Argo and a delightful pair of socks (2012 FO #15)

Argo

Last night I went to see Argo, Ben Affleck's third directorial effort. It's a good film - enjoyable, good costumes and sense of place, decent script. But the end of the film just didn't ring true to me so today, while procrastinating working hard on my thesis, I thought I'd look up its accuracy. According to Wikipedia, the last half hour of the film is completely made up! The role of other countries in the escape is minimised or represented falsely (a decision that apparently weighed very heavily on Affleck, whatever) and the escape scenes are based in fantasy rather than a true story.

Now I don't expect Hollywood to represent the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. The Cole Porter biopic Night and Day (1946) starring Cary Grant is a complete fabrication. But all of the film style in this film works to create a realistic effect - uncannily accurate casting (to the detriment of the acting quality, but that's another issue), documentary/first-hand style photography in the opening scenes and the 'this is where they are now' captions at the end of the film. It's unabashed audience manipulation and, knowing how hard the film works to create misrepresentation and recirculate false ideas definitely causes me to reassess my previous good opinion of the film.

In happier news

I have finished my Rainy Day socks!

Check out the polar bear pyjama pants - am I rocking the daytime work sexy or what?

These were possibly the easiest and quickest socks I have every made in my life. I cast on and then left them by the computer, Whenever I or the computer needed a moment to think, I picked up the socks and did a few rows. 

Before you know it, without even trying and definitely without feeling like I put in any time or effort, the socks were done!

I made quite a few modifications to the original pattern. To get the most out of my yarn, I worked them toe up by casting on 20 stitches. using Judy's Magic Cast-on. I increased four stitches every row until I had 32 stitches then increased four stitches every second row until I had 52 stitches. I then knit one row increasing two stitches only leaving me with 54 stitches (one extra repeat)

I knit six rows plain so the toe would cover all of the actual toes of the recipient then proceeded as per normal for any toe-up sock.

I used a short-row heel and Jeny's Surprisingly Stretchy Cast-off to end up with a fabulously comfortable and luxurious pair of socks.



While half of me doesn't want to give them away, the other half is saying IT'S NOVEMBER AND 25% OF YOUR CHRISTMAS KNITTING IS DONE! REJOICE!

So I'm going with rejoicing :)  Woowoo - total number of WIPS down to 15 (still a lot, but better than it was. As the Beatles say, it's getting better all the time.)

FO Friday: Snow-capped mountaintop socks (2012 FO #14)

A couple of months ago I was looking through my stash and I noticed that I have heaps of partial balls of sock wool of between 30 to 50 grams. Now I need between 70 to 90 grams for a pair of sock so these partial balls were no good for a full pair of socks unless they were striped or used as contrasting colours for heels, cuffs and toes. Clearly, I am not opposed to a stripy pair of socks but it seems silly if that's the only way out of a partial sock yarn ball situation. 

Then, I had a great idea. What if, instead of striping the socks, there was a six or eight-row transition between the two colours? That way, it not only would keep it interesting, it would mean the transition could be anywhere. 

You could do the cuff in colour A, a transition stripe in colour B, back to colour A for another transition stripe and so on and so forth. The world is your oyster and it's multicoloured and filled with partial balls of sock yarn!

What a brilliant idea! I could design this sock and sell the pattern. If I use a short-row heel then the pattern can work either toe-up or top-down, maximising every bit of scrap yarn. It was serious genius. It would change the way that people approached their stash!

Then, I hit a snag. Firstly, it's a real pain in the arse trying to design six or eight row transition patterns that don't create long floats. Next, I realised that if I did design this sock I have to write it up. Writing up patterns is hard. Then I realised that if I did succeed in designing and writing up the pattern and sold it to a magazine, I would have to knit multiple samples in multiple sizes using different types of yarn. I don't want to do that!

When I realised that while knitting my prototype pair despite having knitted at least 100 short-row heels in my time I'd managed to mess the heel up on both of the socks into a discussing hole-y poorly fitting mess, I decided to throw in the towel.

