Emma's Socks

My good friend Emma asked me if I could make her a pair of socks, in the wake of me making a pair for Mr M and for Mam. Of course I said yes, and she was lovely enough to buy the yarn for me.

I wanted to try a sock in a different way to the normal, cuff down with a heel flap and gusset, that I have been making up until now. So I googled how to knit a sock toe up, because why not give it a go! In all my googling and reading I came across a website called The Spruce Crafts. It gave some general instructions on how to knit a sock toe up, including links as to how to do a turkish cast on, and a short row heel.

I did a little research into how to do turkish cast on's, as at the time I was away on holiday, sat in bed in the evening, with one set of DPNs and my yarn. Mr M got slightly irritated with the complaining of how exactly I was going to cast on, but I worked out a way! (and a video to come hopefully so - watch this space!)

Anyway the first Cast-On-Hurdle was overcome and I was back to knitting! I cast on 64 stitches for this sock, as I had made socks with that many stitches before, and they were slightly large on my feet, but Emma's feet are wider, so it was a safe bet. With these socks I mainly referred to the website for the casting on and for the heel. The rest I was fairly confident that I could work out myself. :)

Increasing for the toe was mostly the opposite of decreasing for the toe, and was fairly easy, and knitting the length of the foot was a doddle. One thing I did have to look up was how much room to leave for knitting the heel. I had measured Emma's foot before making her socks, and had an overall length I wanted them to be, but I found out when to stop on the Spruce Crafts website.

I did get rather confused knitting the heel, but following the links to a more in-depth page on the Spruce Crafts website got me through it, and there are only a few holes...

I'm really not sure why there were holes in my heel, but I think with a little more practice I can get them less saint like! (any suggestions or tips on short row heels would be greatly appreciated!)

Carrying on up the top part of the sock and to the cuff was easy too. I did the top of the sock at 13 cm long like most of my other socks, followed by a single rib cuff an inch tall.

Casting off was interesting. It was only until I came to casting off did I realise that the socks would need a stretchy cast off to be able to go around the foot when putting them on. People do tend to take socks on and off... I followed the instructions for the cast off on the Spruce Crafts website, but I didn't like the look of it, to I took it out and went on the search for another cast off that I liked better. In the end I found Jeny's Surprisingly Stretchy Bind Off on Knitty.com. In my opinion it looked so much better, and the step by step pictures really helped get my head around what I was meant to be doing.

The yarn used on the socks was a Regia yarn, from the Arne and Carlos Design Line in the Bramble colourway. The way it patterns really pleases me and I love them. I really do need to try their Pairfect yarn at some point though!

The socks did turn out well and they were loved from the minute Emma put them on her feet for a photo. Luckily they did fit too! I have to admit I did have a little bit of Second Sock Syndrome when making them, and the second one did not get cast on for a little while. But they got finished in the end and all was well.

Birthday Scarf

Recently it was a good friend's birthday, and I had nothing on the needles and was feeling the itch to get knitting again.

So I made this chunky ripple-y rib scarf, it's a pattern that I have used for three other scarfs so far, and it is great!

The pattern itself is from the blog The Wool Nest and the very first scarf I made with it, I followed the pattern using similar yarn to the one used on the blog and created a very similar scarf for Mr M (one of the first things I knitted for him).

For this scarf I took a trip to the small wool and fabric shop on the high street and just went searching for some nice chunky wool. What I ended up with was the Hayfield Chunky Tweed, one in a light blue and another in dark blue. The tweed style of them gives little hints of colour here and there and I love it.

The scarf is a rib with a twist and it makes a lovely scarf that I would recommend for anyone. It has now been posted off to it's new home, where I hope it will have a happy and loved life!

Cozied Up

And just in time for winter it's finished!

I had started this scarf a while ago when I made one for Mr M, which you can have a look at here, along with the pattern.

I made this one with the yarn that I had leftover from making Mr M's football scarf, and thought I would make one for me, being a WRU supporter I took advantage of the colours being the same!

Now it is finished just in time to snuggle up for the winter, although we do look a little like tweedledee and tweedledum when we are both wearing them, but oh well...

In other news, my friend Slade has a blog called All About That Space, which, as the name suggests, is, all about Space! So if you want to catch up with the goings on in the sky, or just want to have a little read, go check it out.

