Spontaneous Sox ! ! ! !

A week or so ago a couple of knitters on Rav womaninashoe and hotazzknitter

introduced me to a wonderful Rav group Itty Bitty Knits

They are having a Patchwork Sockalong hosted by Susan B Anderson

blogger and knit designer
Knitting from my 'Leftovers Stash' was just in the organizational stage

but I just jumped right into the fray.

Just grabbed a yarn and began knitting threw in a bit of Fair Isle knitting

and before I knew it a week later I have this pair of sox!

Not too bad, eh?
But that was last week
this is this week.

*******************

The first pair was nice
but not quite what I had in mind.

I pictured something 'hot'!

hmmmmmm .  .  . ? ? ? ?

Ahhhhh, now I know

I want something brighter

wait, wait,

no just brighter, 

nope,

I want, I want >  >  >

spontaneously LOUD bright

So, now we're getting there:

Isn't this a hoot!

More to come, you can bet on that :*)

##  ### ## ###  ##

There's a new podcaster/blogger.

She's also on Rav  

Melissa has a fresh, positive approach and captured

my attention on her first episode.

Melissa's blog:  SingleHandedKnits

her first podcast:  Alohas for the first time

you'll fall for her

Piper's Journey Shawl aka Natalya's & Mom's Journey

Tell her I sent ya.

000*000*00*000*000

wishing you all a great week and lots of progress of your latest projects

hugs

♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥  ♥

Spontaneous Scrappy Sox

I've been 'enabled'!

 womaninashoe/Mel 
and
hotazzknitter/Nicole

have convinced me to join

Susan B Anderson's 

Itty Bitty Knits Rav Group

They are knitting Patchwork Socks.

I had been toying with the idea of using my sock yarn leftovers to make some sox anyway.

So thought, why not.  

Decided to join Mel, Nicole and all those other Ravelers with a like mind who are knitting with leftovers to make their Patchwork sox.

For my pair, I knit a toe-up stockinett sock with an afterthought heel.

  

However, just for the Challenge of it - 

I knit this pair one at a time magic loop.

First time in recent memory that I've done that.

They flew off my needle - 

cast on last Monday and finished today!!!  

Zoom, zoom

Oh, before I forget

I want to let you know that

Nicole is a video podcaster.

She hosts Positively Knittting Podcast

you can find her episodes by following this link.

She's what I would call a 'spontaneous knitter' with a positive attitude

and a great sense of humor.

Susan B. Anderson designs knits.

Many of the participants in her Patchwork Socks KAL are using her How I Knit Socks blog post.

Or you can follow this link directly to the post. 

Just as soon as I publish this post I am going to print out Susan's post so I can follow her method for my next pair of Patchwork Socks.

Always up for another method of knitting heels.

In the meantime,

as everyone must be aware

Sunday was the first day of

Camp Loopy

Being the good camper that I am

I cast on Project 1

first thing in the morning and have made a little progress.

Had to finish my sox before I can concentrate on The Hogwarts Express Shawl.

You Harry Potter fans will recognize the 'hogwarts' reference.

This evening will be spend knitting on Hogwarts.

Here it is, the end of the Memorial Day Weekend with a return to the rest of the week tomorrow 

Each of us with thoughts of the great three-day holiday.

We spent a wonderful afternoon visiting with

DD#2.  What a way to spend the day.

Good Times with lots of laughter.

Hope your memories will carry you though 'til our next three day holiday

or even 4th of July holiday.

hugs to each of you

♥ ♥ ♥

hmmm, blogger may not be playing nice today

Just about THE END OF MAY

Hi, everyone!

May has been a yarnie fun month.

Worked with mostly cotton yarn for a switch.

Here's a collage of cottony happiness

with a dash of wool/nylon tossed in along the way.

###############

Are you ready for Memorial Day Weekend?

Looks like our mid-MO weather is going to remain nice.

However, we are short in the total-rain-for-the-year department, we need a couple inches.

How 'bout it Ma Nature.

This week we had our rain gutter downspouts enlarged just in case.  : ^ )

What's going on at your place this holiday?

Ours will be rather simple, 

DD#2 will be working so no get-together goin' on.

Something simple here.

&*&*&*&

Along with dishcloths

this is what's on my knitting needle

Made with a set of mini skeins.

Scrappy with a bit of Fair Isle

added for happiness.

Have a happy weekend

hugs

♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ 

By Gemini, it's finished!

Finished

and Posted to The Loopy Ewe Photo Gallery

to qualify for 2nd Qtr Challenge.

**********

The 27th is the day we cast on our

Camp Loopy Summer 2012

Project.

Hogwarts Express Shawl

is my choice for our first project

Skein Top Draw Socks

is the yarn I'll be using.

