One of the great things about Ravelry is that you get to meet people that love knitting as much as you do and if you hang out on the same board for a while you get to know the same people. My home on Ravelry is The Completely Pointless and Arbitrary Swap Group (CPASG), the girls there are awesome, their stashes are breathtaking, and they are a great support group. One of our members kippiann has been making amazing hand knit sock out of some uber nice yarn for other members and secretly sending them in the mail, she calls them "sock-love-bombs". I was bombed about a month ago with my very own pair knit out of Wollmeise Twin in Herzblut in Dancing Diamonds by Wendy Johnson. kippiann knit these socks for me out of Herzblut which is the most perfect red and in a diamond pattern to pay homage to my love of the Boston Red Socks. The socks are amazing, they fit great, the pattern is perfect and the yarn is Wollmeise, if that isn't love I don't know what is.
Here is a picture of the super cute and crafty label kippiann sends with her socks, on the back of the label is says the pattern, the yarn, and that there were made just for you.
While kippiann was bombing our board with socks (and before she bombed me), I decided that I wanted to make her a pair of socks. I knew I wanted to incorporate sock, love, and bomb. It took me a couple of days and a few pattern searches on Ravelry and I came up with a plan. I know kippi loves pink, I have only one skein of eye-searing pink sock yarn in my stash from the Politically Incorrect Sock Club in colorway Last Call, it was destined to become socks for kippi. I decided to knit my "go-to" sock pattern (Cat Bordhi's Simple Sock Pattern) because it's very forgiving when is comes to fit since it's a rib pattern. Then I decided to make a tiny sock, a tiny heart, and a tiny bomb to hang off the side of each sock. I already had a pattern for a mini-sock, I found a pattern for a little heart (I changed the gauge and needle size to make it tiny) and I found a cherry pattern that I could easily modify into bomb. This is what I came up with, I used a sheep button that I sewed onto the sock to hang the sock-love-bomb part in case she wanted to remove them and have a plain pair of socks to where outside in the real world.
The funniest part is that while I was knitting kippi her socks she was knitting mine, she finished my socks in a few days, it took me a few weeks, but she loved them all the same.
One more awesome thing from the CPASG, I won a prize, a super swanky prize no less, a skein of the highly coveted Wollmeise lace in Spice Market donated by the wonderful ngraham from VT. We had a KAL for breaking into your treasured skeins of Wollmeise lace (I knitted my Equinox Shawl) and my lucky number was drawn for the lace, woot, here is a picture to prove it.
And now for a FO, I knit my first sweater in the round from the top down. I haven't done either so it was nice to get to try out two new different techniques. I called it the Crayon Wrappers Sweater, it's the Lightweight Pullover by Hannah Fettig, knit out of yarn from Fresh from the Cauldron yarn in Poe's Absinthe Induced Dream, the color is a bit less bright in person (please forgive the horrible self-portrait).
Next up is a great cause that has a knitting connection, my knitting friends wenat and yarnfloozy in Vancouver had a raffle to raise money for The Canadian Cancer Society. Every year their wonderful husbands participate in a one day grueling 400km bike ride (that's almost 250 miles) and all the money raised goes where it counts (no administrative fees are taken out).
Here is a picture of the three of us from my trip to Seattle and Vancouver (which I still need to post about) and no we are not at all related to each other, why do you ask?
You can read all about the ride, see some of their pictures, find out why their write on their arms/legs with Sharpies, and hear why they put themselves through such a crazy ride, read the letter from Lance Armstrong, and be inspired here on their blog. This year I wanted to donate some prizes to help raise money, they raised almost $2,000 and their group raised almost $300,000, that is amazing!
Now back to actual knitting, how about the Blue Moon Fiber Arts Club 2010. I know I haven't posted any pictures from this year, but don't worry it's not because I didn't love them. This year's club comes with two patterns, one from a "known designer" and one from a long standing member of the sock club. It's pretty cool to get two different patterns with the same yarn. The first shipment's colorway was called "happy go lucky", and the tow patterns were Flabella by Christina Bain and Cascadia by Sivia Harding. Here is a picture of the first installment:
I decided this year that if I like both patterns that I would make one sock out of each pattern and that would be my "pair". I casted on my Cascadia while going on vacation to Seattle and Vancouver which was fitting because Sivia was inspired by the Cascade Mountain Range. This was my first completed toe-up sock, and it fits great! I really liked the little peaks on the front part of the sock and really loved the pattern on the back side of the leg part, so much so I might make a sock out of just that pattern. Here is the completed sock.
I'm half way through my Flabella sock, this pattern was inspired by rain running down a window pain. I'm half way through with this sock and it's a bit more fiddle-y because of the bobbles. There are bobbles on the first row of the sock so it takes a bit of getting use to, I had to cast on a few times but it all worked out. I really like the bobble fan pattern and the little lace pattern repeat as well. Here is a picture of the first half of the sock.
There are good and bad things about knitting a mis-matched pair, for example there isn't second sock syndrome, but on the other side you don't get to fly on the second sock. But I really like how both patterns have something to do with the Pacific Northwest and I will always remember my trip there when wearing these socks.
Now for a little sewing, for my favorite "almost 5 year old" who is coming to visit in less than a week. Our college friends Bob and Michelle are coming for a visit from Boston, I cannot describe how excited I am about seeing them and their son Noah. I saw these personalized towels on a few stores on etsy, they were $35 (and then $8 for shipping)and I thought I could make one myself. I found a super cute towel at Target ($10, thank you Target), found a great fat quarter of fabric in a beach theme (for $2) and went to work with my sewable HeatnBond. I was happy that my sewing machine could handle the thickness of the towel, the sewing isn't perfect, but I'm not that wonderful of a sewer so it will have to do. I hope that Noah likes it, I love the pirate octopus (which came on the towel).
There is one more big craft project that I worked on for a while that's finally done, but I'm saving it for later. I think that's all that has happened crafting wise, it was a bunch of random things but they are all crafty so I guess they all count. I changed the way the blog looks, I added just a little argyle because
I ♥ argyle completely and totally.
