Thu 6 Dec 2012
Finished Socks!
Posted by AlisaK under Uncategorized
[4] Comments
First up. Finished pair of socks! These are my standard sock pattern in Lightweight Socks that Rock (Blue Moon Fiber Arts) in the colourway Zest.
And they make me happy. They are like a tequila sunrise or something. I love that they don’t match. I think they look exactly like the end of a great day. I can almost smell the heat slipping out of the air as the sun slides out of the sky.
Two days in a row of finished projects. I could get used to this! I picked up the closest work in progress when I finished my cardigan, something that wouldn’t require much thought to pick up and work on. It turned out these only needed the toe on the second sock which took not even half an hour to do. I think the stumbling was I’d lost one of the needles and I had to go find one. Sigh. So easy to put something down and find a stumbling block to prevent you just finishing it!
I’m intending to do an “airing of the stash” a la Cast On which I’m hoping will both catalogue all my works in progress into a nice neat spreadsheet of to dos for next year but also find a bunch of projects that I might get excited about. I’m thinking of being a bit more stern with my stash management. I’m thinking of *gasp* culling some of the stash I may not like or prioritising gifting finished pieces to those who might appreciate the colourway etc. I thought it might be fun to set those up in kits going into 2013 and then having them as things to work through over the year. *If* that doesn’t make “fun” into “work”.
The thing I’m starting to realise is, I tend to knit socks a lot because they use 1 skein of yarn and they justify the accumulation of random skeins of yarn that I love. And that’s what my stash is – a huge pile of single skeins of yarn. That you can only then make what? Socks, mittens, scarves or hats in. And jumpers etc are scary cause you have to invest more money in the yarn (and that makes it harder to justify changing your mind or going off a project idea …) But the stash itself has guilt attached – I feel like I can’t really buy more yarn that I like cause I have so much I have accumulated and done nothing with … I’m still wrestling with this guilt.
Let’s not even extend it to see how it works with the book stash. Or the fabric one. Or …
Today’s tea: T2 Strawberry Bliss Chai 1 star out of 5. (I *want* to like this tea so much more than I do. I think I just do not like chai. Or perhaps just cloves)
Today’s craft project: Blackberry Socks
Sounds like the project you need is to find more cool things that can be made with single skeins. Like all those fat quarter/scrap quilt books out there.
A friend of mine makes awesome patchwork style pieces out of knitted squares & rectangles, then uses those either as throws & blankets, or as the main panel of a pretty bag.
then of course there are some gorgeous patterns out there for knitted toys/objects. I still love that sushi you made me.
Not that there’s anything wrong with socks, of course, but you don’t have to confine yourself to tradition or making practical objects. You can make art too!
I definitely have at least one One Skein projects book but I dunno … so many craft things seem to be patterns for the sake of making things rather than things you really want. Like … knitted bowls or something.
The knitted sushi and stuff are definitely fun but not the kind of thing you’d use for hand dyed yarn.
You know I got in the mail today the most beautiful hand dyed yarn in a colourway called “orchid” but kinda looks like watermelon or similar. And it’s sock yarn and it looks like it would make the most beautiful pair of socks and I want to make them into socks and then … I’m thinking, “really? socks? come on!!” so I might see. I guess i don’t have to decide to right now.
I second the patchwork square suggestion. I do that with squares in different patterns. It’s a great way to use small amounts of yarn.
I think I saw someone online use theirs for crocheting granny squares. Definitely a nice way to use up the scrap yarn.