A week late and a skein short

So, this will wrap up my sock summit report. I meant to do this last sunday when I got home, but I was simply exhausted. I was in bed by 8:30 and had to be up for work monday morning.

Saturday morning, I had a volunteer session in the bookstore again. It was fun, I got to meet some more authors. I also picked up 2 of Cat Bordhi's sock books. The reason for the books (other than I've been wanting them) was this mysterious whirlpool heel on the f2f pattern description. I wanted to be prepared.

Saturday afternoon was the planning for self striping success class. It was really good and taught us to forget measuring our socks and let the stripes do the talking.

Saturday evening was Stephanie's (The Yarn Harlot) lecture. It was nothing short of hysterically funny, informative and thought provoking.

After all that, Clarine and I decided to get some dinner. We decided seafood sounded good and after consulting google maps, we decided on South Park Seafood Grill and Wine Bar. It was quite lovely. I redeemed oysters and chardonnay for Clarine, so my work was done. After our lovely dinner, we walked over to Rougue where I had a ginger beer that was fantastic and I got to meet an author friend of Clarine's. I made a much later night of it than I wanted to, considering the f2f competition the next morning.

So, Sunday morning I was pretty nervous. I was actually too worked up to drink my coffee which is saying a lot. I met up with my team ahead of time, we were all wearing our matching t-shirts. Thankfully we got the pattern early on, do we were.able to review it and divide it up. It seems my panic was for naught. The cast-on's were all of our choosing as were the bind-off's. For the specific bits, clear instructions were given with a key. The only thing I looked up was a refresher on provisional cast-on's.

The sheep were adorable, and watching them get sheared was fun. Once the fleece was distributed, things were in motion. I got a quick and dirty lesson in flicking fleece and helped get our spinners stocked. Once they had spun enough yarn to get me started, I went to work on the toes. I did 2 at a time magic loop. Interestingly the increases called for in the pattern were the same ones I had learned in my Friday class. So thank goodness I asked for extra help with those.

Toes being fiddly and time consuming, I finished them around noon. Just in time for lunch. After quickly eating a hot dog and drinking nearly a liter of water I was ready to go again. I moved on to doing the leg of the sock, which had a lovely lace pattern.

2 of the pieces I knitted for f2f

A few notes here. This fleece came straight off the sheep, with not time to wash it. While the sheep wore coats, there was still some vegetable matter. Also, all of the natural lanolin was still on the wool. So while my hands were soft, there was this pervasive smell. As I knit with it, the wool warmed up and it just made it smell worse.

It was a lot of fun. There were reporters and importers running around and taking pictures and asking questions. In the end, my team won. We raised almost $400 for doctors without borders. My thumbs hurt for 3 days.

Since sock summit, I have finished my hitchiker and started a new secret project. It is for a steampunk swap on ravelry. I'll post pics of tge hitchiker shortly dvds the other project once my swapee received it.

yarn bombing at Sock Summit

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Frakkin' Smegy Socks

So, to conclude the SSS saga. I washed them in hot water and tossed them into the dryer and that shrunk them up some. I think they will still be house socks though. The felici is incredibly warm and snuggly. Maybe the next go round with it will be better.

So, my new project are my Frakkin' Smeggy Socks. So named as it is Gothsocks gothling Frakkin' Toaster, on her Ricin' base. Ricin' is a merino, bamboo, nylon mix. I expect it'll last forever. It's got a gorgeous bit of shine to it, some nice stitch definition and a still a bit of stretch. The coolest part about the shine is that it makes the grey look silver. I'm really in love with this yarn and her use of colors. I don't generally like variegated yarns, but the way this is knitting up, I just might be a convert. So the second part of the name is a reference to Red Dwarf, which is a BBC comedy sci-fi series from the late 80's and 90's. It is really very hilarious and if you haven't seen it, I highly recommend you do you. It's available on Netflix instant streaming. The reason for this reference, is the pattern I am using is Cristi H. Brockway's, Red Dwarf Socks. So, there you have a long winded explanation of my project name.

So far I am really enjoying the pattern. I have gotten to the heel turn at this point. I am substituting the fleegle heel instead of what she has in her pattern. I had a good experience with the fleegle, so I am going to continue to use it for now to get more sock knitting experience under my belt. Now, don't get the wrong idea. I am not going to be knitting nothing but socks. There were just a few KAL's I wanted to participate in the last couple of month. I plan to one day soon finish my hoodie, start a cardigan and a skirt. I want to have some nice things to show off at Sock Summit in July.

The conclusion of the sockasode or the sock saga continues?

So, the no wrap short rows didn't go anywhere. I still ended up with holes. So after talking to some awesome people on Ravelry in the sock knitters and knit freedom forums, I was introduce to the fleegle heel. This is nothing short of brilliant! I managed to knit is and I am still not sure how it came out so well. It is a no wrap, no guesset heel flap and gusset sort of heel. Liat Gat of Knit Freedom has some fantastic YouTube videos on how to do the fleegle heel. Her video ebook "Learn to Knit Toe Up Socks" also uses the fleegle heel. My only regret is I didn't watch her video on when to start working the heel and I instead used fleegle's formula. So, my sock ended up a bit long. Having already frogged it 6 times, I wasn't about to do it again. Especially, since it didn't have any holes!! From there I started a lace pattern I picked out of Vougue Knitting: Stichionary 5 called pigtails. It patterned up quite nicely if I do say so myself! So, the next error I made was my selection of the aristocrat cuff from Socks Ala Carte 2: Toes Up. This turned out to be a rather pretty, but not very stretchy cuff.  As the socks ended at the base of my large calves, this was a bad combination. To finish it all up I used my favorite sock bind off, Jenny's Suprisingly Stretchy bind off. So, they are a bit long in the foot and a bit snug in the calf. They also grew a bit with washing and blocking.

 I wore them for the first time on Tuesday. They were incredibly comfortable and I got lots of compliments on them! Tonight I am (at the suggestion of some lovely folks on Ravelry) trying to shrink them with the aid of the washer and dryer. We'll see how it goes. You can find my socks on Ravelry as SSS (Sabrina's Sorceery Socks). Also, here are some pictures for you.