Grungy Basement and 16 Handknit Socks

Sorry for showing you my grungy basement. Hey, it's dry and functional, and that's really all I ask. But, I am very grateful for the little green bar someone hung up there a while ago. It's the perfect spot to hang 16 socks to dry at once!

My sis bought me that little octopus years ago at Ikea. I love it to bits.

So, I haven't dropped off the face if the earth, and I've been knitting socks.

A Little Spinning

I'm still trying to figure things out, but life is getting closer to normal. Which means, when my awesome sister sends me beautiful Coopworth wool dyed with indigo from the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival, I can spin some of it without everything else going off the rails. 

So, I did. Hooray! I can't wait to ply it. (In return, I sent her some Ply magazines, and she loved them! You might, too. Go check them out.) 

Design Inspiration: Firebird Flight Shawl

I was inspired to knit my Firebird Flight Shawl by the silky drape and color shifts of Panda Silk in Firebird.

This is a fingering-weight yarn that is 52% bamboo, 43% Merino wool and 5% silk. It is 204 yards in 1.76 oz per skein or 187 meters in 50 grams. It is gorgeous!

The shawl’s unusual shape is part yarn-saving triangle, and part figure-flattering hexagon, with fun scalloped edges, too.

Luckily, when it was ready for photography, I was visiting my sister and my baby niece. I took the chance to include this special moment in their lives in the shawl's photographs.

Design Inspiration: Hold Me Close Shawl

Almost exactly a year ago, I knit this shawl out of my own handspun Jacob yarn. It uses a lot of the same techniques as the Eulalia Shawl. But, instead of curling stockinette at the beginning and end, I made sure the shawl has a smooth, double-knit edge all of the way around. It is also worked at a much larger gauge and has a little extra detail at the top, by the neck. Test knitters helped me work out some issues with the instructions and the pattern was pretty much ready to go.

I had a small problem, however. I didn't know what to name it.

Some relatives were visiting from out of town, and they agreed to pose with the shawl for photos. When I handed it to my sister-in-law, she immediately wrapped it around herself and gave me a 10,000-watt smile. The Hold Me Close shawl was born!

Design Inspiration: Sunday Morning Slippers

Sunday Morning Slippers came from my desire to improve an earlier design, my Short-Row Felted Slippers.

Boomer doesn't care about slippers.

Those first slippers were actually what encouraged me to write knitting patterns. They were only the second knit pattern I put on Ravelry, and they are still the most popular pattern I've ever written. (Part of their popularity is that they are free. A free pattern simply gets downloaded a lot more than most paid ones.)

I also learned a lot from comments and questions I got from people who made the slippers. Is there any way to make the back collapse less? How do I make knitting them a little less awkward? 

Instead of starting with the top of the slipper, I started right at the back. This simplified the construction and made most of the knitting more straightforward. Less time juggling stitches from one needle to the next helped a lot. I called them "Sunday Morning" because I knit a pair in a few hours at my Sunday morning knitting group.

I made the very back of the slipper a triangle instead of a rectangle, because I noticed that most shoes taper a little there, and it seemed it would help keep the sides from flattening out. I added notes to the pattern and video to help show a few of the more unusual techniques. 

Since I knit the first pair (and second, and third) from my own handspun yarn, I needed some ideas of commercial yarns people could use. A group of test knitters gave me great notes for improving the pattern and used their own yarns to suit them. They all used at least two strands of yarn held together to get to the yarn thickness needed for gauge and one knitter used 5 strands of Aran-weight yarn as one on a US 15 needle to make a men’s size 11 slipper!

The original pattern was designed to fit a woman with small-to-medium-sized feet. Knitters have expanded that a bit with their yarn and needle choices. That's one of the great things about Ravelry. You don't have to reinvent the wheel all of the time.

I love slippers and I'm always looking for new ways to try different techniques and shapes. In fact, I'm working on a new design right now. I just hope people like them and find them useful. 

Design Inspiration: Tootsie Socks

My Tootsie socks were published in the Spring + Summer 2012 edition of Knitty. Appearing in Knitty was way too exciting for words!

In December of 2011, I had just written a review of The Knitter's Book of Socks and was returning the copy I used to the library. (I now have one of my own - a Christmas gift from my sweetie.)

I turned the book around to put it into the return slot and looked at the orange/brown sock on the cover from the side. I thought, "Why not knit a round heel that ends on the back of the heel?"

I had already experimented with one or two afterthought heels, and had a few notes jotted down about making an afterthought heel that included a gusset. So, I sat down with needles and yarn that weekend and worked out how the decreases would have to work to get the shape I wanted. I showed the result to my friend, Allison, the owner of Simply Socks Yarn Company, and she told me I should send the idea in to Knitty.

I worked up a pair of grey-and-white socks, using the heel and a simple twist-stitch rib pattern that I had swatched a few times, but hadn't found the right project before. I photographed them in a very awkward way using myself and a mirror as the model, and sent it off.

When I heard that they wanted the design, I literally did a dance for joy. The color change was suggested and I knit up a pair in Tangerine and Chocolate.

Then, a wonderful turn of luck landed my twin sister in town on the weekend that I really needed to photograph the final socks. Allison let us use a little space in the shop and we had a great photo shoot. It is still the most fun I have ever had taking photos of handknits.