Unveiling... Stricken!

On June 1st, I cast on the latest Cookie A. sock from Knit Sock Love for the KSL KAL - Stricken.  I was excited, fresh for adventure, and just a tad bit naive.  Ah, Stricken....  You taxed my knitting mojo like no other sock has, but also pushed my sock knitting further than previous patterns.

I started off great!  Cuff was easy breezy! I was even excited about using my custom-made-by-me stitch markers to start sectioning off areas of the pattern in the leg.

In the first 10 days I accomplished a good amount knitting them two at a time.  This pattern has a lot of charts, and I was starting my way through chart D.

Then I hit the wall.  So many teeny tiny cables every.  Single.  Row.  And the dreaded chart E was looming.  What?  Why was it dreaded?  I knew you'd ask.

Chart E is for the heel flap, which instead of being worked around and around, is worked back and forth.  That means instead of knitting, on the back side you purl.  It's a piece of cake when a heel is a straight knit on one side and purl on the other, but these socks continue the pattern down into the heel flap.  The chart is written for the right side (RS).

You might be saying, "So..???"

So, when working Chart E, the first row is read right to left like you would any other chart, and the stitches are worked as shown.  The second row is the wrong side (WS), so it is worked left to right, AND you have to translate all the stitches.  Knits become purls and vice versa.  Knits through the back loop (ktbl) become ptbl.  Slip 1 to cable needle and hold to front, k1 tbl from left needle, ktbl from cable needle becomes slip 1 to cable needle and hold to front, p1 tbl from left needles, p1 tbl from cable needle.

Perhaps you can see why chart E was dreaded.

So I set aside my Stricken socks, telling myself it was just for a day or two.  I cast on my Hedera socks - it was now mid-June.  Hedera socks were finished on June 30 (see previous blog entries for photos).  Stricken got pushed farther to the side.

July 1st I cast on BFF.  I worked on these during our trip to PA and on the drive home.  BFF socks were finished July 11th.  Stricken was gathering dust.

July 14th I cast on Quickie Socks for Chris.  They were quick - finished both socks on July 17th.  Looked at Stricken and groaned.

Finished up my carrying-around socks - Monkeys that I had started back in April.  Bound off and wove in the ends on July 21st. 

In the meantime, I had realized the Stricken deadline of July 31st was looming if I wanted them to be eligible for KAL prizes.  On July 18th, I forced myself to pick them back up and start working.

Lo and behold, I got some of the original mojo back.  I finished Chart G, painstakingly knit through the Chart E heel flap from hell, and the rest of the foot was smooth sailing.  The relief and pride I felt when I finished off the toes was incredible!  I did it!  And with a bind off date of July 26, I had 5 days to spare.

So here they are!

Are you impressed?  It doesn't matter - I impressed myself.  :)

And with just a few days left until the beginning of August and the new KSL KAL (Twisted Flower), I bet you can guess what I did....

I cast on my very first colorwork sock for the July/Aug Sock Knitters Anonymous (SKA) KAL challenge.

More on that coming soon.....

Oh, and did I mention that I also cast on another pair of BFF socks?  Don't worry, I have a good reason.  :)

How 'Bout a Quickie and a Monkey?

I wanted a quickie.  A quickie pair of socks, that is.  I had finished my BFF socks for July ahead of schedule, was still procrastinating working on Stricken, and my first pair of Monkeys were dragging.  So yes, it was time to cast on a new pair!

I recently got three new sock books thanks to Amazon.com discounts and free 2-day shipping with Amazon Prime:
The Joy of Sox by Linda Copp
Knitting Socks with Handpainted Yarns by Carol Sulcoski
Sock Knitting Master Class by Ann Budd (with a DVD!)

The Joy of Sox has a cute pattern called Quickie Socks that uses - *gasp* - worsted weight yarn!  And - *double gasp* - size 5 needles!  I immediately made an emergency run to Michael's for some worsted weight wool (my yarn stash may be growing, but it's 98% fingering/sock weight).  And because the Solid Socks group on Ravelry was doing a black/white/gray month, I got it in gray to make a pair of socks for my wonderfully appreciative husband.

July 14th - I cast on Quickie Socks after the kids went to bed (around 8 PM).
July 17th - Quickie Socks finished by lunchtime.

Holy crap!  Two and half days for a pair of socks!  Granted, they are thick, heavy socks, but Chris will thank me when he's shoveling snow this winter.  At least he'll have toasty warm feet!

Quickie Socks 

Patons Classic Wool in Dark Gray Mix

Is it me, or is the pattern reminiscent of the Leaning Tower of Pisa?

With those done and hours of swimming class with the kids, I had no choice but to put in some serious work on my Monkey socks.  Lo and behold, when you actually work on a project, it progresses.  Imagine that!  And when you work on it enough, you may even finish it!  Woahhhh.  Dude.

Started in April, but finished in July, here are my Monkeys by the pool!  (Wool socks with sandals in the background and wet pool cement makes for an interesting photo, does it not?)

Monkey socks - by Cookie A.

Grant Creek Yarn - Leaves colorway

So let's recap:

BFF - done.
Quickie Socks - done.
Monkeys - done.

What to do?  What to do?  I know what you're thinking, and yes, I was itching to cast on another new pair.  However, in a burst of unprecedented self-restraint, I decided to suck it up, dust of my Stricken socks, and sally forth.

