Summertime

The temperature reached 105 degrees yesterday. Today it was cooler (mid-nineties) and a storm blew through with 92 mph winds and about 0.25" of rain, then the temperature dropped 30 degrees. Aahhh! Back to the 90's tomorrow, though.

I have been knitting, albeit not much. Even though my house is air conditioned, it is difficult to work with wool in the summer. I would knit cotton, but it is too inelastic, makes my shoulders and wrists hurt with the effort.

The Gap-tastic cowl is my mindless knit project. Knit, purl, knit, purl, round and round we go.

It is difficult to tell in that photo, but the color is chocolate.

The portable project is socks, of course. Plain ol' ordinary striped ribbed socks.

I don't know why, but I don't want to knit anything more intricate right now. Lazy days of summer, I guess.

Take flight

I will skip the apologies for not blogging more often, as I have been spending most of my time outside, hose in hand, trying to make up for the lack of rain in these parts. Watering really cuts into my knitting time. Still, I managed to finish something.



Pattern: Wingspan, by maylin Tri'Coterie Designs
Yarn: Kangaroo Dyer Superwash Sock yarn
Needles: US4
Modifications: I chose to wrap and knit the turns; also, I sl1k on the edges.



I tried both sl1k and sl1p wyib at the turns and decided I liked the sl1k better. I also ran out of yarn and had to knit the last four rows and bind off with some yarn leftover from the purple February Baby sweater from 2010. Fortunately, the colors were close enough.



While I gave this piece a soak upon finishing, I did not try to block the points, as I have never had much success getting wool/nylon blends to hold a blocking.

Plain ol' (striped) socks

As I have said before, socks are my go-to project for portability, so I almost always have a pair on the needles. Sometimes they do not get much attention (can you say "Honey Cowl"?) but they are patiently waiting for when I need to grab and go.

Pattern: Sock Recipe, from Knitting Rules
Yarn: Austermann Stepp, in colorway 0028
Needles: US1
Modifications: Eye of partridge heel flap

Since I knit socks so often, always from detailed patterns, I wanted to get used to the idea of just knitting a pair of socks with little help from instructions. My goal is to be able to just pick up some yarn and needles and GO, a la the Yarn Harlot.

This was the practice pair. I am going to try to do the next pair without peeking at the book.