Nicky's Blanket

Everything has been go, but I have managed to get at least one project done this summer! This is Nicky's knee blanket, it may be slightly larger than a knee blanket, but it will certainly keep him warm.

This blanket I've had to keep quiet about when I was making it, as Nicky didn't want to see it before it was made. I've loved making it, and luckily Nicky loves it too.

The blanket was made from a pattern in a book for a baby blanket. It is a simple granny square blanket and was made by just adding more and more rounds. Instead of using the suggested three balls of yarn, I think I did actually use seven... My plan was to make it bigger then a baby blanket, but didn't really think it would be this big.

I used two balls of dark green, two balls of petrol blue and three balls of the pale green colour. I started the centre of the granny square with the pale green colour.

The colour is swapped every two rounds. The centre was the pale green, I then used the dark green, then another two rounds of the pale green, and then two rounds of the petrol blue. Doing it this way gave it a lovely striped pattern and the pale green made sure that the colours of the other two colours didn't drown each other out. But it does mean you use another balls worth of wool.

So in all I made a blanket big enough for a grown man, out of seven 100g balls of DK wool.

Safe to say I think he really likes it. (And yes I did give it to him in a pub.)

Legwarmers!!

They are here at last! The lovely leg warmers I promised.
They were made with double pointed needles and worked in the round, the two I've made are the inverse of each other and where I have started with one colour on one of the leg warmers, I started with the other colour on the other legwarmer. But this pattern is written for a lovely matching pair!

Each leg warmer is 15 inches long. My tension square was 3 3/4 (three and three quarter) inches by 3 3/4 inches, with 20 stitches and 17 rows, kitted in single rib, with DK wool and 3.75mm needles.

The pattern can always be adjusted to suit different sizes, by increasing or decreasing the number of stitches can adjust the size of the legwarmer, and by adding more or less rows can change the length.

The legwarmers themselves are kitted in single rib with DK yarn.
The pattern alternates different coloured yarns, but you can ignore the change of colour and knit a set of legwarmers in one colour, or use a variegated yarn.

Repeat the pattern twice to make two legwarmers.

Needles: 
A = 4 x 3.75mm double pointed needles.
B = 4 x 4mm double pointed needles.
Yarn A - this is the colour you start with.
Yarn B - the second colour you have chosen.

Pattern:
Cast on 60sts on 3 needles (20sts on each needle) with needles A and yarn A.

Place a stitch marker between the first and second stitches, this will indicate when to change colour later on.

Row 1: With the fourth needle and yarn A: (k1, p1) to end of round.

** To begin with you will have three needles in a line, to begin the first row, with the fourth needle, knit with the first needle in your left hand, make sure you pull this stitch tight, and then the three needles will have formed a circle. Having the stitch marker between the first stitch you knit and the second one will help when changing colour.

Row 2: (k1, p1) to the end of the round.

Row 3: k1, change to yarn B, (p1,k1) to the end of the round.

Row 4: (k1,p1) to end of round.

Repeat rows 3 and 4, changing the yarn colour every two rows. (The coloured stripes should be two rows thick, but the very first stripe will be thicker as you have cast on.)

Continue until the work measures 2 inches long, then change to needles B.

Continue with needles B until the work measures 13 inches and change back to needles A for another 2 inches.

Cast off.

Holidays...

I am very sorry for the lack of posting in the past three weeks. I had got romantic ideas that when I went to Wales for two weeks I would be able to finish loads of projects, revise for my upcoming exams, and manage to fit it all in around working on the Talyllyn Railway.

Obviously none of that actually happened. I worked on the railway most days, did minimal revision and hardly any making. But we'll try and get back on top of all of that.

I did start another scarf just like the one I did before (Striped Scarf). I made this one with the left over wool I had from the one the Mr M asked me to make. Whilst I'm not a football person, it did just happen to be the colours of the Welsh Rugby Union team! The pattern for which I've now put up on Ravelry so you can download it as a free PDF pattern here, but you can always refer back to the original post on the blog here for how to do the fiddly bits.

Sadly the lovely leg warmers that I promised are still a work in progress, but they will be up soon! I did take them to wales with me, but about two rounds were knitted of them... I know I need to get a move on.

The polka dot knickers also have not made any more progress, I didn't really feel up to taking my sewing machine with me.

