Operation Sock Basket and Stitch Markers

  I have been having trouble getting my knitting mojo on lately. I had the flu about two weeks ago, and I was so sick that the yarn rubbing against my hands while I tried to knit was painful. Since then I just haven't been knitting as much as I used to. I hope this is just a phase that I am going through, and that I will start knitting at full strength again soon because there are so many things that I want to knit!  

 

Even though I am not knitting, I am still wearing my knitted socks every day! It has been so cold here and my socks provide the extra warmth that I need to get through these wintery days. I just finished washing a huge pile of socks, and I had them put away neatly (which rarely happens) so I snapped a picture. I hadn't realized just how many socks that I have knit for myself (there are 24 pictured here and at least 6 other pairs that either need to be mended or washed) - that means 30 socks! Just for me!  

I have been getting up to some other crafty things. After seeing a blog post by Skate and Stitches about this book, I immediately thought of making stitch markers with the kit and bought it right away. 

  

This is the result of my first go at making the stitch markers. I love how they came out! I followed the directions for the ice cream cone, strawberries, owl (I modified the colours for my second owl to make Hedwig), penguin and lizard. For the duck and ball of yarn, I just winged it and they still turned out pretty good!

 

The kit comes with everything you need to make these guys, and the instructions are clear and easy to follow (this is a children's book). I still have plenty of materials left over and I will be making lots more!

Ribbit Ribbit

I had to frog back my Go Habs Go socks that I was knitting.  It was just too small and I did not like the look of the afterthought heel. Oh well, now I will restart and try again.

So I finished one pair of socks....

so I cast on two more pairs!

My Go Habs Go socks. I didn't want to disrupt the stripes so I am doing an afterthought heel. I just haven't done the heel yet. This is Biscotte & Cie's Felix Self-Striping yarn in the Go Habs Go colourway and Knitmore Girls Vanilla Sock pattern.

This is the My Colour Wheelhouse's MCN Fingering in Preppy and I am using the Show-Off Stranded Socks pattern. The colours are pooling - but it looks good so I am just going to keep going.

I just keep knitting socks!

This post is late. I finished these socks a while back, but due to the fact that I have been unable to get any good pictures of them because of the weather and then I had the flu all weekend - well I am posting about them finally. Only a week late.

Don't let my tardy blogging imply that I don't like these socks. I love them! The pattern was so nice to knit, it was good TV knitting, but still interesting enough to make the stitches fly off the needles. 

Business Casual:
Yarn: Schachenmayr Regia Denim Look in Self Striping Grays
Needle Size: US 1 1/2 (2.5mm) 9" circulars
Pattern: Business Casual (free Ravelry download!)
 

I would definitely recommend learning how to cable without a cable needle (as I wrote about in my last blog post) to do these socks. Once I did that, these socks were a joy to knit.

Cable Knits Made Easier

I love lace knitting. It just comes easy to me, I don't have to think about what I am doing, the stitches just seem to fly off the needles. Cables, on the other hand, seem to take me forever and I tend to avoid projects with lots of cables in them. Recently I have started two projects with lots of cables in them. I loved the look of the patterns so I thought the finished project would be worth the extra effort of the cables. The first project is my Aidez cardigan that I am slowly (very slowly) getting done, and then there are these socks. The pattern is Business Casual and there are a lot of cables. After two rounds, I just couldn't take all the cables anymore, and I remembered someone mentioning that they don't use a cable needle when they make cables. So after a quick Youtube search (there are a lot of great videos, I used this video from Dominitrix) , and a few tries I was making some great progress on these socks, and  I haven't been able to put them down.

The colours are off in this picture (the first picture above is a more accurate colour) but it was late at night and I was excited to share that I had just finished the heel flap of my second sock! 

So I will never be using a cable needle again, and I will be making more projects with cables! I love learning new techniques, especially when they make knitting easier and faster!