Many thanks again to Mouldydc for my SSS present.

Its ages since I made DK socks but couldn't resist starting my alpaca/silk socks straight away and sock 1 is finished.

Its sooooo soft and snuggly but obviously too warm to wear at the moment!

The yarn was an absolute dream to work with and because its DK instead of my usual sock weight, it whizzed off the needles in no time.


I basically made the pattern up because I needed to work toe up since I wasn't sure how far the yarn would go and took the number of sts from the Regia pattern for DK (48sts for size 5 feet). Did a prvisional cast on of 24 sts and worked around the toe cap, then up to the heel and a short row shaping followed by st st for a bit of leg then k2p2 rib until I ran out of the first skein of yarn with just a bit left to cast off.

I think the rib looks better doubled over and since its a winter sock, it will be more snuggly around the ankle.

My Angel Yarns Summer Secret Santa parcel arrived yesterday but I had problems getting Blogger to upload the pictures so here they are.
Everything was slightly disorganised yesterday because of builders in the house so my office was in the garden and I took the pictures out there.
The first is of my still wrapped parcels and the card containing the clue.







Parcel one has undyed sock yarn and some jelly crystals and food colouring. My spoiler had been doing some homework(stalking) and read that I was very eager to try dyeing with jelly after the Koolaid adventures.
also in the package was a pattern for mini sock bookmarks- so dinky and ideal for stocking filler presents and using up the left over bits of sockyarn lying around!






The second parcel contained some dreamy soft 80% alpaca 20% silk DK from the Natural Dye Studio, some 3.5mm DPNs, a beautiful butterfly and some dinky heart shaped buttons in the small voile bag.


Boy was I well and truly spoiled, From the clue in the card, I worked out my spoiler was Mouldydc
and a huge thank you to her.

The alpaca/silk is already nearly a sock and will have a photo on here later...

Kool aid dyed socks update.

1 done, 1 almost to the heel.

I really wasn't sure about how the colours in these would turn out and since the kids chose the colours (see earlier posts) I didn't have much control over it.

The green and purple have worked themselves into alternate row stripes and the pink although it looks like a wider section is actually a spiral running through the other colours. DD1 has now claimed them as hers and since she did a few rows herself, I think she deserves them. She now wants to dye some all by herself and I have to teach her to knit the next pair.

DD2 wants to do somemore dyeing but not so keen on learning how to do socks yet, she wants to knit and felt a handbag first.

and last but not least from the bottom of the box is a pile of purply bluey bits, some of it is Noro Hanna Silk, the variagated is Noro papery stuff, theres some hemp laceweight and assorted bits and bobs, the plan is to turn it into a multitextured wrap of some sort but I might have to add somemore to it .

The other pic is the dregs at the bottom, its a pile of odds and ends usually used for practice squares and that kind of thing.

Phew I feel better now that it's all tidied and photos are done, but do I have the guts to do upstairs? Not likely this weekend, I'm off to knit.....

On the left, leftovers of Kid silk haze becoming crochet squares for something.
And below Debbie Bliss pure silk-the remainders of a pack bought because I fell in love with it, part of it turned into a sleeveless top on a previous post and I'm not sure about the rest, I think some might become a beaded scarf or maybe not.



Good old Clapotis. The yarn was bought in the Anny Blatt shop in Perpignan last year whilst I was there to watch the rugby. Its beautifully soft, has my favourite winter colours in it, and theres just not enough to finish the clap. Its also a nightmare to undo so frogging is not an option. I need to be in a clever mood to sort it out and that just doesn't happen very often but it will happen sometime....

And a pile of Jaeger merino aran and some Rowan Yorkshire tweed. You know when you go into a yarn shop and they have a sale on, everything suddenly has a 'buy me' face on and you know it'll grow into something eventually? well this little lot isn't going to grow at all, its going to shrink...probably into a felted bag or slippers.

next up is bundle of sockie bits. I had a practise with my ball winder when it arrived and thought I'd be mega organised and wind everything and pack it in nice tidy bags but the sock yarn was as far as it got.

Blanket box contents part two.

This huge cone of yarn was part of a box load which was donated to me for my knitting club at school, it's very fine and laceweight and therefore not good for teaching small people to knit. I swapped all of my bits of DK yarn which was hanging around in the cupboard for this and it may eventually become a shawl or something but will most likely just languish for a while. Poor thing , I think it needs to go upstairs to the cupboard where it won't get disturbed so often.