I'm going to leave designing to the designers and this pair of socks in an unloved pile. Anyone want a pair of vaguely Christmas coloured socks with a poorly knitted heel in size six? They're all yours.

The vital statistics

Yarn: Paton's Bluebell and Bendigo Woollen Mills 5ply crepe.

Needles: 2.75mm

19 down, 12 to go. 

Day 14: Waving Lace in Recycled Wollmeise (2012 FO #13)

I am very excited to finally be able to share with you my finished Waving Lack socks!

This yarn was originally used to make a Triinu which I photographed, wrote about on Ravelry and for some bizarre reason never blogged about. The scarf was really lovely but I just never wore it and I didn't want to waste the gorgeous Wollmeise on an unused project, so I unravelled it and knit it up again.

One criticism of Wollmeise is that when you knit with it it feels like cotton and can be quite rough to work with. That was totally consistent with my experience from knitting the Triinu. However, once this yarn is soaked and blocked, it really softens up and it kept that softness after being unravelled. Knitting these socks with washed and recycled Wollmeise was a completely different experience. 

The stitch definition of these socks is incredible and the finished socks feel comfortable and warm. I have previously stated my love for Wollmeise as a shawl yarn and now I am a Wollmeise sock convert as well. These socks are divine.

One important note: count your repeats accurately! Don't be like me. You can see that one sock is a little bit higher than the other one but it's only really noticeable if you look hard and who really looks hard at other people's feet? If you do, stop it, it's weird.

This pattern is from my new favourite book, Favorite Socks. It might sound crazy but I think I actually want to knit them all! There's only 25 - I can totally do it. Although I also kind of want to knit at least another three pairs of this pattern, so maybe it's not a realistic ideal...we'll see.

Hope everyone is having a happy, fun and relaxing Sunday. Sunny Sundays are the best!

14 down, 17 to go.

Winning! Another pair of Panel Rib Socks (2012 FO #12)

Hi Blog! It's good to be back!* It's funny - last year I was hardly blogging at all but this year I have started to really look forward to checking in a few times a week and talking about all the things that have piqued my interest. Hopefully, other people find it (just a little bit) interesting too... 

Item No.1 of Interest this week: How does one take decent photos of one's feet?

The answer is not to wave one's iPhone in the air, pressing buttons at random. Trust me.



Last year I shared with you a Boneyard Shawl I made out of Jitterbug in Jay.  It was a really gorgeous shawl and I loved looking at it but, as a piece of clothing, it sucked. I don't know if it was because it was too small or because the Jitterbug was slick and smooshy, but every time I wore it it ended up on the floor. It was the most useless scarf ever. Then, a few months ago  I whipped up a pair of Panel Rib socks for my sister using Jitterbug in Fruit Coulis. I loved her socks, I couldn't wear my scarf...I knew that it was time to make some Panel Rib socks for me.

To avoid the pooling that happened on my sister's socks, I spiralled two alternating balls of this yarn. As you can see in the side-by-side shots, this was somewhat successful. 

The pattern is the same as for my sister's socks, and this time I managed to get some shots that showed the single ribbing 'seam' that runs up the back of the calf. Should I write up the pattern? I can see me making many more of these in the future.

These socks are gorgeous and comfortable and I love them. Plus, I now feel all frugal, thrifty and non-wasteful because I turned an unloved and unused object into a pair of much-loved and soon-to-be-much-worn socks. To quote Charlie Sheen, "Winning!"

* Ran out of Internet again. It is no coincidence that running out of Internet coincides with big deadlines, because apparently for me Big Deadlines = Must Look At Pretty Pictures. I think if blogs had been around when I was doing my undergraduate degree I never would have graduated.

Nothing interesting to see here (2012 FO #10 - Dad's birthday socks)

I have a confession to make: I didn't get yesterday's work done in its allotted time. My computer crashed, I lost an hour's work and I cracked the shits. I lieu of wine I watched Wife Swap USA and the Made in Chelsea finale and then, gorged on trash, fake tan and garlic and olive oil toasted pita bread, I went to bed.  It was not an exciting night but it was what I needed to do.