Now then, it's not ALL about me, gals.

What's your current interest?

What is taking all your free time

and .  .  .  daydreams?

hugs

♥  ♥

Books, New Books

Hope your week's been great

and that you're looking forward to a wonderful weekend.

Happy Mother's Day

to all our mothers.

Gotta love 'em.

My lovely daughter's know my intentions are in their best interests, 

don't ya girls?

Once again, knitting has been my craft of choice this week.

Finished a few more dishcloths, which I'll show ya when I build up my Dishcloth Stash.

I have stashes of everything else, 

why not these, too.

It'll be so much more impressive to see a stack

and to see them one at a time. 

Probably.

#  #  #  #  #

Spent the other afternoon browsing Barnes & Noble and came upon a couple of books I can't do without.

Tula Pink

whose blog is Here

has captured my attention by her playful choice of colors.  L♥ve it ! ! 

Her Shower Curtain is a clever idea that I just might have to use.

And what else? a sleep mask:

One Eye Open Sleeping Mask.

this would make a cool gift for the traveler on your gift list.

Besides all that, she lives in Missouri

and gives credit to 

The Quilt Shoppe

in Stewartsville, MO

*  *   **  *  *   **   *  *

The other book that caught my eye:

I can relate to her take on the 'modern quilt'

Denyse Schmidt Modern Quilts

Traditional Inspiration

I enjoy just looking at the photos in these two books and am inspired by their color and design.

& & & & & & & &

Opps, it's time to do my nails

and then do some knitting.

♥  ♥  ♥  ♥  ♥  ♥  ♥  ♥

Have a wonderful weekend!!!

Happy Mother's Day

Dishie Cotton Haul

Hi!  How is everyone?

Hope all's well with loads of time for your fav crafting.

Before we get on with this post

I want to mention once again

that I've been using the Comments section at the end of each post
 to Respond/Reply to each and every of your oh, so lovely Comments.

Sooooo, if you subscribe by email by clicking on that button located beneath the text box

my reply will arrive in your email inbox.


Now,
this is what I'm anxious to show you.

A great Dishie Cotton haul.
Made by KnitPicks

This is Cottage

A lovely dishcloth
using the vid from VeryPink.com

Cast this next one last night

This color is Daisy!
////


And, there is this one made with Peaches & Creme

Are these great for gifting, or what ! ! ! 


hugs


♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

Wholehearted-ly Completed ! !

This was certainly a fun knit ! ! ! 

So much so I couldn't put it down.

The shawl used 462 yards of 

Knit Picks Stroll

in Queen Anne and Summer Blossoms.

It measures ~48" x 15" unblocked.

I didn't go with the Picot Edge/Bind Off called out in the pattern.

I prefer the I-cord bind off.

Thanks goes to 

Gail - Today's Agenda

for generously gifting this pattern to me,

to Evelyn - Project: Stash 

for hosting the kal

If you've a moment, click over to these two blogs,

much creative talent.

We've received more than an inch-and-a-half of rain since last night.

Thunder & Lightening

This will certainly encourage the lawn to grow!

hugs

♥ ♥ ♥

Quick Update on Wholehearted Shawl

This shawl is such a pleasure to knit.

It's the color as much as it is the pattern.

KnitPicks Stroll Tonal

superwash merino/nylon

Queen Anne

Summer Blossoms

♥  ♥  ♥  ♥  ♥  ♥  ♥  ♥  ♥  ♥

hugs

Wholehearted Shawl

The

Wholehearted Shawl pattern

designed by Erika Flory

Has been gifted to me by 

the multi-talented Gail at today's agenda

In my Stash are two skeins of KnitPick's Stroll yarn.

This will be perfect ! !

Evelyn, the creative talent at Project:  Stash

is having a Wholehearted kal

and I'll be casting on my version this weekend.

She started the ball rolling when she learned

 the designer's daughter just recently lost her home in fire. The proceeds from the sale are going to help daughter to re-establish her household.

Kiwiyarns Knits 

is also in on the fun.  Read her post.

Here's another of her posts regarding her Wholehearted yarn choices.

You're more than welcome to join in.

hugs

 ♥
Edited to include this link to
Project: Stash Wholehearted kal

Knitting Update

Gemini's yoke.
A couple more increase rounds until

the sleeves will be put on waste yarn

and the body of the sweater will continue in the round.

It's off the needle and on waste yarn while I tried it on for size this morning.

Since this is my first sweater to get to this point I am anxious about the fit.

The neckline is looking like it may require a round or two of crochet so that it holds closer to my bod.

We'll see once it is soaked and blocked.

The 'Pink Sapphire' color is better represented here.

Reds and Pinks are so hard to capture the color.

