for the first 7.5cm so that the longer sock fits over my calf, then with 2.5mm makes the sock snug around my slim ankles.  The way the stitches vary around the perimeter add an architectural element.

In a Vase on Monday - Small and sweet

 Cathy's vase this week is full of 'Nighttime sophistication and glamour' in contast to mine, which is very small and a sweet collection of flowers in bloom.

This morning I was removing the swelling seed heads from the dutch iris when one broke off by mistake.  Joining it is Ajuga reptans, the standard green one which has some fine flower spikes, and the white and yellow Corydalis  ochroleuca aka Pseudofumaria alba, both  from Alison C's garden.

The lovely dainty small white daisy with pink on the opening buds is the ubiquitous Erigeron karvinskianus.  The small pink very sweet smelling head of flowers is Androsace sarmentosa Watkinsii.

For the last few days I have had this one rose on the mantleshelf.  I was given it and I was totally humbled that someone who has gone through the mill recently, remembered me and picked the first rose of the season.  It is called Just Joey.

Below is the tiny watering can with a couple of feathers found in the garden..

After having my own knitting on hold so that I could get on and knit the baby jackets etc., I have finished my latest pair of socks:

Portreath Socks Complete

The pair of socks called Portreath...can be worn right way

or inside out...

Oh to be besides the seaside with a little sunshine!

Rock Pool Socks complete

Another pair of socks knitted from yarn in my stash.  The pattern is called Rock Pool was was published in the Knitter Magazine recently.  Now stowed away in my stash of new socks...my 'being used sock drawer' is full.

Zig Zag Socks

There are many reasons for my lack of posts recently....having come back from holidays I am yet to post about that...and that seems to be causing an impasse.  Its not that I have been indolent, au contraire, I have been forging on with my crafts.  I have felt more like doing, rather than writing about doing.

However I love that my blog is a record of things I love doing, seeing, friends, visits etc.  A friend who dips into Kenilworth happened to came round a couple of weeks ago, and mentioned my Crassula, so it was with that lovely succulent, that I posed my latest pair of socks to come off the needles..two circular ones of course!  I have written of course about my Crassula Falcata Budhas's Temple before, and the ones with the socks are the third generation.

The pattern is a Drops Design called DROPS 112-15, maybe it has a proper name to be assigned.  I think maybe Budha's Socks would not be quite appropriate..just zig zag socks.  If anyone can think of a better name, do post below, and I shall send it on to Drops, and see if they would like to adopt it.

As usual I made a few adaptations as the pattern....making them longer in the leg, and a little slimmer in the foot.  That is the joy of knitting, really well fitted garments are possible.

Lacy Heart Socks

I always mean what I say, and my friends do know this...so was not surprised when Kay took me at my word when I offered to knit her a second pair of socks.  Her husband had been teasing her that he would have to pull her socks off her and wash them in the night and then return them, as they do with their grand children's snuggly toys!  She loves to wear the pair I knitted for her recently in the evenings when she is sitting with her feet up...no slippers for this lady! (Of course she has been washing them regularly)

Kay found some lovely yarn, during one of her middle of the night scans on her ipad, and came up with a hank of Titus by baa ram ewe, in 70% British Wool and 30% UK Alpaca.  Each time I have to wind up a hank, its lovely to get out the wooden swift and the winder, but I do have to look up the instructions!

It is indeed a fine yarn and very warm...but now I know why I personally err towards lighter colours.  It was not easy to knit this one by artificial evening light.

I had started with a complex lace pattern, but realised that even counting the stitches was hard.  I frogged the sock and started again.  In the end I decided to knit up a fairly plain  pair of socks as long as I thought I could get out of the wool without my usual panic, with some little hearts.

Even counting the rows was difficult so used a contrasting yarn to weave in and out every 10 rows...for the second sock it was every five, as this much easier to see and very quick to count up.  I used this out of desperation, and now I have a technique to help me through other projects.  For most of these photographs, I have lightened them on the PC.

Here are the socks finished...the hearts are on the outside so there is a left and right sock, and I had just a comfortable amount of the cake left, and I had a little more in the bottom of my project bag left from frogging or pulling out the little of lacy sock that I had given up on.

With that I knitted up a little bit of rick rack..as I just could not find the right sort of ribbon!