More on that later....

Growing the Stash

Just got another order from Knit Picks two days ago!  Leigh and I went together to get some solid colors for future knit-a-longs, specifically for our "Knit Sock Love" KAL socks.  Cookie A's patterns often have a lot of pattern/texture/cables/etc which can be obscured by busy yarn, so solids, semi-solids, and tonals work best.

Here's the order (I'll make the photo large so you can see all of the yummy yarn goodness better):

Top Row:  Dove Heather, Gypsy

Middle:  Rouge, Fedora (brown), and Majestic

Bottom:  Dusk, Pumpkin, and Bare/Natural

The purple Majestic and red Gypsy are Leigh's - the rest is mine.  Mine mine mine!  All mine!  And I have plans for each and every skein.

Fedora will go with Springtime (green tonal from my stash) for Norwegian Rose socks.

Bare/Natural will go with Make Believe (handpainted yarn from stash) for Fair Isle Socks from Wendy Johnson.  (The Norwegian Rose are also one of her patterns.)

Dusk is for the August KSL KAL - the pattern is Twisted Flower by Cookie A.

Rouge is for Cusp and is similar to the color actually used for the photo for the pattern in her book.

Dove Heather is for Stalagmite.  It was originally going to work for the Solid Socks monthly KAL for black/white/gray socks, but all of the Cookie A. patterns for 2012 shifted out a month since the moderators decided not to do a cast-on for December.  December is a busy month but also the socks for October are knee socks so people might be behind for Nov/Dec.  But I thought this would look great in the light gray, so I'm not switching my yarn choice.  In any case, here's what Stalagmite looks like.

And finally, the Pumpkin sock yarn will work great for Sake socks next July (yes, July 2012) and the SS color that month is orange.  Perfecto!  Heeeere's Sake!

There are, of course, other socks that I'm going to knit in the next year that aren't mentioned because that yarn was already in my stash.  I think I'm pretty much set for yarn for socks for quite a while.  Not that I won't buy anymore, but at least I know that I have enough right now that I won't get cold and die.  :)

I still haven't blogged about my quickie socks so I'll do that in the next couple of days.  In the meantime, I'm working on my Stricken socks and have gotten to the trickiest, most pain-in-the-butt part of the pattern.  The heel flap is worked back and forth with a chart which means every other row is read left to right instead of right to left and every stitch & cable have to be reversed.  So I've got cables where I purl through the back loop, regular knits instead of purls, more ptbl instead of ktbl, and did I mention all of the cable stitches are flipped and the directions are reversed.  I feel like I'm reading the pattern inside out or something.  I already had to tink back on the first wrong side heel row.  If you've ever tinked back cables and back loop stitches, you'll know what a royal pain it is.  Fortunately it was just on the first WS row.  Unfortunately that's the only WS row I've done so far.  *whimper*

Wish me luck!

The Summer Swing

It's been over two weeks since my last blog entry and I've been getting a little flack from a certain friend of mine because I haven't posted in a while.  *coughleighcough*  But it's summer and that means a bit of craziness.  We were away for a week visiting my family in PA, where my mom had planned a plethora of fun things to do - Arts & Crafts festival (with only vendor that had yarn - can you say "lame?"), big family Fourth of July picnic (and all the food & prep that goes with it), Kennywood, the Pittsburgh Zoo, and Idlewild Park.  We made it to all of them except Idlewild since it rained on our last day there, thus eliminating the amusement/water park from the schedule.  Needless to say, there wasn't a ton of free time for knitting, but I did manage to squeeze in some work on my BFF socks here and there.

The best surprise was during my attempt to knit in the car on our 9-hour drive home.  I had created a contraption made up of cardboard blinders and a baseball cap to block my peripheral vision and hopefully allow me to do something in the car other that sit, fidget, stare out the window, and try not to complain that I was bored or that I had restless leg syndrome AGAIN.  It not only looked ridiculous, but it made it difficult to look around when I actually wanted to raise my head for a break.  So since we were on a fairly straight highway without much scenery near the side of the road, I took a chance, took it off, and tried to knit.

I should let you know that I get completely pukey in the car when I even so much as try to look at anything resembling text or anything in the seat behind me.  Look down to check an address?  Pukey.  Look up a number on my phone.  Nauseous.  Turn around in answer to the "Mommy!  Look at this!" requests from the back seat.  Heave-inducing.  So I wasn't hopeful about the knitting and was prepared to quickly look up, recline my seat a little, and blow the highest AC setting onto my face should my carsickness rear its ugly head.

Miracle of miracles!  I could knit!!!  I did it!  I turned just slightly towards the center of the car to minimize the trees whooshing by out of the passenger window, made sure to look up as much as possible, and it definitely helped that BFF is an easy pattern that I had memorized so there was no need to look at any charts.  (If I had to add reading into the mix, it would have gotten ugly.)

Here's a picture of my progress at our last stop in PA before we crossed into NY.

BFF Sock at Matamoris, PA Welcome Center

We got home from PA on July 9th in the evening, and I finished my BFF socks on the 11th.  Less than halfway through the month.

Dominic & BFF Socks

With more than half the month left, I had plenty of time to get back to work on Stricken, which have been in knitting purgatory since mid-June.  At least that's what I should have done...