Noro socks knitted toe up

These are toe-up monkeysocks in Noro sockyarn. The color is S 188. I both like and dislike this yarn. It is spun uneven, and some of the colorrepeats are soooo long and boring. I like the Noro silk garden yarn better. I finished the first sock, and realised the foot of the sock is a bit too big. When you knit toe-up, that means I have to frog all the way down to before the heel, or just have a sock that is a bit too long. I don´t know what I am going to do yet. Frog or not to frog, that´s the question.

I am knitting other stuff as well, a Forest Canopy Shawl in Dream in Color Baby for a good friend, and a Clapotis in Mirasol Hacho. But I have no proof, no pichures yet. The Canopy Shawl is actually the first shawl I have ever knitted in a laceweight yarn. I am on repeat 13, and I still have a long way to go. I had to cast on a Clapotis before jan 31 to ba able to join a KAL on Ravelry.com. I have always wanted to knit this pattern, and I have no idea what took me this long. I have been wanting to try the Hacho yarn for a long time, it is dyed by women in Peru who get a procentage of the sales of this yarn.

That´s all for tonight, have a good weekend!

(The yarnlinks go to The loopy ewe, since I bought that yarn there. I love that shop, they are super!)

Nannersocks in Baresheep yarns

But I have a tiny reading break this morning, and not blogging since July 2nd started to annoy me. Summer of socks 2008 didn’t go that well, I managed to knit four pairs, and I have a fifth on the needles as we speak. I have five Christmaspresents done, and about five to go. At the end on SOS 08, I started knitting a hat and armwarmers just to do something else, and also sabotage my chances of winning. No need to say that I didn’t win anything? I finished one of the two skeins I got from Baresheepyarns. I used the Nannerpattern by Wendy Knits, and knit them toe-up, two at a time. I love the pattern, it is so easy and intuitive, and toe-up is alot of fun. I have Wendys blog in my Bloglines, I like to follow along with what she knits. The other day she finished Baby surprise jacket, and that pattern looks like alot of fun. I think I know what my friends will recieve when they start popping out babies.Ok, that’s enough, I have to get back to my studies

Can’t blog, must go out in the sun

Rememer my gaugeproblem with the second RPM sock? A few inches into the second sock, I noticed my gauge was way off, it was alot larger than my first one. I ripped, cast on again, same result. A huge, giant monstersock appeared. After alot of thinking I read the pattern again. Where it says to “cast on 27 st on each needle”, I had cast on 27 inches three times, as I had been working the last sock on three needles. The pattern is written for two circs. Duh! So on my third try I got it right. I now have the correct amount of stitches, and I am halfway through the heelflap.

We are leaving to go visit my boyfriends family up in the west of Norway tomorrow, and since the busride takes about 8 and a half hours I will be done with the second sock before we arrive.

Isn’t this cute? It arrived in the mail not too long ago, from Bare Sheep Yarns. It arrived fast aswell, so I can recommend this store. It is fingering weight, and I am dreaming about what I can knit with this. Of course it will be socks, but which ones? I also got another skein from Bare Sheep Yarns, the Rainbow colorway. Alot of happy colors in that skein. The socks that I make from these two skeins are just for me I think *evil grin* Hopefully I will be able to post pichures of the soon to be finished RPM’s, and other socks that will be created while on holiday. See you soon!

Right after finishing my first sock, I cast on sock # 2 right away, and realised about two inches later that this sock was alot bigger than my first one. Gaugeproblem. So, I ripped, and I am now about three inches into the leg on sock # 2. The colors are really happy though, and the yarn is very dreamy. I have two more skeins of STR that will be used during SOS, and I can’t wait. I just want to be done with this pair though…

I had a great mailday the other day, Kraft Foods desided to send me a little goodiebag. I had written them an email a couple of weeks earlier, complaining about a pack of potatochips that I bought. It was great for the first half of the bag, but suddenly, all of the chips started tasting funny. Annoyed as I was, I found their website, and spent five minutes telling them what was wrong. They sent me a lovely note, saying they were sorry, but this happened sometimes, and hopefully I would enjoy the package they would send me. I did. It was filled with a bag of “Sprø” chips, three chocolatebars (that I love, chocolate wll always be my number one snack!) and even a pack of jello and vanillasauce. Two of the chocolatebars are already gone, and I am guessing the bag of chips will be devoured during the weekend.

