Confessions of a Graveyard Gypsy

I think I may have been abducted by aliens one night last week and taken to their ship, where they gave me amazing speed knitting powers. There’s no other reason for me to have churned out another pair of socks, this time in five days. Well, they were knitted on 2½mm needles and the pattern was very simple, but was an actual pattern so I knew how many pattern repeats I needed to do for the leg and foot, which was motivation to just knit a few more rounds. And Mr B was away, so I could knit in bed. But I think it was definitely alien abduction.

This and the previous pair could ideally have swapped yarns. These are very plain socks, but that doesn’t mean they won’t be appreciated. The yarn is from the Kemps sale I succumbed to, almost exactly two years ago. The other yarn I bought became last year’s festive socks, funnily enough.

The pattern is from More Sensational Knitted Socks which I do generally prefer over Sensational Knitted Socks because there are a lot more stitch patterns and size options for each pair, though I think the patterns themselves are more interesting in the first book. However, the stitch counts for this sock (a five-stitch pattern knitted over 70 stitches) went completely loopy at the heel turn onwards and I ended up just doing my own thing. I assumed it was me being thick and I spent a long time searching Ravelry until I found one – one! – person who mentioned the same error. So we can’t both be wrong (probably).

I have knitted two other patterns from this book without a sniff of a problem, so I am not saying that the book is riddled with errors and a disgrace to sock books everywhere. It was just irritating when all I wanted was a mindless knit and a book to tell me what to do.

That’s definitely me done on the knitting front for the next week or so, though, as there’s just no time to knit. It’s taken me an hour to finish this post because I keep having to do other things. There may be a lot of cake photos coming up! I’ll finish with a little ta-dah! of Mr B’s festive sock collection. As he’s not even expecting one pair, I think it’ll be a bit of a surprise.

I’ve just glanced out of the window, and it’s started snowing here! Definitely the weather for lovely handknitted socks. I think the fact that there was a bit of a pattern and that the bit of a pattern wasn’t too complicated helped with getting these socks knitted so quickly. I honestly, hand-on-heart, just intended to get cracking on these as birthday socks and didn’t expect to be done and dusted before the end of the year. Not being distracted by other projects was probably even more of a help.

I have wanted to knit this pattern since I bought SKS years ago. Started them once but didn’t get further than the ribbing. The yarn I’ve used isn’t ideal because the moss stitch clearly doesn’t show up, which is a shame because it looks so nice in the book. But the cables are plump and I am sure Mr B won’t even care about the lack of moss stitch detail.

I used 2½mm needles for these, which also helped knit them up quickly. The pattern has a 48 or 68 stitch cast on and if I knitted them with 2mm needles, they’d be just a little bit too tight. Though I’m sure they won’t last as long as the other socks because of this. Last year’s Christmas socks are still in perfect condition, other than the fact they have no heels at all (!). The looser-knitted socks tend to get little holes all over the sole so this counts as an improvement!

The yarn is Regia from stash and does what it says on the tin. I did worry that I would run out of yarn on the first sock because the cables just eat it up, but I ended up with about 10g left over, though that isn’t even enough to knit a Rose-sized sock.

And I did start another pair for Mr B’s birthday. I need to buy yarn before I can start on something for myself and that isn’t going to happen until after Christmas, so I may as well knit some stash!

I planned to do this post on Friday, but ran out of daylight for the photo session due to spending far too long doing some festive shopping on Santa’s behalf.

So here, at last, is my final cardigan for the year. It wasn’t on my list of planned projects until I cam across it because of Ravelry *shakes fist* and wanted to knit it for Rose, and because it looked like an interesting knit – which is was!

Unusually for a Sirdar pattern, the fronts and back of the jacket are knitted in one piece to the armholes. I loved the little bobble snuggled into the bottom of the cables, and of course substituted my usual one for Sirdar’s directions. Being chunky yarn meant that it practically flew off the needles and I didn’t even mind the huge amount of moss stitch on the sleeves.

I confess I was intending to knit the hooded version, but after completing the sleeves I felt I was running out of steam, wimped out and knitted a collar instead.

It’s obvious from the photo, where Rose is doing a moody model pose, that it’s too big and will have lots of “growing room”, particularly in the sleeves. At some point Sirdar have changed their sizing: I’d normally choose a 2 to 3 year size for Rose but instead chose the 1 to 2 year in this pattern because the alternative was 3 to 4 years, and even that is clearly too big.

