4 AM and I'm awake...

My sleeping is way out of order now-a-days... But I got up 8 AM today and went to leave some tests to hospital. I do hope they find something this time... *sigh* Then I got back and took the dog out and had some breakfast and went to bed again. I suppose I do the same today again.

I'm participating in the new 52 pair plunge. A pair of socks every week. It's not a problem if my hands don't hurt (and if I don't need to knit them with 1.5mm needles ;-)) Anyway, someone said in a group

"I agree with you ladies that two pair a month is a bit much. Which makes me wonder about those 52 pair a year KALs. I’ve considered them…but …a pair a week for a year? I could MAYBE do a pair a week in some sort of sock emergency but who are these amazons that are cranking them out week after week?"

So... I'm an amazon :-D Well... those weeks I'm fine, at least. I suppose that makes me normal the weeks I'm not feeling well... er... Oh my, what an overachiever and workaholic I am!

On that note:

A couple of rows of Cookie A's Marlene

A couple of rows of horseshoes

A couple of rows of Goddess Anniversary Mystery Shawl

a couple of rows of Absinthe

Fingers aching again...

Might it be the thin needles? I'm working on Absinthe socks from Knitty and to get the gauge I have to use 1.25 mm needles. Yes, US size 00000 (5/0). They are very fine needles...

It's not quick to knit, and I start understanding why people take a week or so with knitting a sock... with my loose hand, I only need to knit half the stitches to get a pair of socks.

I also started my Goddess Mystery Shawl.


It is a pretty shawl and I love the rainbow :-)

The third project I'm knitting doesn't have illustration. In Ravelry I'm knitting Cookie's socks in a sock-a-long. We are knitting through Cookie's new book, Sock Innovations. The first project is Glynis and I don't like it. So I am knitting Marlenes from Knit.1. magazine. I think they are exciting :-) I think it's interesting to form the pattern with twisted knits.

But my hands hurt. Probably not much knitting today. Perhaps the shawl... that's bigger needles and it's quick :-)

Doomgrass...

I have had a really bad luck with socks this month...
First, I ordered some needles... I have extremely loose hand, so I need sock needles that are smaller than 2mm to knit socks with right gauge... Yes, yes, I know, I haven't spoken of much else this month.
Anyway, I started knitting Dune grass socks. The gauge is up the walls, but I adjusted the pattern. Really, not rocket science. I made one mistake though... it should have been 7n+1 and I made 7n+1 for both needles (I knitted two at a time on circular needles). Then, after the heel I should loose the +1 and have 7n stitches... I had 44, so I went down to 42. In the forming of the nice, nifty triangle in the back of the socks, 7 stitches are decreased. So I ended up with a sock with 35 stitches... for a grown man. Not even I knit that loose! So I tried to add the stitches, up to 49. Well... I suppose that would have worked, but I kept making mistakes, knitting wrong, dropping stitches... it was as if the sock was cursed! I have used two days to try to knit one effing sock leg! This morning I decided to give it up, and just knit the sock in pattern, no fancy heels and such. It took me like 5 hours to knit the legs to both socks. :->

I also made my dearest husband Hubby House Socks of cotton. Cotton is not very nice thing to knit socks with, it's way too sloppy and so, but he likes them just the way they are... too loose to my liking, with the stranded pattern too tight. Wool would be more forgiving... But - he's happy, I'm happy :-)

Now off to next sock project :-)

Sock summit...

Sock Summit 2009

I really would love to participate... It is going to be magnificent, fun, lovely, educational... a once in a lifetime moment. I will be having fun with my family in Finland... *sigh*

But - alas - I have to do it another way.
So I will knit the arch shaped knee socks from Vogue's ultimate sock book.
I will knit argyle socks in flat. Argyle socks are intarsia, you see, and that is best knitted in flat, because it's hard to knit intarsia in round... not impossible though. You just do it as if it was rose inlay... you move the yarn from left side to right side, knit it, tighten the stitches and carry on... ;-) Here's a stranded argyle pattern.
I will knit a pair of beaded cabled socks.
I will be testing different toes, heels, gussets and bind-offs and cast-ons, toes up and down. I'm especially interested in "toe chimney".
I will be experimenting with different color knitting ways.
I will be experimenting with the different knitting styles and try to speed up my knitting.
I will knit socks sideways.

I wish I would find Eclectic soles and New Pathways somewhere... And Elizabeth Zimmerman's Knitting Around. (2010 it's 100 years since Elizabeth Zimmermann was born... I can tell you, there will be a LOT of Zimmermania going on...) And Anna Zilboorg's Socks for Sandals and Clogs.

I wish I could participate in Lucy Neatby's double knitting class... Clara Parkes' finding true sock yarn happiness sounds like a great class too... Well... all of the classes sound great!

But, it's like...

