Lucky Charms

Name of Project: Lucky Charms
Yarn: Knitters Brewing Company Sock-aholic
Yardage: one skein (480 yards), but I have quite a bit left over
Needles: Size US 0 (2.0 mm) Knit Picks circulars
Time to Complete Project: 7 weeks
Pattern Notes: I have 8 stars up the front of the foot and I really like the length these turned out. I'm also completely infatuated with this color and have decided that the next time I buy yarn, it will be in this color for a sweater.

Monster Zebras!

 My monster zebra socks are going along very smoothly and I carry them around quite a bit. I'm working up the leg on the first sock and expect to have it finished in the next few days and will cast on for the second soon.

Travelling sock Knitalong

The idea of this fun project was to have a pair of socks travel around a group of friends so that when you get them back you have a finished pair. Each knitter cast on for the toes and increased to the width that they required and then sent their toes on to the next person. There are 11 knitters in my circle and I personally have knitted on 6 pairs of socks, not counting my own toes. So I'll have 4 more pairs pass through my knitting bag and then I'll have my own back. It has been really fun trying out new stitch patterns on the short little section of sock and also matching yarns to what has already been knit. I've also really enjoyed watching the other pairs take shape.

Above is the current state of my socks, they are ready for the heel turn and are about halfway done. I've got lots of beautiful yarn and bling, I can't wait to get these in my hands.

The Great Disguise

My son's class performed Moses before the Thanksgiving break while they were learning about the history of the Hebrews. The play was excellent and I loved the songs performed during the play. My son and two others played two parts, the hebrew slaves and the 3 shepherds. My son told me he needed a beard and his idea was to cut his hair and glue it to his face. I told him not to worry, I would come up with something that wasn't as permanent. I remembered seeing the Instant Beard pattern before Halloween and thinking, if I ever have a costume where I need a beard, I'm making one of these. They only took a couple of hours and turned out absolutely hilarious!

This is son #2 modeling beard #1.

This is son #1 modeling beard #2.

And Shepherd #3. I made his beard a little longer so they didn't all look exactly the same.

Once I made those three, his teacher asked me if I could make one for Moses. I didn't follow the pattern for this, I just cast on a few stitches and increased on each row until I had enough stitches to go around the face. Then I cast off for the mouth and re-cast the stitches on the next row for the mustache.

Here's the whole 3rd/4th grade cast of Moses!

I'm not a big fan of wearing facial hair for costumes but I really liked these beards. They can be taken on and off easily and the pattern cups the chin for a great fit. I've worn a couple of "man" costumes that have involved the use of mustaches and beards and I'm a little uncomfortable in that role. I tend to stick more to the "girly" costumes. But maybe if I had a pink beard...

Working on my Seaside by the seaside

Day One of Thanksgiving break! The boys and I got to go to lunch with a friend and then for a walk on the Carlsbad seawall. They enjoyed watching the Pelicans while pretending they were Pokemons, and I got to work on the border of my Seaside Shawlette. I've only got 3 more rounds to go before binding off and I can't wait to block it. I saw so many different ways of doing it that I'm excited to see what mine wants to do. A wonderful way to start Thanksgiving vacation!

Swatching

Here's swatch #1 for Labyrinth washed and blocked. I'm so glad I decided to proceed with the washing because my gauge was spot on before. Now it's just a little too loose. I'll make another one and go down a needle size. I dont mind swatching when I get to use such a luscious yarn as Malabrigo!

A gap in my yarn knowledge

I have been so excited to start my Opposite Pole sweater by Joji Locatelli. I've had the pattern picked out for awhile and even had my bag of purple Malabrigo yarn waiting to be swatched. I balled up about half of the skeins and started the swatch. I quickly realized that the yarn I had, was too thin of a gauge for the pattern. No problem I thought, just need to do a little research, because I'm positive the pattern called for Malabrigo, and I'm positive I have a bag of Malabrigo. I've finally gotten a chance to sit down and look at the yarn and Ravelry together and have figured out what's wrong.

I have Malabrigo "Silky Merino" which is a dk weight and the pattern calls for Malabrigo "Merino Worsted" which is a heavy worsted yarn. That shows me I have a huge gap in my knowledge of Malabrigo yarns which must be corrected immediately, by using more Malabrigo.

I'll be heading down to my LYS tomorrow to see what can be done about my education.

I think I have another idea for the Silky Merino yarn already. A long time ago I bought a couple of patterns from Stitch Diva and one of them was a sweater called Labyrinth by Wendy Bernard. I had also bought the Giselle pattern at the same time and had made that one first. I didn't really like the format of the patterns because the font size is too small and everything is squished together on a few pages. They are really hard to read and I won't be buying anymore patterns from that website because of the response I received when I requested that the patterns be more legible. The extra cost of a page was too much to consider even if the pattern was difficult to read (which is absolutely ridiculous if you ask me, we're talking 1 or 2 pages here in a downloaded pdf file). I felt that they didn't care about the quality of their patterns and that they are not very customer service oriented, so I would not be buying anything from that website again. So the patterns I bought - Giselle, Labyrinth, and the Simple Knitted Bodice were put away in favor of patterns I could actually read without a magnifying glass. I had left the projects in my queue and when I was looking for what I could do with my Silky Merino, Labyrinth popped up. It really is a beautiful sweater and I still would like to knit it. I guess I'll just have to suffer through the poor formatting of the pattern and see if I can get a cool sweater out of it.

Fwd: A pretty butterfly

I've always been drawn to butterfly motifs and the beaded one on the Social Butterfly socks is my favorite! I've made these socks before out of purple hooter yarn, and they were just as beautiful.

Prepping for Vogue Knitting Live!

I'm getting ready to leave for Vogue Knitting Live in LA this weekend and I'm almost ready. One of the things I wanted to bring is a bunch of stitch markers to trade. I made special Sock Summit shrinkydinks, and I want to do something similar for Vogue. I was having a hard time picking out a picture for my charm and then I thought of this.

It's a QR Code with my blog embedded. But will it work on a Shrinky dink? I'm not sure! I thought it might be kind of fun, so I'll give it a try. But I'll probably bring some other ones, in case people don't have a reader on their phone.