Cheshire Cat Socks

"Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to walk from here?"

"That depends a good deal on where you want to get to," said the Cat.

"I don't care much where -----" said Alice.

"Then it doesn't matter which way you walk," said the Cat.

"----so long as I get somewhere," Alice added as an explanation.

"Oh, you're sure to do that," said the Cat, "if you only walk long enough."

Alice felt that this could not be denied, so she tried another question. "What sort of people live about here?"

"In that direction," the Cat said, waving its right paw round, "lives a Hatter; and in that direction," waving the other paw, "lives a March Hare. Visit either you like: they're both mad."

"But I don't want to go among mad people," Alice remarked.

"Oh, you can't help that," said the Cat: "we're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad."

"How do you know I'm mad?" said Alice.

"You must be," said the Cat, "or you wouldn't have come here."

-Lewis Carroll

Here is the Shetland lace pattern that I modified to make 5 holes so it looks like a cat's paw print. It starts at the toe and creeps up the foot and leg and around the ankle.

Picot bind off on the cuff because "it looks pretty" and it looks like a crown on the top. 

So I finally finished up these socks! I am pleased with the design and the colors, but I kept putting them off because I wasn't pleased with the yarn. It was too splitty and took lots of tension-correction, and feels like really dry cotton. I'm going to find someone to do a custom "Cheshire Cat" colorway for me so I can knit up some more in some yummy yarn. And I will be making an adult pair! These are being worn by my 4 year old right now. Pattern will be available soon. I plan on doing some toddler/kids sizes and then adult. It's very simple and knits up very fast. 

Perhaps after this next project, I will do some more from Alice in Wonderland. Queen of Hearts socks, White Rabbit, etc. Hmmm. 

The Saartje Booties,Bellatrix socks, & LOTR sock club!

Here are my finished Saartje booties. I tried to use a colorway that was neither feminine nor masculine, but had great color since it's knit in garter and that always showcases the color bumps. I can't get a good picture of the color, but they're blue, purple and green. They ended up being 3" in length, so they are totally newborn.

I did them the Bockstark way, so I could knit them in the round, but I did them two-at-a-time, so I changed a few things on them and ended up doing the straps completely seamless instead of the original way. I'll post the pattern of how I did them later on. I'm too....pregnant and tired to do it now :)

"One of the Black Sisters, her evilness grates on you like 1000 runs in your stockings"
Here are the toes and start of my Bellatrix socks. I'm actually up to the gusset right now, but I've had a few mishaps. First, my #1 bamboo circular broke (the cable where it connects). So...it was New Years Eve and I had to wait until yesterday to pick up a new needle. I got an Addi Turbo Lace for it. Then, I was just sitting down to knit last night after a long day of crazy kiddo-ness, and my #0 broke. It just broke off at the wooded part where the cable connects. OK. I get it. No more bamboo for socks. I'll use the damn Addi's for now. I'm also going to order the KnitPicks Harmony since they have metal connections and I think they will work with the tiny sizes just fine.

So, I'll be heading out to my LYS again today to pick up some Addi Turbos in #0. My Bellatrix socks are totally cursed, but I don't care. They are awesome and I'm going to finish them. I also had a casuality in the manner of my Brittany birch DPN's last night. Morgana was holding two of them pretending to knit and went to sit up off the couch and snapped one right in half. Luckily I had 6 in the set, so there's still 5 should I need them. I'm having a hell of a time with needles the past few days. I don't know what's up.


And to end this posting, I was clicking on my groups on Ravelry and I saw a new group "LOTR sock club". I clicked on it and found a cool yarn company called The Unique Sheep that was hosting a LOTR sock club. I was all excited about it as LOTR stuff is harder to find now as everyone in the mainstream is "over" it now. And I think there's only one sock pattern on Ravelry for it (Rivendell). And now, here is a whole club, 6 months long for 2009, with a monthly payment option (affordable!), and exclusive colorways and patterns that make sock clubs so much fun! All LOTR! Jim even seems to think this is a cool idea. Knitting is so much fun because of the entire Ravelry thing, I swear.

So, it looks like it's going to be a busy Spring for me with two sock clubs going on for the first part of 2009. And a new baby. Anyday now. 37 weeks and counting. This pregnancy is not bouncy and spritely like my others...it's wiping me out. I'm ready for the baby to come, I'm ready to have five children and be done with pregnancy in the future. I never knew when I'd hit this point, but I kept telling everyone that I would *know* when it hit. I would *know* when my family was complete (this is in response to the multitude of times I've been asked how many children I'm going to have). I wish I had more time to just sit and ponder over the baby, and enjoy this last little bit of time before they arrive.

P.S. Did I mention that I happened to find the LOTR sock club on the very last day of sign-ups? And signed up for it at nearly 9pm without even knowing it was the last day. I would've kicked myself if I had waited until the next day or pondered it a bit more.

Well, Jim is home from work, I'd like to snuggle him up a little bit, and then I have to head over and get my needle and a tiny hank of sock yarn for baby.

Sockies and the floppy puppy

Here you are, the tiniest little sockie around. This is from the handspun local alpaca I got. It's loftier and denser than I'd have imagined. Definitely use a #2 needle next time. Possibly a #3. That's the toe for the second one on the #1 circulars next to it. And they are both lounging on top of my one Baudelaire sock. Keeping it company. I will now have to re-wind 1/3 of my alpaca ball because one of the kitties (I don't know which..) took it out of the bag, and unwound it while I slept. So....apparently it's nice to snuggle with. But now I have to attempt to detangle it so I can knit with it. Damn kitties.