The yarn was really nice to work with. I wouldn’t have chosen it if I hadn’t been able to fondle it in the shop as after my experience with King Cole Big Value Chunky I’m more wary, but this is a very soft yarn and hopefully will wear okay.

The buttons are another eBay purchase. I find it far easier just to type in the my requirements in the search box and see what’s available than to search several sites. So far I haven’t been disappointed…

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I’m finding already that my knitting time is being reduced as the big day gets closer. The weekend was spent cleaning and then decorating the house, I’m writing lists of important food to buy and not really getting much time when my hands are free. I think if I can get the birthday socks done this week then I might just not bother at all for a week or so til the tree comes down again!

I love, love, LOVE this sweater. Cynically, I might say it’s because it’s taken six months to complete and it’s an achievement to get it out of the WIP pile.

I think this pattern has shown me that I really do love an interesting knit and, while knitting simple garments gets them done more quickly (if I don’t get too bored with them), the sense of achievement isn’t nearly as great. Even though the pattern wasn’t charted, once I had got each panel set they were easy enough to memorise and read, even after leaving the pattern languishing for months.

Most of the modifications I did were to avoid seaming. I changed the shoulder seams to a three needle bind off, and attached the sleeves the same way, as I mentioned in Wednesday’s post. The collar was also knitted in the round. However, I do wish I’d changed the right-hand cable to twist in the other direction so that the cables were mirrored in the way that the lace panels were.

This is the 1 to 2 year size and Rose is maybe slightly small for her age. I know that Debbie Bliss’s children’s patterns are on the roomy side (or at least they used to be; maybe her newer designs are more fitted) and this sweater probably fits Rose the way it is meant to, but it is pretty bloomin’ baggy (good job I didn’t go for the bigger size!). I have rolled the cuffs up now which helps, but I can see it fitting her for most of the next year as well. I did add a few extra rows on each sleeve just to complete a pattern repeat of the centre panel, but that doesn’t account for the couple of inches that hang over her fingers!

I only used five of the six balls of Eco Cotton that I bought. It does have a slightly better meterage than Jaeger Pure Cotton, the original yarn used in the pattern, which probably explains it. Not sure what to do with one random ball of sportweight cotton, but it’ll help feed my stash for a while. It was really nice yarn to knit with, gives great stitch definition and there were NO KNOTS in any of the balls I had.

The colour is perfect for Rose despite being pink, and as it’s a cotton sweater, will be good for layering as it gets colder. I suspect this will get a lot of wear over the coming months, which makes the wait to get it finished completely worthwhile.

I will blame Anna entirely for my new-found obsession with tiny socks. As I said last week, I could happily knit tiny socks forever, just for the sense of achievement: when I actually sit down and knit them, they take pretty much no time at all to finish. However, this is actually only the second pair of socks I’ve knitted for Rose. I think I was put off by the Hugs and Kisses Socks because they were fiddly, on tiny needles and I was at the end of the “morning” sickness stage which had made me feel queasy just at the sight of yarn.

I knitted the pattern as written. It comes in a huge range of sizes, so once I’d Googled a shoe size converter to work out how big Rose’s feet were in US sizing, I was all set. The only modification I did was to change to a standard toe, decrease down to 20 sts from 44 and then graft the toe stitches.

I don’t know why I was so surprised, but they only used 14g of yarn per sock. I have a ginormous bag of yarn oddments from the end of past socks, but chose to start a new ball of yarn from the stash, because I was worried I wouldn’t have enough yarn! Now I have gone through the bag, weighed some likely-looking balls and have enough yarn for a few more pairs, including some from the remains of my first ever socks, which I am really chuffed about. They will be a good project over the festive week, when I may need some calming, uncomplicated knitting to get me through it all.

I snapped Henry before he left for school this morning, which I suppose explains the serious face!

I think I’ve said all I have to say about this pattern last year. Its definitely a good option if you have a picky teenage boy to knit for, although I hope next year that he will want something different!

I love Cotton-Ease. The crispness of the stitch definition is wonderful, and it’s soft as well. I don’t know how it stands up to being used for sewing seams as there weren’t any with the hat, but it feels more tightly twisted together than All Seasons Cotton and maybe therefore less likely to untwist, which is what irritates me.

I’m spending the weekend working on Eriskay and having a lot of baths now that it’s finally been plumbed in. Have a good and fragrant weekend, what ever you’re doing!

*points to calendar*

Look, everyone! Look! It’s 14th November and my festive knitting is DONE.

*oozes smugness*

Admittedly, when you set the bar as low as I have done, getting it done isn’t really much of an achievement! I may knit something else yet, but I don’t have the right yarn colours in my stash, so it may not happen.

