9 month WIP

I'm afraid there isn't much exciting knitting news to report. I have started the second sock, but I'm not too far along yet.
Instead I thought I'd post some pictures of my belly now that I'm 9 months pregnant.


So what do you all think? Boy or girl? I have absolutely no idea. The baby is quite the kicker though so I'm pretty sure it's a soccer player.
Just as a warning, since I'm so close to my due date, I may be disappearing from Blogland for a while. I will try to post pictures of the baby as soon as I can.

Half way there!

Sock 1 is finished! I think it looks nice and the sock is very warm and cozy. Definitely inspiration to start the second sock, though I haven't yet.

So far I have to say that I like doing toe-up socks better. It is less stressful because you aren't in danger of making the foot too long or short because you can easily try it on. With this pattern, I did the appropriate numbers of decreases for the toe and it turned out to be a bit too short and I had to do a few extra rows. I was worried that it might look strange, but it was fine, which is good because I didn't want to frog back. I was thinking to myself what a good idea it would have been to add a lifeline before I started the decreases. Oh well.

Deja vous?

Okay, this sock picture may look very similar to the one in the previous post, but there are some important differences. In the meantime there was some serious frogging. It was a bit traumatic, but both I and the sock have lived to blog about it.

First of all, the sock leg is shorter. Even though the pattern called for the leg to be 8 inches long, that is really long for a sock leg. I didn't realize how long until I compared it to other socks I own. It is now 6 inches. Much better and now I don't have to worry about running out of yarn.

Most importantly, the join to heel flap is not holey anymore!!!
A special thank you to Cheryl for reminding me that Grumperina had blogged about how to join the "pretty way" just last month. I had read the blog entry in question, but was not knitting socks at the time and forgot about it. Interestingly, I was never taught to pick up stitches and instinctively grabbed the front loop of the slipped stitch and knit with it rather than knitting under both loops of the slipped stitch. My one problem turned out to be that I didn't twist the loop before knitting it. I did and suddenly things weren't so holey anymore. Thanks, Grumperina! I can't say that my joins are as pretty as Grumperina's yet, but perhaps with some more practice they will be.

Now that I'm clear of the heel, the end is in sight. I'm starting to worry a bit about grafting the toe seam...

Sock update

Work on the celtic socks is progressing. I made it down to the heel on sock #1.

Everything went smoothly with the heel flap and the turning of the heel. It was when I got to the heel gusset small problems began to arise. When I had to pick up and knit 12 stitches along the side of heel flap on both sides, I found that the stitches I needed to pick up were very loose, thus creating a very loose, holey join. I'm not happy with this. What do you sock experts out there think? Did I do something wrong? Those stitches I had to pick up were slipped stitches, which is probably why they were looser. It's like that on both sides. I found that I can pull on the yarn and tighten it up some, which would be the less drastic solution.
Or I could frog back a bit and try again, but I'm not sure how much of a difference that will make unless I understand what went wrong. Also, I'm reluctant to frog back just yet, because there is a possibility I may have to frog a whole lot of it soon if I run out of yarn. The pattern calls for three 50 gram skeins. When I was buying the yarn, the woman selling the yarn generously told me that she found that only 2 skeins were necessary. She had smaller feet than I have, but I figured I could just make the sock leg a bit shorter. But when it came to it, I decided not to make it shorter because 50 grams should be plenty for 1 sock, right? I've knit socks for myself before that used less than 50 grams per sock. But now I'm starting to worry just a tiny bit....

Baseball knitting

Check out this scarf that my husband knit all by himself!

The yarn is Debbie Bliss Merino Chunky (sadly no longer manufactured) and the pattern is seed stitch. The story of how this scarf came to be is kind of interesting. Last year I knit hats for my aunt, uncle, and cousins using the Debbie Bliss yarn.


I was left with lots of left over yarn and no real plan for what to do with it. It just so happened that it was World Series time and the Boston Red Sox were in the series for the first time in like a billion years. My husband, not exactly a rabid baseball fan, was, however, very excited since he had grown up in Massachusetts and the Red Sox were in his blood. Though not really a fan, I would keep him company by sitting on the couch next to him knitting. I noticed he had lots of nervous energy so I gave him some needles and my leftover DB yarn and got him started (he had learned to knit in elementary school so just needed a little refresher). Sadly, once the World Series was over, the scarf was forgotten. A year passes. Suddenly it is World Series time again. It wasn't as exciting this year as the wrong Sox were in it, but he still wanted to watch. Suddenly the scarf appears out of the stash and he begins to work on it again. This time, though the series ended after 4 games, he was close enough to finishing that he kept at it. I think it looks fantastic and I'm very proud of him.

On an unrelated note, I realized I never followed up on what I decided to do with the slightly too big hat from the accessory set I knit. I took June's advice and tried fulling. I found fulling instructions on the web. I did 2 cycles of hot/cold immersions with some agitating on a cooling rack. Happily, the hat did shrink a little, but not too much. It's still not snug, so I could add some lining should it feel too itchy as Emily suggested. Overall I am very pleased with the result.

Attention Anglophiles!

My sister sent me this horror today.

See it for yourself here.

While I was living in England, I never could understand the appeal of the full English breakfast. I can understand it even less as something to wear. Granted this pattern is from 1979, but still it goes beyond bad taste.

Socks!

Remember that Shelridge Farm sock yarn and celtic braid pattern I got at Sheep and Wool? Well, sock one has been started. The pattern says the experience level is "with gusto". Perhaps it should be "with dexterity" instead. I've had a few near accidents as I try to manipulate the cable needle to make this awesome braid pattern.

This is the first sock I've made starting from the top down. I really like the toe-up method, but am intrigued to see how top-down works. So far it's not so bad, but I'll check back in once I get to the heel.