so soft

There is no way Rowan Soft 4ply is 100% merino. It is a little too silky, the stitch definition is slightly better than you'd expect, its soft elasticity isn't quite believable and I don't trust that sheen one bit.

I swear someone slipped in some silk and microfibre when the rest of the team weren't paying attention. Made Mr and Mrs Rowan look the other way with a distressed sheep or something.

Whatever, it is yummy yarn. I like to think of it as butter disguised as candyfloss*swirls, desperately trying to escape the tightly spun structure Rowan have imposed upon them. When I have babies I will make all their clothes from it. But I don't plan to do that for a while, so until then, it was perfect for my granddad's socks.

He is 85 in a few weeks, had a dodgy knee and has problems getting his socks on somedays. Plus, as an elderly person circulation concerns dictate he really shouldn't have anything with too-tight a cuff. Lycra can be great in some things, but not necessarily for old man socks. So I've done a long a really wide ribbed cuff (the soft elasticity of the yarn really helps for this) and a nice big heel so he can slip his feet in easily. The wool will be soft and warm, yet let his feet breathe if they get sweaty. And it doesn't matter if its not too hard waring because he go many places anymore, they are really just an extra layer of slipper. I didn't really use a pattern, its a basic top-down sock on a 2.25mm addi circ.

I also added a nautical design on the toe. This is partly because he's an ex Sailor, but also to "anchor" down those feet he's not so steady on these days.

*candyfloss = "cotton candy" in English (as opposed to American-English)

shhhh, its science

I spent my lunchbreak with pencil and paper at the Science Museum today.

What could that possibly have to do with knitting?

Lots.

But to give specifics would just be telling. You are allowed the one clue: I bought yarn this weekend. Jaeger Matchmaker DK, four whole balls of merino goodness in 655 (burgundy) and 730 (loden). Right, that's all you are getting.

Apart from this red-herring of a photo and the news that this appears to be out. Even in blighty.

sweat pea?

Isn't it funny how your opinions of a project can chop and change so much?

I decided I make socks for my friend K (n.b. I'm not doing the whole fake name in the blog thing, she actually goes under the one letter). It's her 24th this weekend and she's going round the world at Easter. Handknitted socks are just perfect for the traveller, giving me an excuse to get my greedy knitters fingers on some Curious Yarns sock wool and pop my Jaywalker cherry to boot.

When the yarn arrived I was even more excited, the colours reminded me of a photo we'd taken of our feet in Florida a few years back (K and I have many photos of our feet, ahem, another reason why socks were the perfect present). Curious Yarns have a "doubleskein" thing going on - they send you 75g of a MC and 25g of a CC for toes, heels and cuffs. It’s 100% wool, machine washable and yummy.

About an hour in I was loving the pattern, but feeling less enamoured with the yarn. The colours were nice, just not together. Not so bad I'd dump the project, but it was bugging me, the shine of perfect had gone. By the next day I decided I didn't like the pattern either. I know this is about as sacrilegious as criticising the clapotis, hey it lacks stretch! But...

...by the time I'd finished the second sock I'd been totally converted. The colours worked when the cuff was balanced by the heel and the toe, and the pattern - I take it all back, it showed off the yarn so well and snugly hugs around the foot. I started mentally writing my blog entry for the completed project, waxing lyrical about the loveliness of the yarn, etc and speedily cast on the second.

Finished now, its not flawless - the shine of perfection was lost in the idea rather than the reality of the project. Curious Yarn's cute idea of a small skein? Well, I was four rounds short of yarn. As it happens the end of the toe in the MC was ok for this colour combination, but I think I'll stick to the single-skeins in future. So, overall, I'm quite proud. They are super-comfy, and will be just delicious for travelling in.

And don't worry K, I took this shot BEFORE I washed them.

shucks, socks

My Olympic progress has improved, helped muchly by a trip to Kent and back on thursday and knitflicks yesterday, I've finished two socks! Not of the same pair, but two socks nonetheless. And two half-done's on the needles.

I'll leave posting about them till I have a complete pair done. So the photo above is from a book the boy gave me for Valentine's. Not the one about poo, its called Woman's World, its a novel written entirely out of bits of text cut out of 1960's woman's magazines. Its by the guy who does lost consonants series in the Guardian, and hilarious. Thought I'd post it here, as the crafty knitting community is the sort of place to appreciate such things.

Right now I'm making the boy act as a swift while I ball some yarn. His payment for this will be a cherry and almond muffin, which I'm about to take out the oven. Then I'm taking the rest of the batch down the road for knitting with some livejournal/ Bustie types.

Oh, and shucks, such nice comments about the cardigan. Thank you knitting bloggers!

fairly difficult (to knit on crowded tube)

So here be pictures of my "Fairy Easy" cardi. I'll write up a better post on in it the knitalong when I have the time. Just so you know the thing in the background that looks like a toilet seat isn't one, its the door of our washing machine. There is a limit to how much I share, though I admit I have a bit of a reputation for discussing such things (my boy gave me Everybody Poos* for Valentines).

Slow progress on the socks, as I had to stand on a crowded tube this morning rather than my normal hour of public bus knitting. In the rest of public knitting world, one Stacy seems to be suffering from the dreaded gage-issues, but the other Stacy's sock seems to be coming along fine. Laurie has some fantastic pictures of the olympic progress on her bag. Iolarah's doing a hat she's designed herself and I have her to thank for the news that the knit olympics have made it into Wikipedia.

Sarah, however, is my new favourite blog. She's posted a picture of her knitting in public. Moreover, she also has a photo of a pair of Socks that Rock Jaywalkers she knit "on 9 plane flights and in a total of 6 states" - wow! She's doing an alpaca tubey which looks lovely.

* incidentally, when I typed "everybody poos" into the amazon search engine I got a page saying it couldn't help, but would I like to search the keyword "boys" and look at Nintendo games.