Here's Aimee's wonderful Stitch Marker

that she made for her podcast kal giveaway.

It's being put to good use on this project.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

There's been alot of knitting put into 

Intagliata Henley this past week.

Regardless of all the stockinett knitting,

I sure love knitting this sweater.

Such a joy ! ! ! 

As you can see it's gettin' there.

It measures 14" from cast on to the top.

'The top' being the point in the pattern

where I get to start the Center Panel 

I'm excited ! ! ! ! 

Never thought I'd be knitting sweaters

and now ! ! ! ! 

I have three sweaters on the needles.

Gemini

Intagliata Henley

Adrift

#  #  #  #  #  #  #  #  #  #  #  #

This skein of Lorna's Lace Solemate Black Purl

is next on a Size #1 needle

`````````````````````

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

We've been getting rain ! ! ! ! 

1.5" on Friday-ish

3" on Saturday-ish

<.5" today - - - - ish

geez, ~5" of the stuff

I hope all of you are safe from the terrible weather going on in the middle of our country.

Stay safe.

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥

hugs

Some Color ! !

Aren't they wonderful ! ! ! 

Second time they've bloomed for me since I brought them home last Fall.

+ + + + + + + + + +

Hope everyone had an enjoyable weekend.

We did.

Had an Easter Day meal with younger daughter.

We ate out.  Are you surprized??? I think not,

you all know KP has been all but eliminated from my schedule.

Enjoyed our meal out with choice of 

Ham, Roast Pork, Fried Chicken.  

Quite a feast.

Daughter went home to mow her oh-so-tall lawn.

Hubby and I spent a relaxed afternoon doing

- - - - well, not much at all.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

What I did do was bring out several knitting project bags with 'works-in-stalled-out-progress'.

Here's the one that got a bit of attention yesterday.

Patriotic cuffs for a pair of fingerless mitts.

They'll match these sox.

Doubt these will be worn on the 4th of July.

♥  ♥  ♥  ♥  ♥

yikes ! ! ! 

just heard we have frost/freeze warnings for 

early morning tomorrow and the next day.

bring out those wool sox ! ! ! ! ! 

hugs

Wildberry by Vesper

Just in time to keep my feet warm 

during this cool snap here in mid-MO.

If you look closely, the 'star' increase method is the one I used for co and toe increases.

I like the way it gives a more rounded toe.

The spiraling increase distribute the increase stitches equally 'round the toe.

Vesper Self-Striping yarn is great.

It's a light fingering so I used a size #1 US to obtain my usual 8sts/inch gauge.

This gives a great fabric that gives good endurance to the sox.

Since these have the Afterthought Heel the striping was maintained more or less in sequence.

The same method as the toe increases was used in the heel decreases.  Again, decreases were equally distributed around the heel and using the same math the length of heel were equal to the length of the toe.

I used a Surprizingly Stretchy bind off at the cuff.

So simple to do - such a lovely way to end the sock.

This gives more than enough stretch to pass over the heel hinge area and have enough umph to keep the cuff snug around the leg.

? Does this last photo make my feet look l-o-n-g??

lol !

hugs

♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

blue 'cuz the temp is 49°F at 4:30 p.m.

Seems Google is agreeable this morning.

This Wollmeise Yarn color name is

Mond im 7. haus

google 

translated it to read

Moon in the 7th House

Temp today just might be cool enough for me to wear this little piece of loveliness.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Knit a couple of rows on Intagliata.

It's more than just fun to knit!

I have visions of it finished into a super gorgeous sweater

sigh 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

I can DREAM, can't I

*************************************

Wildberry received the most attention last evening.

The Afterthought heels are looking pretty good.

They begin at the Pink stripe.

I knit the five pink rows and two red rows before I began the decreases.

The 60 stitches for this pair of sox was then divided into six decreases per row with a knit row or so before the next set of six decreases per row.

Aiming to have the total 

number of rows for this heel

to equal the total 

number increase rows at the toe.

My usual toe increase is ~2 ¼".

Planning to finish this pair this evening and wear them tomorrow.

Happy Feet  !!!

♥  ♥  ♥

♥  ♥  ♥  ♥

♥  ♥  ♥  ♥  ♥

hugs

Boneyard Shawlette

Finished the

Stephen West designed

Boneyard Shawl


YIKES ! ! ! 
GOOGLE SAYS I RAN OUT OF PHOTO STORAGE SPACE 


So for today will post without pics
you just have to take my word


lol ! ! ! 


Boneyard was cast on March 29
and I finished, soaked, blocked
yesterday April 3rd
and photographed today


Isn't this exciting without photos????


Get back to ya tomorrow when my storage is ample.


hugs
Gerry