(This was supposed to go live during last week - on the 12th, to be exact. Why on earth it never did - beats me. I'm serving it to you now instead. And I'm retroactively sorry for the blog silence.)

I had an unplanned-for splurging moment in Freienfels, when I went to Sabine's stall on Sunday afternoon and decided that yes, that was my cardigan hanging there in the back of her stall (some assembly required).


I have been ogling the pinwheel sweater (ravelry link) for a good while now, but I absolutely wanted a very nice, gradual colour change. With blues and greys, and maybe some teal. I had been thinking about using Kauni wool, but after knitting my legwarmers last autumn, I decided not to use Kauni ever again - my hand spinning on a bad day is less irregular than that skein I had.

Then I was pondering getting some top, dyed in a gradual colour change, and spin the yarn for the pinwheel. But I don't get to spin much, and the yarn would be very thin, or quite irregular and ugly, or plied from 4 to 5 singles, and I can't see myself finishing anything like that before I'm about 120 years old. Plus I am sort of unwilling to spin dyed top in large amounts. (I much prefer to spin historically prepared wool, nowadays.)

So... I splurged on an array of blues and greys, in really thick and deliciously soft yarn. And I wound the first two balls, on my day off after Freienfels. And started knitting.



Of course, it wouldn't be me knitting if there wouldn't be some modifications. Basic pattern is the pinwheel sweater, but with left-leaning increases instead of yarn-overs, and starting with four stitches from an I-cord "belly button" for a better and easier start.

And I am knitting with two yarns at one time, making "barberpole stripes" for that more or less gradual colour change; each of the two colours has four increases, so I don't have the alternating increase round and plain round, but always the same round (except for where the increases are). One of the yarns increases right before the green markers, the other right before the white markers; each double-round starts with the white-marked yarn. And I've made a bit of progress since taking these pictures - though it will take some time still until I can put in the armholes.

Hooray knitting!

(Update: Since my day off yesterday was partly spent knitting on this, I am by now just a little past the armhole line - so there's garishly red thread knitted in there, to take out later and knit the sleeves on.)

A few weeks ago, I wrote about a stealth baby knitting project. The item in question has, meanwhile, been finished, laughed about, gifted and has been favourably received by the mother-to-be.

And that means I can unveil them to you now...the soccer booties.
These soccer booties are based on a simple, basic bootie pattern with laces (Michelle Lo's "Sneaker Booties", free Ravelry pattern). The booties are worked cuff-down and in the round in the sock part, then the upper part of the shoe is worked in the flat. The sides of the shoe are worked in the round again, and the sole knitting closes off the bootie.
The booties were knit with different yarns, mostly about worsted weight, on 2.5 mm needles. I brought in colour changes and added bobbles to simulate the cleats on the sole. Working those in different, contrasting colours is what makes the finished item really pop – that, however, also means a lot of ends to weave in. You are duly warned.

Step 1:
Find out which colours to use. Do not skip this step – it is a safe bet that somebody who will be amused or delighted by these booties has a preference for a club. Clubs have their own colours. And choosing the wrong colours – that of the faved club’s main adversary, for example – will most probably lead to severe diminishment of both amusement and delight.

Step 2:
Decide on your colour scheme. You can work two colours in the socks or work the socks in one colour and the shoes in another (more or less neutral) colour. Modern soccer shoes are black, yellow, blue, red, white or brown; other colours are rather rare. The cleats come out best if they are knitted in a contrasting colour.

Instructions here are given for a two-colour sock (with two narrow stripes near the cuff) and two-coloured shoes. Photos are of the prototype; I tweaked the written pattern after that, which means it should come out a bit better now. Please let me know if you find mistakes!

Step 3:
Start knitting.
CO 36 sts in main sock colour. Join without twisting; place m to mark start of round.
Rd. 1-3: Work k2 p2 ribbing.
Rd. 4: k in sock contrast colour.
Rd. 5: sl 1st st, k in main sock colour.
Rd. 6-7: k in main sock colour.
Rd. 8: k in sock contrast colour.
Rd. 9: sl 1st st, k in main sock colour.
Rd. 10 – 15: k in main sock colour.
Rd. 16: k in main shoe colour.
Rd. 17: p in main shoe colour.
Rd. 18: sl 1st st, k to end.

Shoe upper starts now.
Setup row: k 18 sts, turn; purl 12 sts. Turn.
Row 1: (RS) k2, ssk, yo, p4, yo, k2tog, k2. If you prefer, you can slip the first st after turning in the shoe upper part; this can make picking up stitches easier.
Row 2: (WS) p4, k4, p4
Row 3: k4, p4, k4
Row 4: p4, k4, p4
Repeat R 1-4 two times more, then work R1 once.
Work 5 rows in stocking stitch (you end on a WS row). Turn.

