Sometimes you have to be unfaithful

I have this ongoing conversation about the dark arts - spinning. I am adamant that I will never take up spinning. Not that I think for a second that those of you that do are wrong in anyway but simply because I think that the husband would argue that my starting a second stash would be ample grounds for divorce. And considering the space that my yarn stash takes up, he'd have a point.

Until a few weeks ago I would pretty much have put crochet in the dark arts category. Not because of the stash risk but because I was hopeless at it - and if I am bad at something then it's clearly that thing's fault, not mine. However, recently I was off sick from work for a week and I had a lot of time to kill. Daytime tv in the UK is dire I needed distraction and my brain was bit too befuddled to pay any attention to what was known at home as THE PROJECT - my sister's wedding stole. So instead I decided to play with some DK cotton that I had left in a bag from a project that I worked on ages ago.

And suddenly I was addicted.

Aren't the colours lovely? I keep getting distracted by these and suddenly have visions of a blanket for the house in Wales, baby blankets and all sorts. I am, quite literally, hooked.

What I knitted for the Rowanette Exchange

Samantha at Whizzme has received her Exchange gift from me so I can now blog about it which is good seeing as I have been itching to do for the last week or so.

Samantha's questionnaire said that she liked stripey socks and that her favourite colours were red, pinks and apple green. And that rang a rather big bell in my head as I had bought the yarn to make the 'Stripey Socks' by Sarah Dallas (from her book 'Knitting') last year - for myself.

I've never knitted anything stripey in the round so had to get to grips with remembering to twist the yarn at the colour switch over as well as remembering to do the jogless job to ensure that you couldn't see where I had changed yarns too much. I was amazed at how, when you combine both these techniques, my sock came out looking close to perfect. I am really pleased with where my rounds join.

I usually gripe a little bit at Rowan's habit of making you cast on in one colour and then never use it again for the rest of the garment (they did it for Jenny and a few other garments and it feels, to me, like a way of making you buy more yarn. I am sure that some people who are more design concious would point out the error of my ways).

But in this particular case it was perfect as Samantha had said that she liked green too so I included the cast on row too.

I really enjoyed knitting these socks and I love the red heels and toes - I think that I may need to get some more to make myself a twin pair or I may make triplets as others seem to rather like them too.

My Rowanette Exchange gift

Friday was pretty pants as days go. I'll spare you the details but I got home feeling really sorry for myself. But that feeling soon went away. There was a parcel waiting for me on the doormat. The husband barely glanced at it before sighing 'more yarn' under his breath. He admittedly has a point, but this time I had not been shopping, it was my Rowanette Exchange gift from Amanda.

I tore open the package and here's what the lovely Amanda had sent me.

Aren't I lucky? It's a very thoughtful gift.

The socks are really lovely and fit me perfectly. I did take some shots of them on my feet but somehow I managed to blur them all and it's way too dark now for me take some more shots so I am afraid that you'll have to make do with these. The yarn is Regia Landscape Twilight by Kaffe Fassett. I think that the pictures just about capture the colours of the socks. Amanda is clearly a lovely knitter as the socks are beautifully knitted.

Also in the gift was a skein of King Cole Zig Zag Sock Yarn in the Granite colourway (the husband thinks that this should be turned into a pair of socks for him).

And aren't these just sweet?

Thank you Amanda, I am delighted with my gift!

(I am also very shame-faced as I am really really late sending my parcel off to my recipient. I just hope that she likes it and will post about it as soon as I know that it has arrived.)

Finally, a certain young cat couldn't quite work out why I would want to take pictures of socks instead of taking pictures of her. We had quite the battle of wills (which I eventually won).

Lenten Rose Socks

You'd be forgiven for thinking that my blogging has, recently, been somewhat half hearted. I just wish that my yarn buying habits had followed suit, but that has not been the case to put it lightly. Enough of that though, you'll see the yarn as it slowly gets knitted up and some of it just might make an appearance on Ravelry.

I do have one secret project on the needles which I don't want to blog about about until it arrives on its recipient's doorstep. It's for the Rowanette Exchange and it's very pretty and from stash - but not stash that I don't want, mind you. I read my recipient's description of what she wanted and thought 'Oh I have some x to make y.' But when I went to buy some more online or from my LYS it turns out that the colours had been discontinued. So I decided to give up mine. I remember reading somewhere that a true present was something that you regretted giving up whilst being happy to give it to the recipient. This definately qualifies.

In the meantime, I did manage to finish my Sundara Lenten Rose socks in June just before we left for Mauritius.

I really enjoyed knitting these. Sundara's yarn is a pleasure to work with, I really love the twist of the plies, the yarn is very soft and it knits up well. What more can a girl ask for from a skein of sock yarn?

The colour of the yarn is also stunning. It's no wonder that Sundara's yarns are so sought after, she has a wonderful sense of colour, both in her semi solid yarns but also where she combines different colours. As I've said before, there's hardly a colour I don't like but this one is definately one of my favourites, it's called 'Lenten Rose' after the winter flowers. I hummed and haahed about knitting this up because once it's knitted up, I won't have a skein to knit up any more. I know I have a lot of yarn but still I struggle to knit my favourite skeins as once they are knitted, there is no more.

The pattern was the right level of hard to remember and knit rows which meant that I did a lot of the knitting on the bus to and from work. The bus ticket controller even asked me if I'd give him my socks. I declined. The heel was turned in a way that I hadn't done before so that was interesting and there was an interesting stitch where you increased and decreased in the same stitch at the same time which was quite new to me.

Sundara's Lenten Rose Socks
- The pattern: Sundara's Lenten Rose Sock (Ravelry link)

- The yarn: Sundara Sock Yarn in Lenten Rose.

- The needles: 2.5mm Clover Bamboo DPNs.

- The size: One size. They are ever so slightly tight for me at the top, my fault for making them longer than the pattern and not allowing for the fact that my calves are somewhat larger than my ankles. I am hoping they will stretch a bit after a few washes (Kris said they might!)

- Started: March 2008.

- Finished: June 2008.