Wednesday, June 27, 2007

Tuesday, June 26, 2007

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

Sunday, June 24, 2007

Ravelry!!

So apparently I had to go on vacation in order to get my Ravelry invite!! I got the email on Friday sometime. Anyways... if you're on it.. add me! My screen name is kniteurope. I've added who I remembered had it (not many people), so if you have it and I'm not your friend yet, add me.

I've been doing some stuff on it, but a lot of the yarn I have isn't on there (and I don't have good pictures/am clueless as to what each yarn weight is). But it's awesome so far! I'm very excited.

I will add photos from the weekend later. It was a lot of fun though. I am done with one Monkey and part way down the leg of the second. More tomorrow..

Thursday, June 21, 2007

Day One

I was so excited to begin knitting today. I brought my yarn to work so I could cast on over lunch (Summer of Socks began at 5 am EST... or 11 am here in Germany). And I proceeded to knit while I was "waiting on an experiment." And then I knit on the bus ride home. And most of the evening (I stopped to go to the grocery store and eat dinner). And all night. And now it's 3 am and I'm this far:


Sorry the picture is crap. I just took it and obviously the lighting at 3 am kind of sucks for picture taking. But anyways, as you can see, I've already turned the heel. People say that the Monkey socks go fast.... and man they weren't kidding! I'm knitting them on 2.5 mm aluminum needles. And it's in the Wollmeise superwash sock yarn in Campari-Orange (soooooo pretty.).

That's all for now I suppose... I should really get to bed. Oh, also wanted to say that C and I are headed over to Freiburg for the weekend, so there won't be any updating between now and Monday. Plenty of knitting will be taking place though... long train rides are good for that!

Happy Knitting!

Wednesday, June 20, 2007

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.