Sunday, February 27, 2005

Stash Reduction Failure

In November I had the wonderful notion that I would embark on a SRD(Stash Reduction Diet). I can now report that since then I have failed miserably. I received a call from my mom to meet her at our local lys during lunchtime on Friday. We were there to take advantage of a 50% off hardback book sale that turned out to be a 50% off selected books sale due to misinformation given at our last guild meeting.

I have now added the following books to my already pretty extensive knitting library:

1. Cotton Knits for all seasons - Debbie Bliss
2. The Best of Lopi - XRX Books
3. Sweaters from A New England Village - Candace Eisner Strick
4. Irresitible Knits - Kirsten Cowan
5. A Season's Tale - Kim Hargreaves
6. The Children's Collection - Alice & Jade Starmore (Purchased purely for the elephant design.)
7. Chunky Knits - Vogue Knitting
8. Toddler Knits - Vogue Knitting
9. Bags & Backpacks - Vogue Knitting
10. animal KNITS - Zoe Mellor
11. Angels a Knitter's Dozen - Gerdine Strong
12. The Jean Moss Book or WORLD KNITS - Jean Moss
13. Handbook Aran Sweater Design - Janet Szabo

I also purchased the new ponchos & wraps-a Knitter's dozen by XRX. I'm generally not a fan of compilation books, but this one is nice. Even though it is a republication of patterns from Knitter's, this is a great little reasonably priced book at $15.95. There are several designs I'd like to knit and I don't have to go searching through my back issues.

On the knitting front, I'm almost finished with the Regia Jacquard Colors socks. These are my second pair of toe up socks knitted from Judy Gibson's sock pattern.I plan on trying Wendy's next. The second poncho in a lovely light blue color of Sirdar Domino for niece number 2 is coming along well. The Stash Buster Spirals have been frogged and put on hold, but after searching the group archives I think I've found the cause of my jogging problem.

Stash addition. Posted by Hello

Also from 50% off sale. Posted by Hello

Purchased from Hook N' Needles 50% off selected books sale. Posted by Hello

Friday, February 25, 2005


First pair of toe up socks in Regia Jubilee Color - Taiga colorway. Size 1 dpns. Posted by Hello

Thursday, February 10, 2005

The Sock Go Round

As I'm always willing to learn new things, I've finally decided to tackle the toe-up sock. I'm using Regia Jubilee Color in the Tiaga colorway. The yarn is lovely and knits up into a beautiful fair isle type pattern.

I'm not one to shy away from difficult projects. I easily mastered the figure eight cast-on. However, sock sizing is another issue altogether. I completed the first sock only to discover that it was too big and bunched once in a shoe. In a genius moment, I thought I'd knit the second sock eight stitches smaller. Wow, eight stitches is not really a big deal. Wrong! That sock has turned out to be a little too small. So what's a girl to do?

Well I just ripped that ole first sock out to several rows before the gusset and started the gusset sooner. Voila! It's magic when the knitting works. I probably could have knitted 2 or 3 pairs in the time it's taking me to do these, but they won't go the route of the fluted banisters or the pink beads. You're quite welcome mom. ;)

Next item on the to do list should be completing Master Level II, but alas I am so easily distracted. I'm never going to make the March deadline for submission so I might as well learn something else. It will be toe-up short row socks. Still haven't decided if I'm going to do the stash buster spirals, a toe-up short row pattern. This is the fifth sock in the Six Sox Knitalong.

Having been enabled and feeling the need to enable others, another great sock knitalong is Jean Townsend's. The patterns are absolutely gorgeous. Besides, I have 10 more balls of this yarn. I have all of the colorways but one so I might as well keep going while the going is good.