Here's Gabe snuggling up with Morgana's xmas present that I knit. I have to make him the stuffed kitty now because he is sorely upset that he has to stop playing with it so I can hide it and wrap it. Luckily she slept in today so I got around to the face. I really don't like embroidery on toys. I'm trying to get over that issue. And I'm convinced that pattern-makers must be lying when they tell you to make a 'french knot' for the eyes and you see their perfectly not small and circular "knots" on the faces. I thought I just sucked, but I decided to do a french knot, then do chain stitches from the center to the outside all around to make a dense circle. That seems to be the trick.

All my knits love to hang out with my sock.

September takes a break from watching the snow to investigate the floppy puppy. Nope. Doesn't smell like alpaca. Back to the snow.

Baudelaires

I have had so many gauge troubles with these socks. I just couldn't get the right gauge, just not quite. Well, short of getting some 0 dpn's, as I only have 1's and 2's, and 0 in circular, but one 16" only. I think I've got it now.

I really love the pattern though, and the yarn. I love the Jitterbug! And the garnets of varying shades are enough to make me want to roll all over my yarn in happiness. It knits up very velvety, especially with #2 needles (which I can't use for this..but..just saying..). Anyhow, so my progress thus far, after two froggings because of gauge issues....

I'm onto the fourth repeat of the instep main pattern....getting very close to beginning the gusset. The pattern is lovely so far. Easy to follow, and it's got enough variance to keep me excited and happy, but not too much to boggle, and not too little to make me bored bored bored.

So....I'm beginning to have a little bit of an obsession with Biscotte & Cie's yarn. I haven't even bought any yet, but she has so much Harry Potter themed yarns, Captain Jack, and so many amazing other colorways based upon scenes, thoughts, etc. And the yarns actually knit up into patterns, like the one that looks like real watermelon with seeds.

I bought this yarn for Miss M's little sock project, and as I was winding it and commenting to Jim that it looks really amazing (and I'm not the biggest fan of pink) - he told me it looks like the Cheshire Cat. I've always been a huge fan of Alice in Wonderland and still want an original publishing of it....well, he's right! I wonder if there's a way I can capture that theme into the socks? I don't find many inventive child sock patterns. I could adapt one perhaps. Depends on my skills.

How am I ever going to get anything done for the new baby? I have too much and too many people to knit for as requests come pouring in lately. The baby will be here in about a month. Wait, that can't be right?! Seriously? Wow, I need to buy some bamboo diapers still, and make more longies.

I always had a sock obsession (I like that word), and then I sort of "grew" out of it. I remembered it when Miss M began to collect weird, funky, fun, and interesting socks. I don't even own any socks of my own right now. Yes. How did that happen? I've been wearing Jim's during cold weather. Which he blames me for all of his missing socks. Which is just such a lie. I mean, I'm the one that puts them in the laundry, washes and puts them away. But him....I just found a pair of his socks that he lost in the couch cushions a few days ago. The couch was a famous place for him to "lose" his socks on a weekly basis. I think when it comes to sock issues, he just needs to look inward and face the truth. Sorry my darling...but you know I don't like lying.

So....now I understand my psychology behind why I want to knit every sock pattern I see and buy massive amounts of sock yarn. My old obsession is reemerging and now it involves crafting. Mmmm. Sweet obsession. And soon, I may have my first pair of socks in years. And then I can move onto the Harry Potter sock patterns. Do you know there are at least 30 of them? Harry Potter fans rock. Rock my socks in fact.

The quest for socks

Well, there are a million things I'd like to knit, for the holidays, but I don't have the time. Next year, I can plan it out better since I'll have all year to work on items. My recent obsessions seems to be with socks. I just seem to be unable to find what I want though. I know what this means. It means I need to just pick somewhere and start there before I keep putting it off waiting for perfection. Perfection of what - I don't know. The right color, the right yarn, the right price, the right pattern.

It's getting closer and closer to the time of this baby's birth. I am feeling a greater and greater connection to the baby as days close near, and I love this part. I keep trying to get an idea of whether this is a boy or a girl, and I didn't seem able to figure that part out. I realized that in all of my new baby knitting, I was keeping the designs and colors fairly neutral, but that I was feeling like it was "okay" to be drawn to more girly items. Does this mean I'm carrying a girl? Possibly. I have the hardest time differentiating between intuition and want with these things. Everyone but my mother thinks it a girl. I'm not quite sure what she thinks actually - just that she seemed skeptical of my thoughts of it being a girl. But she likes being skeptical of everything I think, so that's probably all it is. Hmmm. Not too much longer to find out.

So...there I was two days ago. Friday. Rush hour. Me. Driving into rush hour in downtown Portland. I was actually heading to Yarn Garden because I was thinking they had Blue Sky Alpacas dyed cottons. I found out that they only had the natural colors, and that that yarn is very hard to find in town for some reason. I settled on Mission Falls 1824 cotton because the colors matched up with what Miss M requested. I'm not very excited about the hand with this yarn, as it slightly annoys me as I knit with it - but it's not bad at all. Definitely a good deal though. As for her xmas present project, she's requested a pink and purple puppy from Heidi Boyd's book of fun designs. So far, I've got the body done, and working on the third leg. It's really simple, but a little boring with the legs. I think it's because I have to work on it in secret to avoid the little girl seeing it - so I find myself working on it at times when I'm sleepy or would rather be doing something else - out of pure practicality of course. It's become my "must do" project instead of my "want to" project right now. I'm still contemplating whether or not I have time to make the little finger puppets and castle from that book for her teacher.

Really, I want to find a yarn store today that's open on Sundays (that's possible), and that has the sock yarn I want (also quite possible). Next month will likely be dedicated to making many more longies and sweaters for the new one arriving sometime then.

For now, it's time to go and do something else on this lovely and quiet Sunday morning. I seem to spend all my time on Ravelry anymore instead of other places I used to haunt.