Mending Monday

I had a hole in one of my very favourite pairs of socks.  They are Monkey by Cookie A.  which nearly all of us have knit at least once. I think I've made at least 3 pairs. But this pair is MINE. I knit them toe up in Koigu and I love love love them. I probably wear them at least once a week.  So, the hole was devastating!

I put them in a drawer and vowed to fix it and they've been sitting there for several months.  But I MISS them (and I'm low on laundry!) so it was time to mend. 
I keep small amounts of all my sock yarns for just such an occasion in a ziplock bag in my stash, so I dug that out and then picked up the stitches above and below the hole on two small needles. I think I used  my 000's.  Then I grafted them together just as if I was kitchenering a toe of a sock.  Then, I reinforced the areas around the hole with the ends.  I wove them through the rows following the stitches themselves in the places where the yarn looked a bit worn.  Then I weaved the ends inside the sock.  It took all of 5 minutes, and look!

You can barely tell there was ever a hole! Hopefully this will hold up for many more wears, but if it doesn't, I have plenty more scrap yarn for mending.  I'm just annoyed at myself for taking so long to fix it!!

Don't procrastinate like me!  Today's lesson: a fixed sock is a wearable sock!  :)

Happy Knitting!

SereKnitty

Baby Knits

My best friend's daughter should be born sometime today or tomorrow. They are inducing the birth mother this evening. As much as I wish I could wrap this woman is soft hand knit love, it will be a closed adoption. Since I can't knit a gift to thank the woman who is giving my friend and her husband their 12 year wish of starting a family, the least I can do is make sure this baby is the best dressed baby in town. To that end, I knit her a pair of socks and a matching hat in Luscious by Kollage to keep her warm in the hospital:

And then I knit her a little cotton dress in Cascade Pima so she has something pretty to wear when they finally get to take her home.

Of course I have more things planned, but at least I have a few things ready to get her started off on a lifetime of hand knits! Welcome, baby Sera! I can't wait to meet you!

Naughty Skew!

Look what my Skew socks did to the inside of my sneakers!

This is AFTER the socks have been washed several times! I find it amusing that you can see the stripes.

Just in Time for St. Patrick's Day!

Wore them out today, too! They fit great.

Did you have any green knitwear on for St. Patrick's Day?

New Colourways!

It's been ages since we blogged AND since we've updated the etsy shop, but I'm finally adding some new colourways! The first one is another Harry Potter themed colourway. I call her Cho, and she's an idea I've had in my head for a while now:

I want to try different ways to dye this colourway in the future, so I'm sure the next batch will be a bit different. But I love how she turned out!

I'm going to be updating Etsy with more yarns and goodies soon, so keep an eye out!!

One of the reasons we haven't updated in ages is because we've had a busy summer/fall. We've had a craft show a month for the last three months, which has kept us both busy knitting and dyeing and it's been hard to update stock when we keep having to resupply it. Not that I'm complaining. It's been fun!

And, as always, we've been busy knitting away. We did the Hungry Bees pattern as our Socktober Knit-a-long, and mine turned out very fun

(The other foot was in an ankle wrap. Just imagine there are two feet!)

I also knit a cute little cabled cardigan

And I'm working on test knitting a pair of socks for a friend. They're very cabled and use Austrian twisted stitches. They're so pretty! I'm using MadelineTosh Tosh Merino Lite in the Sugar Plum colourway.

I hope to read the heel flap tonight! There are cables down the back of the heel, which I've never done before. I love doing new knitting things.

That's what's been keeping me busy. What about you?

Catching up

Wow, it's been a while! We've been so busy this spring/summer. But here's what's going on with me:

My Coldsheeping totals for June are:

Total Yardage in my stash: 28150.08
Total yards used in 2011: 8992.08
Total yards used in June: 780.06

Not too shabby, but a slow month compared to what I've been doing. But, that's ok, because I have some larger projects on my needles that will be done next month, and I'm always churning out a few small projects.

Plus, I'm really trying to work on finishing up some UFO (unfinished objects) so I've instituted FINISH FRIDAYS (I didn't coin the term) where I work on a UFO for an hour on Friday to try to get it done and off the needles. I can do more than an hour, of course, but squeezing in an hour when I have deadlines looming can be tough. So, this past Friday I picked up my Jaywalkers, or Sreklawyaj, as I like to call them, as I'm knitting them toe up. :)

Here is the picture before I started. The rubber ducky marks my starting point.

I popped in a DVD, knit away and when I was done, it looked like this:

Not too shabby for one episode of "Wonderfalls". Tune back in next week when I'll try to get even further!

Besides working on UFOs and some larger projects I haven't finished yet, I did manage to finish a few things in June. First, a pair of ankle socks (because I am addicted to ankle socks!)

A second Whisper Cardigan that I knit out of a worsted weight, hand dyed cotton boucle that I am calling my ROAR! Cardigan (for obvious reasons)

And this adorable toy. It starts as a squirrel:

And flips into a hedgehog!

I know I shouldn't have favourites, but isn't that hedgehog CUTE?

Oh, and I also spun up a small skein of some llama fibre I got at Rhinebeck last year. I'm going to dye it and then knit it into something for myself:

It's the first fingering weight I've been able to spin so I'm quite proud of it!

And that's what I've been up to recently. What have you been knitting?