You're Puttin Me On Socks

You're Puttin Me On Socks, otherwise known as "these are the socks that never end...they just go on and on my friend..." Mainly because they were done on Addi 1's. They fit perfectly. I like short socks. I did Cat Bordhi's heel from youtube. One thing I did learn from that is you don't turn that one as early as other types of heels. I turned it, then had to rip, and make it longer. But it is a wonderful type of heel. Also I used E. Zimmermann's sewn cast-off. Again, very easy, and definitely elastic. Perfect for toe-up. I enjoyed these so much I cast on some for my husband. They are modeled after the Harris Tweed socks, but with Judy's cast on, Cat's heel, and E.'s cast off.

Again with the Jollyfish...

I finished the knitting part of my hat. I started the duplicate stitch and I think I'm happy about the decision to do the duplicate stitch instead of fair isle or intarsia in the round. It looks neat this way. I hope it isn't too small, I hope I didn't start the decrease too early just because I was impatient. The boy will be home soon, I do know that it was comfortable around. And I have a lot of colors of this yarn, it's a Plymouth yarn. Sport weight. Now I know my gauge in the round on it, and I like the way it looks on the 1's. There are probably a lot of fair isle gloves in my future using this yarn. Only down side is the dark color was hard to see any mistakes, and any gloves I make will probably be in darker colors for the guys. Even the duplicate stitch is a bit difficult unless the light is shining right on it.

Ribbit!

Note my progress on the Jollyfish Hat has gone back to 0%. I frogged the whole thing because I really need to add another 20 or so stitches around. It just fits my youngest and next year won't fit anyone. He was trying it on for me and he says "just add some more over here". Yeah. So out it comes. I love the feel of the sport wight I'm using for it, and I'm on 1's. All my guys like the small gauge stuff, of course. I do too though really. I took a poll at the shop of who would think it was cheating to do the Jollyfish chart on the hat in duplicate stitch. I think so, but everyone else was being nice. It's just that the fish only goes half way around and I don't want to carry the white the rest of the way around. I tried the intarsia in the round last night and I ended up having so many really long floats to deal with as I worked it that it was a lot to fool with. Plus try trying to keep my mind around which row I was on... So duplicate stitch is another option. I should ask Juli Ridl what she thinks since it's her pattern. For now I'm back to the start. Oh well, I can listen to Prairie Home Companion tonight, and my britcoms are on.

Intarsia in the round

I ran across a wonderful tutorial at Moth Heaven for doing intarsia in the round. Please check it out, I am using it on my Jollyfish Hat. I am having to go back and re-read the steps, it's not all that intuitive to me, but how wonderful to not have to carry and twist 2 threads behind the entire hat. She does explain that it is a bit "fiddly", but sometimes keeping track of the tension of floats doesn't work well either. And duplicate stitch is ok, but not really a challenge for me.