Today the sun was shining (clearly to reward me for finally getting my work done, albeit one day late) and I took the opportunity to go outside and take photos of my latest FO (another Cast On Mania project).

There is literally no way to make this project interesting. Even I found it boring when I was knitting it! 72 stitches, top down, flap and gusset heel, knit knit knit repeat.

I tried hanging these socks in some trees but even that doesn't provide any spark. I don't even know what yarn it is because I bought the wool in a grab back of sock yarns and it didn't have a label. I know it's machine washable - because I washed it in my machine - but other than that it's a mystery to me.

I hope my dad likes them and they fit him. He's the last member of my family to get any socks that he can wear (I did send him one pair that are ridiculously too small for him to get on his feet).

That's all, folks. It's a quiet time at the old FO town tonight!

FO Friday: Panel Rib Socks and an amazing discover (2012 FO #9)

You know how I'm always like 'Can't find the cable for my camera so here are photos from my iPhone again' or 'Sorry about the terrible iPhone photos!' like a broken record? Well, my poor camera is broken and in the repair shop so the photos are from my iPhone again.

However, I recently found out there is this app you can use that takes the photos from your iPhone and makes them look pretty and that lot of people actually choose to use this app to take their photos with rather than use a point-and-shoot camera. 

You may have heard of it - Instagram (yes, I am slow to adopt new technologies. I'm hopeless.) 

An arty shot:

I heart it!

The Specs


These Panel Rib Socks were my Day 2 CAST-ON MANIA project. I cast on 62 stitches and then did 12 rows of 1x1 rib. The paneling is a 5x1 rib with an additional knit and purl stitch that goes down the back of the sock (15cm total cuff length). I did a short row heel (centred on the 1x1 column) then continued the ribbing pattern as established on the top of the foot. It took 88g for a sock the right size for my sister's 6.5 foot.

The Jitterbug (as always) was fabulous and resulted with a thick, squooshy warm sock. The colourway is *very* bright and I wasn't crazy about the pooling when I was knitting them but on the foot they look gorgeous and I hope my sister likes them very much.

And because I can't stop playing with Instagram...

..this is how my cat helps me reach my deadline - sitting on the top shelf of my desk and watching me.

FO Friday: Radiating Star Blanket (2012 FO #8)

A few weeks ago I blogged about running out of wool to finish a baby blanket for a baby that's due this week. I bought wool in a complementary shade in a destash on Ravelry but in the end decided that having just part of the border in a different colour would look messy and unprofessional so I would hold out to find wool in the same shade. This meant I had to start another blanket immediately (babies don't wait for knitting projects to be finished, unfortunately!), so about two hours after posting about my dilemma I was in my LYS looking for wool to start a new blanket. As I entered, right next to the front door was a shelf full of - you guessed it - the discontinued Patons Soft Haze in the exact colourway I needed. Yay!

I gifted the blanket this morning and before I did I took some photos on my iPhone. I wish I had checked them before the blanket left my possession because they are just awful! Please excuse them and, when looking at them, visualise how soft, fluffy and gorgeous the blanket really is because you honestly get no sense of that from these pictures...

On my hallway floor...

The original pattern has you knit 95 rows of lace and then cast off. I liked the way the lace pattern looked but I felt that without a border the blanket looked a bit unfinished and would roll without the stabilising effect of garter stitch. So I stopped at Row 59, cast on 20 stitches and began a knitted-on garter stitch border.

With flash the lace pattern is clearer...

Of course I used absolutely no maths when deciding how wide to make the border so after I'd knit about 10cm I realised I was going to have to miter the corners. I figured since to change the direction of a border 90 degrees you did a short row every row, to change the direction of the border the 45 degrees I needed to to have the eight equal points required, I would do a short row every second row. So, knit 18 wrap and turn, knit 16 wrap and turn, knit 14 wrap and turn, et cetera.

