Socks No. 10 and 11 for 2011

More socks for Kazakhstan orphanages. Having finished the campaign for the "graduates", we are now gearing up to knit socks, socks, and more socks.

These two pairs were knit with one ball of 6 ply Supersocke Wellness II yarn bought at Little Knits at a considerable discount. I used 2.75 mm needles and the patterns were made up on the fly, sort of.

The stitch pattern for this pair of socks is: Row 1 k3, p1. Row 2 knit.

This pattern was adapted from a sweater I knit. It is basically a 5 stitch pattern set off by 2 purl stitches on each side. Row 1: Knit; Row 2: Slip 5 stitches purl wise with yarn in front; Row 3: Knit; Row 4: K2, pick up floating yarn with right needle and pull over middle stitch and knit, k2; Row 5: Knit; Row 6: Knit Repeat.

Another pair is on the needles; it's called my car socks since I only knit on the pair when I'm riding in the car.

Knit on Merrily!

Socks #9/2011

Another pair of socks designed by Monika Eckert of Wollklabauter. The pattern can be bought through Ravelry .

These are knit with Plymouth Rockin" Sox yarn (now apparently called Sockin' Sox). The socks used just over 100 grams of yarn because they are US Men's Size 11 with an extra long shaft. Needles size 2.5 mm.

Knit on Merrily!

Socks #8

Another pair of socks are done. These are for the 500+ pairs of socks challenge for the Kazakhstan orphanages. The pattern is Aragorn by Janeke Maat. The pattern can be found for free on Ravelry . The cast-on was new to me. It is very, very stretchy. This may be the perfect solution for those who have trouble getting their cast-on for socks stretchy enough. It does involve a provisional cast on, kind of. The cast on starts with half the stitches needed with a different colored yarn and knitting a few rows.

The first row of the actual cast-on is knit with the regular sock yarn by knitting k1, y/o, thus doubling your stitches to the no. of stitches required for the pattern. A total of 5 rows make up this cast on. The process is well described in the pattern. (Although the author is Dutch, the pattern on Ravelry is available in English.)

And then you grab a pair of scissors and snip off the provisional cast on.

After you have picked out the bits of yarn left over, you have this cast on,

provided you didn't cut off the tail of the actual sock yarn. So be careful; otherwise you'll have to start over again.

And finally, here are photos of the completed sock:

Two more pairs of sock projects on the needles. One pair, a simple knit sock with a small cable on each side for my "faux" nephew to be knit in the car and a more complicated design by Monika Eckert of Klabauter Wolle, recipient not decided on as yet.

Knit on Merrily!

In honor of my 71st Birthday..

My favorite cartoons/pics liberally appropriated from various Internet sites. As my doctor says: "it stinks when you hurt more in the morning than when you went to bed at night." So true.

Thank you for all the birthday wishes.

Knit on Merrily! Renate

Be it known to all...

...that on this 17th day of April, 2011, I was awakened to heavy snow falling. Apparently Frau Holle hasn't finished shaking out her pillows yet. "Frau Holle hear me! This is Renate calling to remind you quite sternly that it is time to put away your pillows and let Spring take over." In the meantime, I have finally been able to photograph the last two pairs of socks for the Urupinka, Kazakhstan orphanage. The off-white socks are knit with WEBS coned sock yarn and 2.5 mm needles. The pattern is and old pattern by Monika Eckert of Klabauter Wolle which I found some time ago on the Internet.

The legs of the second pair of socks are knit with Knit Picks Essential Tweed sock yarn in ash and a green variegated hand-spun, hand-dyed wool while the cuffs, heels, and toes are a kettle dyed yarn in a darker gray. As always all dyeing and spinning in this household is courtesy of my in-house dyer, aka Angela or "the youngest daughter."

Knit on Merrily!

Another Akkol Sweater

As promised, I finally was able to take pictures of sweater no. 2 for the orphanages in Kazakhstan. This one was knit with Elann Peruvian Highland Chunky on US 8 (5.00 mm) needles. The pattern by Christiane Burkhard was well written and, therefore, easy to knit. A beginning knitter should be able to manage it.

Now, all I have to finish up is the foot of the second sock and I am all done with the items I committed to knit.

Knit on merrily!

I've been MIA for a while...

...but for good reasons. I have been furiously knitting for Mittens_for_Akkol which supplies knitted goods to two orphanages in Kazakhstan. I have 1/2 of a sock left to knit and a sweater to wash and block. In total, I will have knit 2 sweaters, one pair of boot socks and one pair of regular socks. This sweater was knit from hand spun Blue Faced Leicester yarn on US #9 (5.00 mm) needles. Kudos go to my daughter who is the spinner-in-residence. The pattern is from Drops and can be found on Ravelry or directly from the Drops site http://www.garnstudio.com/ . I made some minor changes since I had to combine two shades of brown. The pattern could easily be knit from the top down if seaming is not your cup of tea. And here is a pic of the boot socks. They are US Size 11 and knit with Cascade 220 and Wildfoote sock yarn.

So now to finish the second pair of socks and wash the other sweater. You'll be hearing from me.

Knit on Merrily.