So, despite saying that I couldn’t finish the Having Hope socks before our anniversary, I decided to try anyway. I was with Mr B a lot over the weekend, though as he doesn’t notice what I’m knitting unless I wave it under his nose, I knew I could work on the sock pretty safely in his presence. I knitted a few rounds waiting for a train on Saturday morning, and had a cute conversation with a small girl who was interested in my “sewing”. I explained that it was knitting and was a sock, which she said was very big. I pointed out that it was for a very big foot.

I spent the next three days knitting, and was on course for them to be handed over on Tuesday evening. But in the end, I was undone by my compulsion to block every present. The second sock was off the needles at around 2.30pm on Tuesday and I still had them drying on their blockers with the fan going full blast at 7pm. When I realised that having socks on the bedroom floor is a bit of a giveaway for a surprise present, I gave up. Mr B was briefly handed a pair of damp socks to admire and then they were left to dry overnight to be worn the next day.

Pattern: Having Hope by Diane Mulholland
Yarn: 1 x 110g Middlearthknitter Yarns Sock Yarn (80% bluefaced leicester, 20% nylon), custom colourway
Needles: Knit Picks 2.5mm 80cm long circulars

I used almost every scrap of the yarn to knit these. I didn’t realise just how much I had used for the first sock until I was knitting past the heel on the second and noticed that the remaining yarn didn’t seem to be as much as I thought it should be… I weighed the first sock and it was over 50g. This was obviously not good, as I was working on the basis that I had a 100g skein of yarn (and learnt an important lesson in that I should weigh yarn BEFORE I start knitting…). Probably a little too late, I weighed the remainder of the yarn, knit a pattern repeat and weighed it again, which reassured me that it would be a close thing, but I should have enough yarn to knit the second sock to the same size as the first one and wouldn’t have to frog part of the first sock to make a matching pair. And I did, with about 2g of yarn left!

The yarn is a delicious BFL and nylon blend which is softer than “regular” sock yarn and blooms A LOT after washing. I need to use a yarn with nylon in it else the socks don’t last five minutes (you really don’t want to see the state of Mr B’s Jules socks..!) so it’s nice to have a yarn that doesn’t feel like it’s made of barbed wire.

The pattern was a delight to knit and beautifully written. I would never have knitted such an intricate design for men’s socks before, because of the amount of work involved. But the end result looks splendid and Mr B loves them, which makes it totally worthwhile and now I want to knit some more fancy manly socks.

Plus I’ve learnt Magic Loop which was almost as much of an epiphany as learning to knit socks in the first place. I love this method! Going back to dpns seems very strange now. I suspect I’ll be Looping many more pairs from now on.

Lucy has nominated me for an award!

I confess I’m really rubbish at giving shortlists of people whose blogs I love. So instead, I’ll cheat and just nominate all the blogs in my sidebar because I read them all.

I was going to write a jaunty little post about yarn and beads today, but I’ve just read on Cairi’s blog that John is currently in hospital after having chest pains. So I’m sending lots of love to my lovely wizardy friend instead.

I’ve been baking again. This time it’s because the smallest of the small people did not approve of chocolate and cherry cupcakes.

These are basic sponge buns with chocolate drops in, which *do* meet with approval. It’s a recipe given to me by my grandma, and it’s my fallback recipe whenever I need to whip up cakes without having to buy fancy ingredients. You can use the same recipe baked in two sandwich tins to make a Victoria sponge (preferably filled with whipped cream and fresh strawberries) but buns are best for small people. The recipe’s main advantage is that as long as you remember the ingredients and method, you never need to remember quantities.

So, because chocolate and cake are proven to help when puzzling over a complicated stitch pattern, I present the recipe in all its glory.

Ingredients:
2 large or 3 medium free-range happy eggs
Self-raising flour
Unsalted butter
Sugar
Vanilla extract (optional)
Chocolate chips
12-cup bun tin lined with paper cases

Method:
Weigh the eggs. Weigh out the same weight in the flour, butter and sugar. Cream the butter and sugar together until pale and soft and fluffy.

Beat in the eggs one at a time with a little of the flour. Add a teaspoonful, or as much as you want, of the vanilla extract, if using. I didn’t, because I couldn’t find it in the cupboard and I might not actually have any… Fold in the rest of the flour with a metal spoon.

Mix in as many chocolate chips as you want (just one packet is considered a bit miserly in this house) and spoon the mixture into the cases, remembering to scrape out all the excess with a spatula so there’s no reason for any arguments about who gets to lick the bowl.

I prefer the contrast of plain chocolate with the sponge, but my corner shop only has milk chocolate drops, so that’s what I’ve used.