This fair old pile is Classic Elite Yarns Mackenzie
it was bought for a planned Rogue sweater and is 70% wool, 30% silk but its a bit too textured to show off the cables on Rogue so may also have to go in the cupboard for a while until a project idea comes along for it.

This package is Uros aran from Elann.com the shawl pattern is really nice to do, I already made it once in Jaeger Trinity in Cream but had a bit of a curry accident on the first wearing so it was dyed to a sandy colour instead.
Anyhoo, the Uros Aran is the next planned shawl
I fancy something a bit thicker for the autumn and this yarn is really soft being 50% wool 50% Llama.

wow, 2 posts in one day!
I must be feeling really guilty or is it just that I have the house to myself for a couple of hours (and boy is that precious time) so I thought I would get ahead of my stash photo session and organise everything (yeh right), anyway, I looked in my cupboard and looked in my blanket box and pulled a few things about a bit then panicked and poured a glass of wine, then I ate a pork pie (sophisticated or what?) then I decided to do downstairs first, so blanket box it is..... not in any particular order, this contains hidden WIPS, files of patterns, stuff that gets bunged in when I need to tidy up in a hurry, and a suprising amount of yarn (well not so much suprising as embarrasing)

This baby is the Ogee sweater from Nature Knits by Norah Gaughan, well its most of a sleeve anyway knitted in Angel Yarns 4 ply sock yarn. It happened one night last week when I was fed up with the shawl knitting and fancied something straightforward for a change.














And this is the lonely glove knitted last year on the way to Ally Pally, destined to loneliness until the autumn I fear. The pattern is from a Rowan magazine but can't remember the number at the mo.



This is Elann Sierra aran with accompanying planned pattern for a lace cardigan worked from the top down. Its been there a while now and I really should start it once I finish the Ogee sweater.











And this is karaoke bought to make an order up to the free postage mark and will find itself being a felted bag at some point. The colours don't look so good in this photo, they are a fair bit brighter especially the greeny/blue, which I believe was called mermaid.


Sorry for the interruption folks but I just got invited to the pub... more later if I'm still sober, more tomorrow if I'm not. I'm feeling slightly more virtuous now I've made a start on this so I think I deserve a swift drinky

oh poor neglegted blog, I've been too busy knitting and going out to say hello. I have to stay in tomorrow while the nice man from BT comes to fix my phone line (finally! fault reported on tuesday at 8:40 am and the are coming to repair on saturday) so I should have a nice time knitting, photo-ing and then blogging. Everyone else will be out and I will have peace for a few hours. I plan to dig out all of the stash and have a good sort through and if I'm feeling really virtuous, I'll finally get around to sending Nadia that yarn for her charity knitting, if I leave that until after sorting out the stash, there will probably be more for her to keep her orphans warm with!

DD2 is in Wales for a week with my camera, therefore no photos to post, therefore very boring blog.
Normalish blogging will resume at the end of the week

Not much new knitting happening this week, it has been the week from hell as far as work goes and the kids are silly busy this time of year so loads of ferrying around etc to be done, but I did tidy out my blanket box which hides part of the stash and found a knitted and felted bag which was waiting to be put together.
I made it a while ago from leftovers of Jaeger 4ply merino and Kid Silk Haze, held together.
The KSH helped to felt the finer wool and mutes the colours. I bought a bag shaper insert from SWTC a while ago and used that aswell. The bag has now been in use since Thursday and is a nice little summery number which goes with at least two pairs of flip-flops and a pair of sandals, so no excuse to buy new shoes to go with it (huh).


I then decided to do a bit of indulgent knitting so I made a sock with some of the yummy Angora blend I splurged on at the AY weekend, the pattern is from Interweave Winter 2005 and is the Embossed leaves socks designed by Mona Schmidt.
Angora is definately a yarn to knit outside since the bits kept getting up my nose indoors and its lightweight enough to knit on the hottest of days (like today). The finished sock is so light (15 grammes) and fluffy and soft I even cast on the second one straight away. The lightness of the sock means I'll get another out of the 50g ball and probably a pair of shorty socks too or I might make a pair of matching fingerless gloves or wristwarmers. and since I have another whole ball too, a scarf would be the obvious follow on but I do still have several other things to finish aswell
so I might just have to save the Angora for garden knitting over the summer.....

Off now to do some more of the sleeves for MIL's cardi since she needs it finished by next Friday for her hols.