Train Knitting

So this has to be a pretty quick post, because it's C's birthday today. But I thought I'd give you a few pictures of the finished Tubey, of the Monkey socks, and from my trip to Freiburg this past weekend. So here you are:

Cast-On: ??? End of April 2007
Finished 20 June, 2007
Pattern: Tubey from Knitty
Yarn: Lana Grosse Numero Uno and Numero Uno Tweed
Needles: 5 mm dpns and a 5 mm circ
Pattern Notes: I did an i-cord bind off for both the sleeves and the bottom. The back is a little too wide on top and it poofs out a lot. Also, the green yarn was slightly thinner than the black and made a little too airy of a fabric on the 5 mm needles. I'm not entirely pleased with it, but the pattern was good. Maybe I'll try again sometime.


Otherwise the Monkeys are progressing OK. I finished the first one while we were in Freiburg and cast on for the second on the train ride home. Trains are excellent places to knit. An old lady came up to me on the train ride there and looked at my sock and said "Schoene Muster" (nice pattern). It was cool. Anyways, here are some pictures of the sock:

With some Bio-beer in Freiburg

Freiburg loves knitted socks!

I cast on for the Simple Trekking socks as an easy tv sock. I'm only about 10 rows in. And the picture really sucks, haha.

Well... to finish the post, here are some pictures from the weekend. I'll post again later when I have more time. It's been kind of crazy around here though since I move in 3 weeks, and am applying for jobs in the States while being over here, etc. Hopefully later this week I'll have time.

Freiburg pothole cover; view of the Freiburger Muenster (church) from Schlossberg

Yes, that "gargoyle's" hole is in his ass; stone crocodile in the canal

Pretzel mosaic; skydiving launch from a mountain near Freiburg

A wood mill built in 1621; pretty wildflowers

Summer of Socks Preview... and a little more

Well since the start of Summer of Socks is just around the corner (aka TOMORROW!!!) I thought I would tell you a little about the patterns I'm looking at and the goals I have for the summer.

First of all: Goals. I talk a big talk, but really I haven't done much sock-wise. All of the (3 pairs) socks I've made (successfully) have been top down, heel flap, either stockinette or some knit/purl rib combination, and on 5 dpns. Yes, I've started both the Jaywalkers and Snicket socks-- and had no problem with executing the stitch patterns themselves-- but they were too small and I only reached the gusset of the first sock of each before having to frog. So here are my goals (in no particular order).

1) Do a toe-up sock. There are a couple patterns that I want to do that are written for toe-up... so I hope this will be accomplished easily.
2) Do a lace sock.
3) Do a cabled sock.
(Both 2 and 3 will be accomplished easily based on the patterns I'm looking at)
4) Try something other than dpns-- though this would require purchasing some circs, so we'll see.
5) Short row heel

OK.. now for the patterns that I'd really like to do (also in no particular order).

1) Monkey
2) Jaywalkers
3) Snicket
4) Zokni
5) Brigit
6) Elfine
7) Aran Twist-- from the Sockamaniac Sock-a-long Yahoo! group
8) Cable Twist
9) River Rapids
10) Sidewinders (though I've been having trouble getting gauge)
11) Vinnland
12) Mock Crock
13) Wyvern
14) Leyburn
15) Bayerische
16) Simple Trekking
17) Clessidera
18) Ampersand
19) Rhodie Gus

Right........ so that's more than a pair a week if I want to do them all during SOS. And some of those are really complicated. But those are just a few of the free patterns I've seen online that have caught my attention. I'm really excited about this though and have quite a few long travel days ahead of me in which I can get a lot accomplished. Hopefully.

I also wound my Wollmeise into balls (I recently discovered that the nice "center pull" ball that I made is really tangled, so I decided to just wind the Wollmeise into a ball as to not subject the beautiful, squishy yarn to the same fate) in preparation for Summer of Socks.

On a Tubey note, since 5/6 people said to just finish it in green.. I decided to follow your advice and am working diligently on it. I hope to finish it tonight (not much to do.. maybe another inch, bind off, and weave in the ends).

Since I'm at work right now I'm not going to take the time to add links for all the patterns-- and I have a few pictures of my Wollmeise being all pretty and balled up. I'll add these later today once I get back to my apartment.

ETA: Links and:

My version of a swift-- computer chair with a stool on it

The balled up Wollmeise... oh so pretty

Campari-Orange colorway. I am OMG in LOVE with this color! It's going to be my first pair of socks for the SOS-- monkeys

Birkenrinde

Gewitterhimmel-- the colors didn't show up very well. There is a beautiful subtlety to this colorway.