Note: I use larger than average cake cases because they come decorated with dinosaurs and footballs and other things. If you’re using the regular white Supercook bun cases from the supermarket, you’ll probably be able to make around 18 buns. The mixture will be fairly thick, so just dollop it into the cases; it spreads out when it’s in the oven.

Bake at 190ºc/gas mark 5 for 15 to 20 minutes, turning tin around halfway through this time if you have a crappy oven like mine. Turn cakes out of tin and leave to cool on a wire rack for as long as possible. Add icing and sprinkles and other doodads if you can be bothered, but they’re quite interesting just as they are.

More birthday knitting revelations (and a happy birthday to Cairi for yesterday)!

Pattern: Peacock Feathers Shawl by Dorothy Siemens for Fiddlesticks Knitting
Yarn: Colourmart Cashmere/Silk 3/45NM Laceweight, about 80g in “Kingfisher”
Needles: 3mm Addi lace - whizzy!

I think I mentioned before that Mr B gave me this and another Fiddlestick pattern for Christmas a couple of years ago. As with a lot of people, I regularly see a pattern and think “Must. Have. Now.” so I’ve amassed far more patterns than I can ever reasonably knit - I probably have the pattern version of SABLE - but at least I know I have them safely tucked away, just in case…

When the yarn arrived from Colourmart, I knew that I had to use it for this pattern. And that I had to give it to a person who is more obsessed with teal than you’d think was humanly possible.

It was a very enjoyable knit. The entire pattern is charted with no written directions other than the pattern notes, so probably not for you if charts make you cower. Plus you have to mentally reverse the chart for the second half of the shawl as they’re mirror images, rather than symmetrical. However, as every row is different, the amount of paper needed to type out all 200+ rows in full would possibly mean the loss of several forests. Not to mention the scope for errors. And there wasn’t a single one!

I also learnt another new skill with this pattern - the crochet cast off loopy edging thingumy. It took a LONG time to do, because it was a new skill, after all, and I was using a 3mm crochet hook which seemed tiny. I like the way it looks now, but it was a real pain to block!

The yarn was divine to knit with. I was alternating between this and the Mystery Shawl which is knitted in Baruffa Cashwool and honestly, the Cashwool actually felt rough in comparison. That’s how soft this yarn is. Plus it just goes on forever, so I reckon I have enough left for another shawl in the same size.

Maybe it *was* the thought that I only had a few rows left to do on my first Having Hope sock that made me wake up at 4am the other morning. Mr B regularly gets up a stupid o’clock to go travelling all over the country to avoid me for work, but normally I never even stir when the alarm goes off. But for some reason I was awake and chirpy and after deciding that no, I wasn’t going to be able to nod off again, I switched on the radio and picked up my knitting. By 6.30 the sock was finished.

With not a peep from the small people, I decided to cast on for #2 in the vain hope that I can avoid Second Sock Syndrome. I didn’t think I’d actually be *able* to cast on because I had only done a Turkish cast on once before (for the first sock) and figured I’d have to get up and come down to the pc to look up the directions once again. But somehow, with the needles and yarn in my hands, it all came together. My dodgy brain, which can’t even furnish me with the correct names for my children at times (fortunately “darling” is multi-purpose!) had somehow stored the cast on somewhere in a spare brain cell and I managed to knit the entire toe before I was disturbed with demands requests for breakfast.

This is the most intricate sock I’ve knitted for Mr B and seeing as how he has size 11 feet (that’s a US shoe size 11½), it was both intricate *and* time consuming. I should say, it’s a gorgeous pattern. I would have bought it if it was crap, of course, because it’s for a good cause, but being Diane’s design, it’s most definitely not crap at all and is rather beautiful and lovely. I love the cables (and learning to cable without a cable needle definitely helps!), the nifty little braid below the ribbing, and the heel flap which doesn’t require picking up stitches.

I also really enjoyed using Magic Loop. I didn’t see the appeal at all before I tried it, but having to only fiddle around changing needles once per round compared to two or three times when using dpns is a good thing. Also, I have never accidentally slid the needle out of the stitches..!

As I mentioned earlier, my only worry is SSS because the cuff was a bugger to knit. Not complicated, but knitting a sock from the top down means that once you’re past the heel, there’s only patterning on half of the foot. Going toe up means the “light relief” comes first. It was definitely a labour of love not to stop knitting sooner and make them girly ankle socks, though knowing that Mr B probably wouldn’t wear them if they were spurred me on!

I was vaguely hoping that I’d get the pair done for our wedding anniversary, but it’s only five days away now. Plain socks are doable. Intricate cabled socks, not so much.

Click here!

Please do post on the Inside Loop blog with your thoughts on this issue as well. All feedback is appreciated.