Nothing much to say about the socks, which are fairly plain and were good, mindless knitting. The pattern was cobbled together using little bits of other patterns and techniques. Namely, Judy’s Magic Cast On for the toes, then Priscilla Gibson Roberts’ Short-Row Heel and then a stretchy lace cast off for the ribbing. It made a change from top-down socks and when you’re knitting inches and inches of tiny stitches, any change is welcome!

The yarn was really nice to knit with and it’s good to make a dent in my manly sock yarn stash. Somehow I have accumulated even more manly colours without realising and I am so behind on knitting socks for MrB – this is the first new pair he’s had since LAST Christmas! – that at this rate, I’ll still be using it up when Rose has started going to school… though it’s MrB’s birthday at the end of January, so I’m hoping to get another pair done by then.

Now back to the hat knitting!

An entire pair of mitts done! It seems the answer to me actually finishing a pair is to make them as simple as possible. I am so tempted to get out all my mitten pattern books and drool over them, but I know that will lead to the road to ruin, startitis and no finished festive socks!

The pattern was very simple to follow, even for a glove knitting novice. The huge amount of ribbing for the cuffs was a PITA, but it was worth it to ensure warm wrists. I did find the order that the stitches were picked up for fingers a bit counter-intuitive, after following the directions to the letter for the first couple because I was terrified of doing it wrong. So I just did my own thing after that and nothing bad happened! I also added buttons to hold the flaps down on Henry’s request, and I might move them down to the ribbing, if I can sew them down without stopping it stretching. They’re too high up really at the moment. Also my button loops are a bit rubbish.

BTW, the pattern isn’t available at the time of writing this. The pattern notes say the pattern has been updated, so I guess it’s just a temporary glitch. Pattern is back up!

The colour selection was Henry’s, so I just picked yarn oddments from my stash that matched. He wanted white stripes, but I showed him the cream Cashsoft 4ply and he didn’t object. I have so many oddments – of 4ply yarn especially – that I can’t really put for trade but are too big to just bin (I hate throwing away even the titchiest oddments of yarn which is probably part of the problem!). I always feel virtuous when I can avoid buying yarn for a project, totally ignoring the fact that I have already spent the money on the yarn to have it in my stash, so it’s not as if I got it for free..!

I’d definitely knit these again, though maybe not this year. I didn’t really suffer from second mitt syndrome but I don’t want to tempt fate.

And on a really very wet and miserable day, having a snug new waistcoat to wear is perfect. I actually sewed in the last end and blocked it last week, but with waiting for it to dry and then more waiting for buttons, the reveal got a bit delayed.

I love the finished result. The stitch pattern gives a lovely texture to the yarn and the styling is very simple but cute. I can’t say I enjoyed knitting the stitch pattern, though. It wasn’t hard, but needed concentration on every couple of rows and so wasn’t mindless either. By the second front, I was pretty much forcing myself to sit down and knit it. What saved the whole thing from being stuffed in a bag and hidden in a corner was the fact that I was knitting the waistcoat and therefore didn’t have two sleeves full of pattern to knit as well.

I followed the pattern completely as written, even managing to pick up enough stitches for the collar and button bands. I did toy with the idea of only working two or three buttonholes at the top, but went with all six, which I slightly regretted when I went to buy buttons.

One modification I did do was to sew up the side seams and leave a gap for the armholes, then pick up and knit the ribbing around the armhole in the round, which just meant picking up a couple fewer stitches to ensure the ribbing worked.

I wasn’t sure what sort of buttons to go for at first. I was thinking about dark wooden ones, but then saw these adorable heart-shaped metal buttons here and they clearly were perfect:

My only niggle is that they came in packs of five, so I had to cough up for two lots. But it also means I have four cute buttons for something else…

The yarn worked well for the pattern, and it was good to use up more stash rather than buy even more yarn! Rose is showing a preference for red things at the moment, so I am going to encourage this.

And finally, this year I have knitted (and plan to knit) more Sirdar patterns than I have in all the years I’ve been knitting. I was always unreasonably (as it turns out) sniffy about their patterns in the past, because of the fact they were knitted flat (and didn’t have any charts, which does still bug me a bit). Once I had discovered circular knitting I felt that clearly this was superior to any other method and seams were for mad people. But after knitting so many top-down raglans, I think I needed a change and I was ignoring so many cute and interesting patterns. And seaming isn’t so bad once you’ve done a few projects. I’ll be knitting chart-less Shetland lace shawls before you know it!