I am trying to get ready for my holiday. On monday we leave to visit family up in the vest. The busride there takes several hours, and I will hopefully get alot of knitting done. But I need to roll more skeins into balls, decide on patterns to bring, find the right needles…. ah man, I have so much to do. And right now, I actually have to go clean! Unfair. I’d rather be knitting.

Oh, and in a weak moment I joined Plurk. Crap, like I didn’t have enough on my plate as it is. Want to be my friend?

It knitted up quite nicely, I loved the pattern, and knew intuitively what the next row would be. I have already planned another pair of Pomotomus during the SOS, in the same yarn, but the colorway “The Red one” which is more a pink thing. Bright pinks.

I have finished half a sock for the SOS. I had so much stuff to do this weekend, I didn’t get to knit much. Friday was my last day of working at the school, and also the summerparty. I came home at three in the morning, and it wasn’t exactly “safe” for me to knit anything at that point. Saturday I swatched and swatched, and couldn’t get gauge. I finally decided on a pair of RPM‘s, in Socks that Rock. The colorway is called Watermelon Tourmaline, and it’s a very happy socks that is in the making. Will post pichures as soon as the first sock is done.

I am almost ready for SOS (Summer of socks 2008) which starts on saturday. I got to huge orders in from The Loopy Ewe this week, and I have already rolled some of them into balls. I have yet to photograph my entire sockstash though, as so many of my fellow Sos’ers have. They have shown off their great skeins on Ravelry, and I must say I couldn’t stop looking at all the beautiful pichures.

The photo on the left is one of my sos “victims”. It is a Lime and Violet yarn and the Carinsbane colorway. Pretty huh?

I have had so much to do this week. It’s the last week of school, and tomorrow is my last day as a teacher’s aid. I have worked at this job for two years, and I must admit that quitting is hard. I have worked with the sweetest students of all time, and I can’t stop getting all teary-eyed and sad when I realise that after tomorrow I won’t see them every week like I have the last 700 days of my life. Today they gave me some drawings, a beautiful scarf that I started wearing right away, and this huge sunflower that brightens up my livingroom. I didn’t manage to stay cool anymore, I cried while I tried to say thank you. Tomorrow will be a pretty good day, although I expect to cry a bit more when they all go home. I am such a wimp.

After the student go home it’s time for my last workparty. I actually got a really nice bottle of white wine from the parents of one of my students today, and I am concidering drinking it at the party. My plan is to dance the night away, and celebrate that my next step in life will be to get a degree and hopefully teach children that need more help than others. I start at university this fall, and I couldn’t be more exited!

What makes Lime and Violet spescial in my opinion? The fact that they talk about knitting, but that doesn’t stop them from getting off the point and talking about everything BUT knitting. I like this, I want to know about sideshow husbands gigs (I don’t get swordswallowing), about the trips to the winery, the emergency room and the fiber fests, the “Give geese a chance” rally and the stalking of Brenda Dayne. If you are looking for a podcast that always stays on topic, this show isn’t for you.

A favorite segment of the podcast is yarnporn, where the girls talk about yarngoodness they have found on the internet. The episode where Violet finds the Wollmeise website and almost faints is a classic.

The episodes are a bit long, which suits me perfectly, as I have a long commute to work. My only problem is that the girls arn’t able to crank out a new episode each day.

Two big thumbs up from me!

After a long hiatus I have a burning need to talk about yarn. While I was away I finished my Forest Canopy Shawl in DIC Smooshy. The colorway was Happy Forest, lovely shades of forest greens. (I bought it from The Loopy Ewe actually, my very first purchase from that store)

I am very content with my shawl, and the yarn was a dream to knit with. The name is incredibly fitting, as DIC Smooshy is very smooshy. It is soft and glides through your hands while knitting. I didn’t experience any splitting with this yarn, and there were no knots or other debris in my skein.

I have not made socks yet with this yarn, but it was very fitting to make a shawl, as the 450 yards (411,5 meters) comes in one complete skein. No need to weave in more loose ends than necessary. The colors are really beautiful and blends well into eachother. The yarn is knitted up with a gauge of 6,5 to 8 st per inch, on US size 1 to 3.

My only minus to this yarn is that it bled a little when I washed the finished shawl before blocking. I have read somewhere online that this is to be expexted of greencolored yarns, and it didn’t wash out any of the beautiful colors, they stayed bright and clear after washing.

I will definitely use this yarn again, I have actaually ordered some Dream in Color in the Classy weight that will hopefully arrive this week. So, two big thumbs up from me!

So happy pod-versary Marly! Hopefully there will be many more years to come filled with Yarnharlots and strange stories