Shoe sides start now.
Knit 12, do not turn. Pick up and knit 12 stitches along the edge; knit across live stitches; pick up and knit 12 stitches along the second edge. 60 st in total. Move m to current position (new start of round).
Rd 1-5: knit.
Rd. 6: purl.
Rd. 7: sl 1 st, p in shoe contrast colour.
Rd. 8: p 1st stitch in shoe contrast colour, change to shoe main colour, p to end of rd.

Sole starts now.
The sole is worked by knitting back and forth and knitting the last sole stitch together with the first live stitch from the shoe side rounds. You will work the basic rows (rs and ws), substituting a bobble row for the basic row in row 5, 11, 27 and 31.

Basic right-side row (odd numbers): k 11, ssk, turn.
Basic wrong-side row (even numbers): p 11, p2tog, turn.
Bobble row (work on r 5, 11, 27 and 31): k 2. Make bobble, k6, make bobble, k1, ssk, turn.

Make bobble: Bring in shoe contrast colour and work 7 st in next st by working the following: k, yo, k, yo, k, yo, k. (You can count the four knits to keep track.) Turn work, p 7. Turn, k 7. Turn, p 7. Sl 3 st to right needle, k 1, sl other st over this knit st, alternating between st from left and right needle. Take up main colour again and continue knitting with main colour. Snip off contrast colour, leaving a nice long tail.

When you have only 24 st left on your needles after R 36, graft the sole stitches together with the remaining live stitches from the shoe side rounds.

Finishing up:
Weave ends in securely. With the longer tail left after each cleat bobble, sew the bobble sides to the shoe sole for extra security. Block if desired, thread in laces.

Step 4: Laugh about the silly little soccer booties. Give to somebody-not-yet-walking to wear them. Enjoy.

I am sure that knitting for babies is something that oodles of other knitters have discovered for themselves during hundreds of years, and now it was finally my turn. Yes, that was not very long ago, but I think I can be excused for that - after all, I haven't been knitting for so long.

First of all, babies have one definitive asset for being knit for: They are small. Really small. And while knitting something small might be a tad fiddly, it is really fast work - after all, there's so many less stitches in a sock for a 3 months old than a 30 year old.

And secondly (and I think that's even more important), they don't want a say yet in what they will be wearing. As long as it fits (more or less) and is the proper warmth for the ambient temperature, it will be okay.
And they are not walking. Which is the go-ahead, the carte blanche, the glorious licence to do some really outrageous knitting. If the parents are amused by it and like it - that's what the wee one will wear (at least until he or she wiggles out of it).

So... I used part of the weekend for some tongue-in-cheek stealth knitting project. Which is not so far from being finished, though there's still a gazillion of ends to weave in and finishing touches to be done. Photos will follow after the real-life reveal, which will hopefully be soon.

Firstly, for all those of you who are planning to put in a visit to the V&A before they close down the textile study room, a heads-up: I have been sent additional information by two friends who went there and found that, without any further notice, the staff closed the study room at noon.

So they recommend that

any colleagues intending to make a special visit to the collection are *strongly* advised to contact the museum first to check that the room is likely to be open : they probably won't give any promises, citing the usual weasle phrase "lack of resources", but pointing out that the room will soon be closed anyway might help.

So please phone ahead if going to the V&A to save you a disappointment.

Secondly, there are more conferences coming up: The Braid Society meeting in 2012 and the Leeds Congress 11-14th of July 2011. I have made the mistake of looking at the preliminary programme up on the website, and now I'm totally lusting to go there. If only beaming were invented already!

Thirdly, I spent part of the weekend having a load of fun with the new "in" sports discipline, Extreme Hedgehog Wrestling. Here's photo proof of it:


And this is the hedgehog in rest:



The thing lying around on the table in addition to the needles and yarn is a count-down d20* that I use for counting knitting rounds. (For those of you not enlightened by roleplaying friends sharing their dice and knowledge, countdown dice have the numbers arranged so you can easily find the next one in sequence - as opposed to normal dice where you have to hunt for the next number.)



It's a pattern that was published in Knitty a while ago**, and contrary to my usual approach, I actually did not change anything when knitting it. Well, except using dpns instead of the recommended two circs, and messing with the needle size : yarn thickness ratio to get the correct gauge. (Hint: My needles are, to a normal knitter's mind, way too small for the yarn.) After I broke one needle tip during the wrestling session start, I sort of tried to err on the side of caution in regards to the number of needles (and therefor reduced stress on the individual needle).Hedgehog Wrestling then is the natural side effect of this.