A little present for myself for the start of SOS. 2 sets of 2.5 mm (US "#1") 80 cm (32") addi turbo circs!!! Yeah, I was in a LYS today and saw that they were pretty much half the price of what I could get them for in the States.... so I bought them.

Quick Poll

Ok, so I just can't decide. What should I do at the bottom of my Tubey?

I would like to finish it before the 21st when the Summer of Socks starts.. so you only have a couple days to respond. Thanks for the help!

On and Off the Needles

Well there's been some knitting in the last couple days. I was hoping to finish Tubey this weekend, but I had a little more knitting to do than I thought. This is what it looked like yesterday afternoon when I put it on some waste yarn to try it on...

(Don't mind the pooch...)

Notice anything funny?

Yeah, notice those big things sticking out at the armpits? I guess I made the back a little too long. Oh well. It's looking ok though, and fits a lot better than I thought it would as my first sweater and not using the yarn called for. I definitely need to knit a few more inches though. I want it to be on the longer side. I put it back on the needles and have been knitting on it some more, but still have about 5 inches or so to go according to my measurements.

I also frogged the Snicket Socks. I know that 4 out of the 5 people who took my poll said to try to rework the heel again, but the yarn wasn't standing up to frogging very well.. and I didn't think it would be good to frog the heel another 2 times (4 times total). I'll cast on again for them with another 2 repeats maybe. I'm going to wait until Summer of Socks starts up though.

Lastly, I went to a local flea market today and found some good deals. I got all of this for only 2.50 euro (the 3 50 g balls of sock yarn were 1 euro, and the krug was 1.50 euro)!

It's a nice red color yarn.. and it came with the little reinforcing stuff for the heels! I'm not sure what brand or anything.. Roedel I guess?... but who can pass up 150 g of sock yarn for 1 euro? Not me, that's for sure. Haha.

A FO and a Secret Pal!

You guessed it... the C-socks are done!!

Cast-On: 6 June, 2007
Finished: 14 June, 2007
Pattern: My own. Based off of the Triangle Ribs stitch pattern in Harmony Guides Vol. 2, heel flap, gradual standard toe (I don't know what to call it... you decrease 1 round, knit 3 rounds, [decrease 1, knit 2] (x2), [decrease 1, knit 1] (x3), and then decrease to the number of stitches you want and kitchener them)
Yarn: "Funny Strumpf Color" (Coats GmbH) 6-ply in color #7108 (this is a link to it at the store I bought it at... a LYS in Erlangen). It's 75% superwash and 25% nylon. I used a little more than half... don't have a scale for exact measurement... off of 2 150g skeins (ie, I used a little more than 1 skein).
Needles: Inox 3.5 mm dpns
Pattern Notes: For some reason my gauge was a little looser at the start of the second sock or something and I got a 1/2 less repeat in the ankle than on the first one and the same number for the rest of the sock. This meant that the heel flap and toe on one sock began with a mostly knit stitch row in one and a mostly purl row in the other (the one on the left-- his right foot-- above is the second one ending with mostly purl stitches before the toe, while the other one is mostly knit stitches)... something that bothers me slightly. They also slouch a bit at the ankle... but I wasn't about to rip them out, lol.

C's been wearing them when possible even though it's been too warm for them (he was wearing the one while I was working on the second.. lol)... so I know he likes them at least.

In other news, I got my partner for the Facebook Secret Knitting Pals!!!! I'm so excited! I have some very excellent ideas of stuff to send. Unfortunately my pal doesn't like orange, so I'm going to have to find something else to do with my Wollmeise yarn in the Sonne colorway. I'm thinking about taking Elemmaciltur up on the invite to come down to Munich (last Saturday of June-- the 30th?) before I head back.. so maybe I can arrange a swap with someone down there. I know that Bockstark Knits used that colorway in the past.

I've been knitting on Tubey since I finished the socks, but no real noticeable progress. Speaking of which... the new Knitty is out. I really like the Coachella pattern. I already ordered yarn to make Tempting II in a "knit a long" of sorts with my friend Jenny though.

That's all for now. I'm hoping to finish Tubey this weekend though.... I think I'm getting close! I have to get ready for Summe of Socks.

Big Feet and more

Well, I got a lot accomplished on the C-socks in the last few days. It went so quickly that I amazingly didn't have second-sock syndrome!

C-socks with the Snicket socks for size comparison

I would be a lot further... but I decided that I shouldn't neglect Tubey so I finished the ball of yarn I was knitting off of.