Kay gives so many hours of her time to making things for other people, and also leading our WI craft group each week...its lovely to think I can make her something!

Laverne Socks finished

With my last project completed, yesterday I was rooting around for another knitting project, and looked through my stash of yarn.  I have a couple of skein of Colinette Jitterbug which I have had stashed for a few years now.  I bought it from the Web of Wool knitting shop in Leamington, where I used to go regularly to the little soiree organised by Anna the Shop Owner, and must have fallen for it one evening.  The shop is now closed.

I have decided to use up the oldest wool first, so started with this gorgeous mainly green one, hand painted from Wakes.  I had read previously that the yardage was a little tight and was a little apprehensive, so with digital scales wound off half, to make sure that I got two socks!

I chose a nice pattern, and got started on that...but then had cold feet....I think quite the right pun here.  The twist is strong and the yarn was not doing justice to the pattern, and the pattern not doing justice to the yarn.  So I have pulled out what I had knitted, and am just making a plain pair.

Portmeirion Socks

I was just checking through my special pillow case which contains some of my new knits, when I came across this lovely pair of socks, which were knitted in 2014.  I had quite forgotten about them as they were in my pile of possibles for competitions etc.  Again these were knitted in a really soft yarn in one of my favourite colours.

The pattern for Porteirion Socks just reminded of the lovely ferns I had seen growing wild in Yorkshire...and come to think I have been in some lovely woods in Wales not far from Portmeirion where the fern grew amongst the mosses under the oak trees.

I have started to grow more ferns in the garden, their forms are so numerous, and they do very well in the shady part of the garden, both in pots and in the ground.

Laverne Socks continued

I can usually spot a good design, and being a fairly experienced knitter love a good challenge.  The Laverne Socks looked like just the right design for my 'competition socks'.  As you can see I am knitting them on two fixed ended circular needles.  I really enjoy using the Knitpro fixed circular knitting needles, and the wooded tips are both sharp and smooth at the same time.  

                               

I realise now that I ought to knit the two socks more or less as the same time, since when I get to fiddly bits, I do a bit of 'finessing', but worry that I will do exactly the same thing on the second sock. Of course normally I wouldn't worry too much, but you need to impress judges!  I will knit each sock up to the fiddly bits separately, do the fiddly bits on each, then continue etc.  Each sock in the pair would then be finished more or less at the same time.  I had this eureka moment during this pair of socks, so will be sending off for another two needles!

This is definitely the easiest way to knit socks, compared to the four or five needles.  I have quite a few pairs of bamboo and birch short needles.  With the two circular needles you never loose them whilst knitting!  It is also very easy to position batches of stitches for a pattern area on one needle, and plain stitches on 'the sole needle'.

As soon as I had started the foot part of the sock, I realised that there were multiple errors in the pattern.  I had corrected them on my enlarged chart, where I marked them with my highlighter, but I was concerned that other knitters may waste some time over these and end up 'frogging' their project, or in desperation consigning their project to the bin!  Isn't it wonderful that with the internet, it is so easy to send queries that can go straight through to designers and publishers.  Yes I had spotted all the errors which I had highlighted on my working sheet, which had occurred when they had transcribed the authors pattern into a chart with their standard house style.  They have now posted an updated version.

This yarn comes in two balls...and even when I am knitting one pair of socks from a 100g ball, I often worry about whether I shall enough, and sometimes my digital scales come out.  As I have increased the length of the rib section, and increased the number of motifs from five to seven, I was getting a little anxious.

Here is my sock nearly finished and just being tried on, so that I can judge when to start the toe, to make it a perfect fit.

I arrived at the end, and had just a comfortable amount left, and was ready to sew the ends together using the  Kitchener Stitch which looks just like knitting and leaves no ridge or lump or bump.  I sat in a sunny conservatory where the light was much better to do this last bit.

So one sock is finished...and now the second one is being knitted up!

If you are knitting this pattern, or any other sock, and would like to link up with yours, please leave a comment, and if you are posting on your blog, please mention mine.  Happy Knitting....

Just in time..Socks ready for Christmas

Yes...here are my socks finished last night, started last Thursday at Knit and Natter at the Almanack!  Knitted from West Yorkshire Spinners special Christmas yarn, but using my standard 'can knit them with my eyes closed nearly' pattern!