* A 20-sided die. Which is plenty for most knitting purposes and a very standard type for a lot of roleplaying games.
** I won't tell you what it is yet, because it's intended as a gift, and you never know who reads this blog. I'll show the finished thing once it's been received, though.

A few days ago, I have finally finished binding off and weaving in the ends of my new socks.

After knitting a pair of Skew socks one sock after the other (which brought a problem in size, since one was done with very different tension than the other) and modifying the pattern so it would fit my higher instep, I had decided to do another pair, and that time simultaneously. Only... with some more tweaking of the pattern since the original heel is not roomy enough for my foot.


So after some knitting, some re-thinking, some maths, some more maths and lo and behold! not a single rip-back, my new socks are now finished. The heel has become roomy and maybe a tad too baggy even (there's a little bit standing out where the heel graft starts), but they fit perfectly otherwise and are oh so comfy.


I think there might be more socks like that in my future - or at least socks with skewed toes, or with otherwise anatomically more correctly shaped toes than standard socks, since I find the fit thoroughly delightful!

 I'm still working hard on all the different bits and pieces for Hartenstein, including getting enough things prepared that I can take sewing work with me when I'm out of office from Wednesday on to the end of October. Which means that I am doing extra-long hours currently - which for me always means that I need something to relax with, and that is usually books, films and, since last year, knitting.

So here's what is currently happening (at least some of it):

Sleeves are getting sewn in and fitted to the Lady's blue dress...


... the man's mi-parti hood in yellow and blue is getting dagges cut and edge-finished with beeswax...


... and to relax, I'm knitting leg warmers in Kauni rainbow-coloured wool.


As usual, I'm knitting two at the same time, which saves all the hassle of counting and writing down the counts, and I'm just past the knee. The leg warmers are fully fitted, because I have rather pronounced leg muscles, and that makes for a lot of shape and circumference, and I even have to increase rather generously for longer socks, let alone leg warmers.


I like the colour scheme and the long, slow changes of colour very much, and I think it's also nice that the two pieces start at a different place in the colour sequence. (Also makes two-at-once knitting dead easy, what with the different colours and so.)
That said, I'm most probably not going to buy that wool ever again: The colour repeats have a different length, so I'm ending up with green knees on both legwarmers. I can live with that, though - what really irks me is the quality of the yarn itself. The yarn is very irregularly spun and quite badly plied at times, changing from the thickness I would have expected to very, very thin plies - more like sewing-thread thickness at the thinnest bits. Were it my own hand-spun wool, I'd be quite ashamed of it, and it makes me rather fearful how long the material will hold up to being used as an item of clothing. And actually, I'm wondering why I never heard about that quality deficiency before - I heard that Kauni can have lots of knots, but so irregularly spun yarn?

Well, at least I have been knowing for a while that these months will be busy.

I'm wrapping up the analysis for the spinning experiment (hah! Finally!) with a little graph interpretation help from the Most Patient Man and preparing the last little bits for the Textile Forum (which starts next week, whee!). Meanwhile, I have also gotten the green light for some sewing for a very interesting project concerning medieval messengers . The project is still in its testing phase, but already sounds immensely exciting.

Apart from this bit of work during the weekend, the rest was fairly relaxed, including two nice breakfasts/brunches with friends and a lot of relaxing and knitting. And I finally finished my current-socks-in-progress:


Skew socks, from Knitty (issue Winter 2009), knit in a teal Regia Sock yarn. Though these are quite thoroughly modified; I have a high instep, and the original pattern did not fit that at all, which led to a major re-write of the pattern to fit my feet. The left sock feels a bit tighter at the moment (which might be due to much less trying-on during the knitting process), but they both fit, and the fit in the toe region is absolutely delightful. As you can see from the picture, I have a wide front foot, and normal socks just don't cut the mustard like these do - so I am actually thinking about adapting just the anatomically correct toe for use with standard knit socks.


Well. Though before I do such an adaptation, I'm planning to cast on for a second pair. And this time around, I won't knit the socks one after the other... but simultaneously. And I'm especially looking forward to simultaneous Judy's Magic cast-on for the two sock toes, which I finally figured out in the middle of Friday night. (The secret? Swiveling the needles.)

And no, I don't usually spend my middles of nights knitting. I spend them sleeping - Friday was an exception.