In other news I have started bullet journaling.  There is a lot of cool things going on with bullet journaling and it has become really really popular over in the states, but going back and looking at the original website, it is actually a really useful tool when used properly, to help people organise themselves, but also be able to become more productive by writing down thoughts, and things that need to be done. Once those things have been written down the brain isn't struggling to remember everything that needs to be done, giving you a chance to properly focus on the task in hand.
There is a really interesting post about it here, it also mentions attention deficit traits, and gives a fair bit of food for thought.

There is also a section on that website for getting started. One of the lovely things about it, is that you can be as creative or as minimal as you like. You can use whatever you have around you to get started, you just need a notebook and a pen. I've just got a notebook I picked up from the doctor who experience in Cardiff, and a load of coloured pens. What you make of the journal is completely your own, and sometimes beautiful things can come out of it.

Slow But Steady

Apparently wins the race...
This week (I know it's Wednesday but I've lost track of the week already!) I've managed little pieces here and there, but still, not much has rolled out of the factory doors!

I've made a little bit of progress on the Granny Stripe Blanket, it's now a whole three rows taller! (Hopefully more soon as I finish more bits and pieces off) To read more about that one check it out here.

There has been some work done on a lovely pair of legwarmers, which will be making their way here hopefully along with a pattern before too long, so that is to look forward to.

Apart from that, I've been panicking along with a whole ton of work from my Module 11 work, which is why there has been a sad lack of making recently, but hopefully when I get back on top of it all it will begin to pick up the pace again and we'll have lots of lovely made things to share! :)

Striped Scarf

Mr M in his scarf

A little while ago, Mr M asked me to make him a scarf for his football team. So I set about finding the right wool, and thinking about how to actually make the scarf.

I decided on using double knit wool, so the scarf wouldn't be too thick, and I used a single rib stitch. The end result was a nice scarf with the desired effect. Bellow is the pattern.

In the pattern there is an interesting finish to the edge of the scarf (sl 1 pwise wyif), this gives a smooth and neat edge to the scarf, I tend to use this when I need to create something in which the edges are most likely to be seen. The abbreviations here can be looked up in the abbreviations page in the side bar.

Here is what it actually means:
So the k1, p1 stitch is done until there is only one stitch left in the row, then like you would if you were doing a purl stitch, bring the yarn to the front of the needle. Then put the needle through the front of the stitch (like a purl) and slip the stitch from the right needle onto the left, and there you have finished the row! The stitch will be the first to be knitted on the next row, so it does not need to be worried about.

Yarn in front of needle

Needle through front of stitch

Finished row

Pattern:
Size 7 and size 9 needles (UK)
200g of DK wool
100g of colour A
100g of colour B

With size 7 needles cast on 50 sts with colour A

Row 1: (K1, P1) to last st, sl 1 pwise wyif.
Repeat row 1 for three more rows, change to size 9 needles.

Row 5: (K1, P1) to last st, sl 1 pwise wyif.
Repeat row 5 until you have 28 rows in colour A,

Switch to colour B and knit 24 rows of:
(K1, P1) to last st, sl 1 pwise wyif.

Repeat knitting stripes of 24 rows until you have 21 stripes

On the last stripe, when row 24 has been reached, switch to size 7 needles.
Knit four more rows of:
(K1, P1) to last st, sl 1 pwise wyif.

Cast off.

Tassels:
Tassels are optional in this pattern but I have included them on the scarf for Mr M, so this is how I've made them.

I started off with the two ends of the remaining yarn. In my tassels I've used both colours, but you can use only one colour if you wish, but you will have to wrap the yarn twice as much to get the same amount of tassels. I wrapped the yarn twice around my hand, cut it off the ball at the bottom, then along the same place as the ends, cut one side of the loops.

When wrapping the yarn you can wrap it around anything that has two straight edges if you don't wish to use your hand. By using something else you will be able to vary the size of tassel you make and if you are making multiple tassels then you will be able to ensure they are all the same size.

Now you should have four longish lengths of yarn, which are folded in half. With the top end of the tassel (the fold) pull it through a stitch (but not all the way) on the very edge of the scarf at the end. Once you have pulled the tassel part way through the stitch you will have a small loop on one side of the scarf and the tails on the other. Pull the tails through the loop and pull the tails so they tighten the loop around that bottom stitch. Now the tassel is attached.

On my scarf I have made 13 tassels and tried to equally space them along the bottom of the scarf, although if you made 25 tassels you would be able to place them at every other stitch along the bottom of the scarf. But the number of tassels and where you attach them is entirely down to your preference.