"Our Luminaries:

* Cat Bordhi
* Nancy Bush
* Priscilla Gibson-Roberts
* Judith MacKenzie-McCuin
* Lucy Neatby
* Deborah Robson
* Meg Swansen
* Barbara Walker
* Anna Zilboorg

The panel will be moderated by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee and Tina Newton."

Wow. All these people in one place at the same time... Oh. These are people who are... whom I idol worship LOL
And just look at the list of teachers! OH! Even more idols! And all in the same place at the same time!!!

I will be knitting socks and wishing I was there...

More on rose inlay

Now I have tried this technique.


I have some observations:
Firstly, it looks better if the knitting is tight. Mine isn't.
Secondly, one has to be really careful to organize the yarns - the background yarn has to go over or under the pattern yarn, the same way all the time - I made some mistakes in that, sometimes the pattern yarn was over the background yarn and sometimes under... and it looks a bit messy.
Also, I had one red yarn and two blue yarns, doubled. The blue is thinner than the red, and should have been tripled.

Basically, what you do is to "embroider" the yarn in the knitting while you knit. It's not difficult.
I made mine in flat, but when you do it in round, you lift the pattern yarn on front of the knitting on the second row, yank it longer, knit and then tighten the yarn. You can have it a bit tighter than in stranded knitting. It's not as elastic, but looks really nice.

Interesting knitting techniques

Some years ago there was a Japanese book out, "Nordic Knitting; 10 Amazing Techniques". About a year later the second book in the line came out. "Nordic Knitting; 7 Miraculous Techniques".

The first book presents
Korsnäs tapestry crochet and fur tape from Finland,
Domino knitting and i-cord from Denmark
entrelac from Sweden
"Kihnu vits" and Estonian spiral from Estonia
Tubular stitch (double knitting), bead knitting and "crown" (short row serrated edge) from Norway.

Now, all these techniques are more or less universal, the Finns knit just as much Kihnu's bands as in Kihnu, and the fur tape is more Swedish to me than Finnish, but that doesn't matter much.

The second book is more about interesting "tricks" - like what can be done with short row knitting (now with the Danish name, "vendepinne") and modular knitting.

It has shortrow zigzag, frills and spiraling circles, "rose", which is cable knitted "in air", carter stitch socks knitted sideways in a long strip that is then sewn together into a sock; dropped stitch and pearl necklace; moebius cowl and chain made by knitting stockinette in round around each other - stockinette stitch will curl itself, and when knit in rounds it will turn itself around itself into a pretty bangle. To me the most interesting things are the "Four Knitted Rectangles" and playing around with buttonholes.

Now... I'm not too fond of the patterns in these books, but I'd take them anyway, even though I know all these techniques - and a couple more...

Someone reviewing the books said that if there ever is Nordic Knitting III in the series, she'll take it immediately. I wonder what would be in that then... I think they need to have stranded knitting and steeks; Viking cables that go round; twined knitting; Sapmi aurora borealis color knitting... bohus knitting...Delsbo jackets, felted with "fur" on the sleeves... estonian roositud
Perhaps some more modular knitting for the Danish :-)

I like this dropped-stitches-and-cable pattern :-)

argh!

I'm waiting for my needles... I found needles in 1 1/4, 1 1/2 and 1 3/4 - American sizes 00, 000 and 0000 - needles size 2 (0) are too big for me to knit socks with 60 stitches around... I should be knitting socks, but I'm tired of calculating and adjusting the patterns to my loose hand, I want to knit socks "just like that", following slavishly the pattern without needing to do anything about it. Most patterns loose that "something" when adjusted to 2/3 of the stitch count. Of course!

I would like to knit my stockings too, but I don't want to have rude, thick woollen stockings. I want nice, thin knit, like the stockings were still in 40's.

There's also a "mate, ohoy" theme in one of my sock groups, and I just found the cutest pattern:That would make really cute socks :-) BUT the gauge must come down a lot!

So - I'm really frustrated right now.

The fact that I am having a 24 hours blood pressure testing going on, and I am so fed up with this ---- thing that I just want to rip it off and throw away... and I have had it only 7 hours now... *sigh* It measures the blood pressure 3 times every hour at daytime and 2 times every hour during the night... I can't take it off, and I can't take off the t-shirt nor my bra this whole day... I can tell you that tomorrow morning when I go down to get it taken off, I will not be very fresh... or in a good mood :-D I suppose I won't sleep well tonight.
It also seems that there's nothing wrong with my blood pressure... It's about 130-140/80-90 90% of the time. That's quite normal for a 40 years old woman. So - all this trouble and discomfort and occasionally PAIN (yes, it tightens up and it feels as if my arm will soon fall off...) for nothing. But at least they can wipe that out of the possible reasons to my joint ache and fever attacks.