After all an easy pattern is needed for nattering, chatting to hubby, catching up with some of the TV we have recorded, and sitting down to celebrity University Challenge, whilst at the same time having a deadline to meet: New Christmas Socks for my feet on Christmas Day.

Thank goodness they have brought on the oldies for the mini series of University Challenge, and have backed off some of the very difficult mathematics and science questions, so that now we are getting relatively high scores, and so finishing with a more upbeat feeling!

As I took these out to the conservatory to photograph this morning, the story of the Iceland Yule Cat came to mind.  I was introduced to this story by our entertainer at our Horticultural Club Christmas Party, and he haunts those at Christmas time, and eats those who don't get new clothes.  Quite a gruesome story, and probably not one for the Children!    So now the Yule Cat will avoid me at all costs, when I wear my new Christmas Socks!

To counteract this frightening story I offer the lovely WI custom at our group, to offer the Birthday 'Girls' of the month, a posy...this month is my birthday, no surprise there..and I was the only one this month.  Kaye presented me with this lovely little Christmas Tree, which she had very nicely decorated with  mini bunting in the same colours as the bunting we made for our WI Christmas Tree marking the WI's Centenary.  There were the tiniest of stitches catching the smallest of pennants...Thank you so much Kaye, I shall treasure this little tree and in a few days time after my birthday it will be planted in the garden.  When I was born my father planted a lovely Christmas Tree in the garden in Mauritius, and it grew and grew, until sadly one year it was blown down by a cyclone.

Sock Knitting and other seasonal crafts.

Sometimes you just have to thread a project onto a slip of wool and start another one.  Its not often that I do this, but when Kay asked if I would knit up some yarn she had, I was more than pleased and wanted to make sure she would have some cosy socks as soon as possible.  Kay had learnt to knit with long needles which she tucks under her arms, so she is a very competent knitter, but just could not get on with short needles.  Kay is the leading light of our WI and runs our craft group..so I deemed it an honour in deed.  Here they are made to measure...standing on the tissue paper to draw around and measuring with a tape measure at our sewing group got us giggling.  So here they are, finished in less than 2 weeks.

And here are the socks which were temporarily put on hold, but again finished a couple of days ago from another ball from West Yorkshire Spinners.  They give a needle size for 3.25mm.  For socks one uses 2.5mm, so that there is a firm fabric, which is comfortable to wear.    There is usually a problem with the colours after you have turned the heel, such that you almost get a strap effect...and I suddenly got inspired to remove some of the yarn so that the colours continue down the front of the foot in the same sequence, the bands are a little narrower at first since the rounds are longer at the instep, but I am much happier with this.

Sadly our WI is getting smaller and smaller, so are we going to have a big recruitment drive after Christmas.  This didn't stop the committee coming up with some great ideas for our December get together.  Instead of giving each other Christmas Cards, and also have the old Bran tub £1 present, this year we had a lovely range of hand made Christmas Decorations worked on by some members, and we put in a donation which is going to a local Charity. Pat also read a cherry Christmas Poem which had been read at the group meeting.

As well as news of our members who have moved away, or were absent, we sat in groups and had fun time making a hand made Christmas Decoration.  The Room which we share with many other groups is just the right size now after we were in the much larger hall.  We had bunting up marking our 100th Anniversary.  

Our craft group had embroidered pennants with each year date, and each decade was a different colour.  It had decorated the Christmas Tree which our WI group had entered into the Christmas Tree Competition at St Nicholas Church in Kenilworth.  Kay who came up with the inspired theme, and led us in our efforts and Irene had set up the tree.

Just how much glitter and which colours to use...one of our member is driving down all the way to her French Home for the Christmas Break, with one hanging from her car mirror!

Some of us who had remembered to bring our Autumn Craft group projects, set up our Christmas Trees.  We had painstakingly made up the Christmas Tree boxes under Kay's direction...all starting with  shapes of card which we cut from cereal boxes, then with fabric, glue and curved needles covered the boxes and added some embellishments.

The two little miniature nativity scenes are so sweet.  Mine is the green one covered with mistletoe inside.  I had decided to use only material and bits I already had, and did a little ribbon work and sewed on some sequins.  To think that before I had joined this group...I had hardly done any sewing crafts!