I've knit about 9.5" of the body so far. I want it to be a fairly long sweater, so am expecting it to end up at 19-20" (I'm short..).

As for the Snicket socks... they're still where I left them. So far the majority of the poll is saying to redo the heel and finish the sock. I'll probably end up doing that, I just really don't feel like it at the moment. Which is really too bad because I really enjoyed the pattern.

I'll leave you with a little teaser. I knit up a swatch out of the sample skein of Wollmeise I received with my package of sock yarn. I have an interesting idea that involves buying more of her sample skeins....

Wow....

So I joined the knitting blogs web ring thinking I might have a chance at having a few more people visit my blog. In the last 2.5 days I have tripled the number of visitors to my blog (and the first stuff included several visits by me before I figured out how to block myself)! Over 150 new visits since June 1. WOW.

Anyways, on to some knitting content.

My good friend Jenny (Hi Jenny!) came to visit me this weekend in order to go to the beer festival. We studied abroad together in this town 2+ year ago, but were back in the States before the festival came around. Anyways, knitting. So when I went to visit her earlier this year (she's currently studying on the other side of Germany), I brought some knitting with me because she likes to knit as well. Up to that point though, she had only done scarves (correct me if this is wrong Jenny!). She saw my socks and wanted me to show her how to do them. So we went to the store and bought her some dpns and sock yarn and the rest is history! We had a great time knitting together this weekend between the beer and wine drinking and I even made some progress on Tubey! We also spent part of the afternoon looking at EVERY SINGLE PATTERN in the archives at Knitty! There are now lots more patterns bookmarked for future use. Needless to say a great time was had and her socks are looking great!

Jenny (right) and I working on our knitting.

Tubey progress (I've knit about 6-7 inches on the body)

Close-up of the progress.

I didn't have a chance to work on any other knitting projects due to large amounts of beer and other alcohol consumption. The Bergkirchweih beer festival is still going on after all! Here is another small sampling of photos for your viewing pleasure:

Waitress with a lot of beer steins! and A view of the festival.

Scary, scary, scary high up swings. SCARY! and a view of the festival from the ferris wheel.

C and I on the ferris wheel and me with a view of the town

My apartment from the ferris wheel! and an ox on a spit... yum.

Getting ready to go out (it's a LOT cheaper to bring your own beer...) and Jenny and I the first night szhe was in town.

Me in a cool Bavarian hat and Jenny drinking lots of beer. (these were both taken after we had only drank 1 liter of beer..)

Beer bottles! (only about 12 are ours.. the rest were found on the street. Yarn money!) and me attempting to make a carrot cake after 2 liters of beer and half a bottle of wine. It turned out pretty good...

Nothing's better at curing Homesickness than....

A beer festival! (and some knitting.)

Sorry that I haven't written in a while and that the last time I wrote it was a depressing note about how I wasn't enjoying being in Germany and didn't really have anything to do about knitting. At all. Hopefully this entry will have more knitting content, but of course there has to be some beer!

Ok, so I'll get the knitting stuff in first. Tubey is coming along nicely. I finished the sleeves!

Now just to do the body. I think I've calculated that I'm halfway done now though. Yay! It's a little looser in the sleeves than I would have liked. And I'm not liking the colors (the green) as much as I did when I bought it and it was separate from the black. And those dang color changes look like crap. Sigh. Well, if nothing else I'll have a warm comfy sweater for those days I just want to stay inside.

The Snicket Socks are coming along rather slowly (I've been working on Tubey!) but I'm not half a repeat away from starting the heel.

I think I've figured out what to do about the pattern and the instep. We'll see how it turns out.

The lace scarf for my mom is also coming along. I have 1.5-2 feet of it done (I've been working on Tubey!)

I'm not a huge fan of the lace pattern. Especially in the dark yarn. But she chose them both. So I'll do it for her.

Well. Umm. That's all the knitting content. Ha. Now for the beer!

So there's a local beer festival going on right now called the Bergkirchweih. Apparently it's the 3rd largest beer festival in Bavaria. And it's about a 2 minute walk from my apartment. So C and I have been going up there every night and getting dinner or a beer or both. Here are some pictures from it.

An oompa band and Miss Bergkirchweih 2007

The first beer from the "first" keg of the festival and C and I sharing a "Mass" (1 L of beer)

Sauerkraut, Bratwurst, and an Ox sandwich. Yum! and 2 "Krugs" to hold all of our beer

Lots of People!