Ugh - these photos are awful!

As you can see the border still ruffles a little bit, so I didn't get the rate of decrease completely perfect. Next time, instead of doing 3 decreases every 6 rows, I would do 2 decreases every five rows.

Even with the slight ruffled effect I think this blanket is gorgeous. It's super warm and cuddly and machine washable - all of the things a baby blanket needs to be. I hope the mum and the new bub like the blanket just as much as I do. I'm also super happy to finish my first Cast On Mania project in the required timeframe - GAAK, here I am.

Unfortunately, because I liked the yarn so much and it's been discontinued I bought 5 balls from my LYS and two from the Ravelry destash I mentioned above. That means that this stash busting project, which took 6.5 balls, actually increased my stash by 6.5 balls. Stashbusting - 0, successful cast-on mania baby knitting - 1. Oh well, I guess you can't win them all!

Finally Done FO Friday: Big Blanket Complete!! (2012 FO#7)

This occasion feels so momentous to me I wish I could mark it with a drum roll or fireworks or something loud and extraordinary.  I am so excited to say that I have finished my biggest project ever - a full-size adult blanket!

It's huge!

Did you get the shot?

I started this blanket on New Year's Day 2010, which means it's taken me two and half years almost exactly to finish it (!!!). That seems like a long time but this blanket is both big and very fiddly.

Warm and cuddly enough for even the manliest man to wear as a shawl

It's the April project from Elizabeth Zimmermann's Knitter's Almanac, Mystery Blanket: Weaving and it is *a lot* more complicated than Ms Zimmerman would have you believe. The knitting of the squares is quite easy and fun - each one took me about two hours and they were done pretty quickly. BUT after you've knit the squares, they all need to be grafted together. Then once you've grafted them together, you need to pick up the corner stitches (the black square) and then knit 5 rows of 20 stitches - very awkward when your blanket weighs almost a kilo! This process leaves a gaping hole at each corner, which needs to be tightened. Did I mention that each square generates a minimum of six ends to weave in? And there's 24 squares? I estimate that the finishing took me at least as long as knitting the squares did and was much less enjoyable. I love how the blanket looks but if I were to make it again I would to the increase rows all the way to the end of the squares, omitting the need to 'fill in' the corners. That said, I think I did a pretty good job of fixing all the gaps:

I love this blanket. It's big and warm and soft and looks fantastic on my couch. The Bendigo Woollen Mills Rustic 12-ply is hand wash only but I doubt I'll be washing it very often, so that shouldn't be an issue.

Now I just need to convince my cat to let me use it...

Where the first shawl of the year is completed and iPhone photos suck (2012 FO #1)

I cannot believe that it is almost the end of April and this is the first time I am doing this for the year.

I present my first finished object of 2012, the gorgeous Henslowe knitted in Wollmeise 100% in Cassis.

So pretty, even with an iPhone photo!

It's very pretty! It was much hard to knit that it should be, mainly because I'm an idiot who doesn't learn from my mistakes.

Oh, iPhone, I love you but your close-ups and flash really suck.
 I miss my camera :(

The lace is constructed by knitting a row just of yarn overs, then a row of yarn overs and k2togs and then a row of just k2togs, with a few straight knit and purl rows thrown in for good luck. This means that if you make a mistake with a k2tog or a yarn over in a row, then every stitch in the following rows is also affected, so if you make a mistake you can't just drop the offending stitch and ladder it back up - all off the offending rows need to be ripped back. The first mistake I made because I was knitting through a football match and not paying attention to my hands and I missed a yarn over. I ripped back, reknitted. The second mistake I made was missing a yarn over because I was knitting through a football match and not paying attention to my hands. Awesome work, B, learning from your mistakes like that! Keep up the good work.

As always, working with the Wollmeise was lovely and the finished shawl is super cute and stylish in a very luxe way.  I hope its recipient likes it as much as I do :)