The curse of the boyfriend socks

As I briefly mentioned last post, I've broken my sock-knitting cherry, so to speak. I'm knitting the pattern Treads (Ravelry link) by Kimberly Fairchild from Debbie Stoller's Son of Stitch 'n' Bitch for my boyfriend. You may or may not know about the boyfriend sweater curse, where if you knit a sweater for your boyfriend, the relationship is doomed to failure. It sort of makes sense... you work really hard on a sweater and your boyfriend doesn't appreciate all that work, so you feel resentful, and then eventually break up because you don't feel he cares about you. I just hope it's not the same for socks, though I did show him the pattern and the yarn I would be using, and he seemed to like both. Plus, I already made him a hat and scarf, and we're still going strong.

Anyway, the pattern is quite nice. It's very simple and elegant, but it has a cable detail that makes it interesting to knit. This is actually the first time I knit cables as well, so I'm popping two cherries with one stone! The leg of the sock is a simple 2x2 ribbing with two cables that curve down each side of the sock. Here's Kimberly Fairchild's original picture from the book:



And here's a crappy webcam picture of my first sock so far. I've completed two cables!



The yarn I'm using is Araucania's Ranco Solid (previously mentioned in this post) in the "Midnight" colourway. It's quite lovely, mostly black with hints of navy here and there, which looks quite nice when knitted up. I'm still getting used to the fingering weight yarn on 2mm double pointed needles, but so far, I think I like sock knitting... We'll see what I have to say when I need to turn the heel.

Finished object dump

Over the last couple of weeks, I've finished off a lot of projects. First, I finally got around to sewing the satin binding on that baby blanket, and just got it to my colleague before he and his new family took off to Montreal for the summer. He really liked the satin edging because it was so soft, and also that the blanket is washable (babies puke a lot). Here's a picture of the finished product:



Next, I finished that giant granny square blanket. I put an edging around it in a pale pink yarn that I got from my grandmother's stash, using a pattern from the Lion Brand site. After steam blocking it, the fabric has a beautiful drape. I think the edging really pulls it together... but I still have no idea who to give it to. I need to get a pregnant friend who's having a girl.



After that, I finished a doily for my pet bamboo shoot (who I affectionately call Alfred). It's made of bright green cotton thread that was a gift from the mother of a friend of mine who used to be into thread crochet and tatting. I used a pattern from a vintage doily book that I got on ebay (thinking it would be the paper copy, but it was actually a cd with a bunch of pdfs) called "Chic Circles". After blocking it, it looked much better than I expected it to.



Finally, I finished the armwarmers for the icelandic turtleneck I was crocheting. Unfortunately, I don't have any updated pictures of that.

In other news, I've started sock knitting! More on that later.

Toronto's Twenty-Somethings

This evening I had my first social knitting experience. Well, maybe not very first... but previous craft evenings were intermittent at best, and there were only ever a couple of us (a maximum of four once) meeting at one of our homes. Today, however, I met up with a group of total strangers at a restaurant. I've been wanting to find some sort of stitch'n'bitch group in Toronto for a while now, and so I searched Ravelry. I found a few, the most interesting being the Toronto's Twenty-Somethings and drunken knitters (who I might join tomorrow night). The former meets at a very nice restaurant on Markham street, just south of Bloor, and that was where I went at 7pm this evening.

They were out on the patio, five twenty-something women, all knitting. I asked if I'd come to the right place, and they welcomed me with open arms! It was such a fantastic experience. We had drinks, discussed each other's projects, and talked about everything from Michael Jackson to vampire novels (though the two don't seem totally unrelated... too soon?). I think I'll definitely go next week! It's so refreshing to have a group of people to knit and discuss my obsession with.

Anyway, I was working on the cloud bolero (pictures here) that I started yesterday. I already have about four inches done because chunky yarn works up fast on 8mm needles (not because I'm a fast knitter). Here's a picture I took this morning, though a lot more is done now:



I'm using James C. Brett's Marble Chunky in the "Landscape" colourway. I can't get over how much I love working with this yarn. It's soft, and the colour changes are fun to watch. Who cares if it's 100% acrylic!

Man's best friend

I recently completed a crocheted stuffed puppy as a gift for my grandmother. It turned out quite well, despite the trouble I have with that fluffy white yarn. I gave him black button eyes, and a cute little curly tail. Here he is in all his adorableness:









I have the feeling she really liked him, since when I gave him to her, she fawned over him all afternoon.

Fastest crocheter and pie on a stick

In the same vein as last post, where I discovered the world's fastest knitter, I decided to look up the world's fastest crocheter! Apparently, the Guinness World Record holder for fastest crocheter, at 5,113 stitches in 30 minutes (that's about 3 stitches per second!), is Lisa Gentry, born in Germany, and now living in Louisiana. She is also a successful (I think) crochet designer. Here is Lisa Gentry's crochet speed challenge where she does 24 treble crochets in a minute:



For the second part of my post, I want to talk about pie. I love pie, in all its forms... double-crust, single-crust, meringue-topped... There aren't many pies I'll say no to. I'm even into savory pies, like meat pies and quiche. I was reading Bittersweet this morning and Hannah was presenting a recipe for veaganized Grasshopper Pie. It looks delicious of course, but later in her post, she freezes the pie pieces, puts them on a stick, dips them in chocolate and calls them pie- sicles! What a genius idea! Why hasn't anyone else thought of this? I would buy them by the dozen... however, with Hannah's recipe, I guess I can make them by the dozen... yum yum. Here's her picture:

Fast knitting!

I get newsletters from a few yarn companies, including Lion Brand and Patons, as well as from a couple of craft sites, including Crochet Me and Knitting Daily. In my knitting daily newsletter, there was a really interesting video about getting stripes to line up when knitting in the round, since that technique is really knitting in a spiral.

Anyway, Eunny Jang, the master knitter on Knitting Daily TV, demonstrated her stripe changing technique on a sock, and holy crap can that woman knit fast! She was knitting continental style, and did those needles ever fly. I knit maybe a quarter of that speed. So here's the video, though you don't see her knit until about 4 minutes in.




I wonder if there's a world record for the fastest knitter. According to this YouTube video and this one, it's Miriam Tegels from Holland. She managed to do 118 stitches per minute... which is almost 2 stitches per second. Wow. She also knits continental style, though the second fastest knitter in the world knits English style (a thrower instead of a picker).

Lacy hat, better picture

This is after blocking. The hat is just dreamy soft, though a little warm for this weather... yay for cotton-angora! I think I'm in love with knitting lace. This (scroll down) is my dream project... drools.