Soctoberfest Mystery Sock ~ Clue #2

I finished Clue #2 of the Soctoberfest Mystery Sock close to midnight last night. Before I called it a night I checked to see if the next clue was up on the Through the Loops site and it was.

Cables combined with lace proved to be quite a challenge for me. I dropped several yarnovers and had to knit back to fix them. Cables are so much easier to fix when you make a mistake and I will take them over lace any day! I had to switch to my Knitpicks ultra sharp dpns to knit this pattern. I made it through though, although it consumed much of my knitting time this week and there was not much sweater progress.

Off to start Clue #3.

Cast Off September Sockdown

The Marilinda socks for the September Sockdown on Ravelry has been finished for over a week. Although I love the finished sock, knitting teensy cables on teensy size 0 needles was quite time consuming.

As usual, this was another brilliant pattern written by Cookie A!

• YARN - Inspiration , a gift from Eva
  
• PATTERN - Marilinda by Cookie A.
• NEEDLE SIZE - 2.0mm Knitpicks dpn
  

Socktoberfest 2008

Lolly kicked off SocktoberFest IV last week. In past years I have turned out multitudes of socks during the month of October to celebrate; however this year I am limiting myself to only one pair. My sock drawer is full and I've decided that I need to limit my sock knitting.


I thought long and hard about what to knit for Soctoberfest.....that is, until I read that Kristy, of Through the Loops, was going to design a mystery sock in honor of Soctoberfest IV and release the instructions in installments. I immediately downloaded the first clue and knit the Mystery Cuff last week.

I think purple complements the Socktoberfest theme so I'm using some purple Koigu from my stash.

A new clue will come out each Wednesday. Since I want a completed pair by the end of the month I've opted for the two-socks-two-circs method. This is not my preference since I loathe the dreaded thread tangle.


If you are interested, head on over to Ravelry and join the Fans of Through the Loops group! I'm off to start knitting Clue 2!

Alcea Armhole Shaping -- Eeek a Steek!

My very favorite resource for Fair Isle Knitting is called The Art of Fair Isle Knitting by Ann Feitelson. I had checked this book out from the library so many times that I decided it was finally time to purchase my own copy.

Unlike most folks, I enjoy reading about the history of different knitting techniques and this book is filled with history. For instance, how many of you knew that 'fair isle' knitting was named for an island north of Scotland called FAIR ISLE? And, did you know that 'shetland' wool was named for an island north of FAIR ISLE called SHETLAND?

The Art of Fair Isle Knitting also has excellent explanations on armhole shaping and steeking. If you are interested in fair isle knitting I would encourage you to take a look at this book. That being said I have found that, like the Elizabeth Zimmermann books, I learned to appreciate this book more and more as I progressed in my knitting experience.

When I last posted about Alcea she was ready to receive some armhole shaping along with armhole steeks. If you are not much interested in steeking, now is the time to jump to your next blog site......... this may be a more tedious post than you want to read!

After two repeats (2 motifs equals one repeat) I got to the length where I wanted my armhole. I knit the right front sts in pattern and then placed 8 sts on a holder for the right underarm. I then cast on my 10 steek sts with backward loops. Continuing in pattern around the back I got to the left armhole point and put those 8 sts on a holder. I cast on my steek sts for the left underarm and continued in pattern across the left front.

And that is how I got my steek stitches in place! I then had 10 steek sts for each underarm and the front cardigan steek was already in place. Each steek is knit with alternating colors keeping the first and last st always in the darker background color. To shape the armhole I did decreases on alternating rows. The decreases slant inward toward the steek.

Next up...one more motif (24 rows) and neck shaping!