sarahspins

And it’s *tiny*, really!

Weighing in at just under a gram on my dye scale, I think this is likely to be the smallest FO I’ll ever make!  But, I totally winged the pattern, guessed at how many stitches to start with, and happily, it fits like a glove — or would that be sock?  Yes, it’s a sock for an insulin vial.  You can make one too!  All you need is some scraps of sock yarn, a size 0/2mm 32″ circular needle (or set of 5 DPN’s), and about an hour (give or take, we all knit at our own pace, afterall!)

• CO 24sts loosely (not super loose, you just don’t want this first row to be tight), join sts and begin working in the round
  • if magic looping, you’ll want 12sts on each side
  • if using DPN’s, you’ll want 6sts on each needle
• k1 p1 for 9 rounds
• k 18 rounds even
• k1 k2tog around (16sts remain)
• k 1 round even
• k2tog around (8sts remain)
• break yarn and run through remaining 8sts, pull tight
• weave in ends

On a whim (and inspired by a thread on Ravelry) I decided to try some 8/2 cotton weaving yarn I had purchased some time ago that has just been sitting around.. and to my surprise, run with a strand of very fine lycra/nylon yarn, it makes very nice socks!   I knit these on my Legare 400 with a fairly tight tension on my 72 cylinder.  I think this yarn (or even some 10/2) would produce a nicer fabric on an 84 slot cylinder, but I don’t have one.

They’re a little loose right off the machine, as shown above, but once washed the cotton fulls nicely and the lycra activates, drawing in the knitting a considerable amount.  I estimate they shrank about 15% when I washed and dried them.  I didn’t actually expect them to shrink so much, so the foot is almost too short on these.

Then I tried some 8/2 Cotlin (50/50 Cotton and Linen) also with very nice results.  This stuff shrank more than the 100% cotton, so even though I added extra rows to the feet, the finished size is about the same (though I did knit the leg shorter on these).  I didn’t take a picture before washing, but these socks looked looser and more gauze-like right off the machine, but they too washed up very nicely.  You can see how stretchy they are comparing the unblocked sock to the one on the blocker (my second blocker went MIA sometime yesterday.. I still have no idea where it is - thanks, kids)

Since I have a LOT of 8/2 yarn in my stash from my abandoned attempts at learning to weave, I forsee a lot of these socks in my future - the knitted fabric is slightly thicker than I’d prefer compared to storebought socks (for me anyways.. they’re thinner than the socks my DH wears and thinner than wool socks), but the toes on these are seamless, which more than makes up for being heavier, since my #1 gripe about almost any sock is the seam over the toe - it’s uncomfortable, and too bulky even on the thinnest socks since to save money/time the toes on commercial socks are usually serged rather than linked or grafted.

From last week, I never quite got around to blogging them, but they came out super cute.. knit from the Fern Gully yarn I made last fall, which was shaded from Blue to brown, and then to green:

I have a little bit leftover that is the rest of the brown to blue transition.

I also finished some more yarn last week… this is sort of sport-ish weight, and I’m not sure what I’ll do with it quite yet since it’s too heavy to go through the sock machine.

Then I Navajo-plied an entire bobbin I had spun some time back… it’s hand combed marsh romney and I’m rather happy with this batch compared to the rest of this wool I had carded and spun into a 2-ply yarn.  No idea what I’m doing with this yet, but it will likely become part of a weaving project in the not too distant future

And I’m nearly done with my  Kelso Cardigan!  All I really have left to do is graft the unerarms and weave in all the ends.

Just a quick update, I finally made the yarn I spun in December while I was tweaking my Hitchhiker into a pair of socks

I can hardly believe it’s almost MARCH! I was supposed to celebrate my blogaversary in January, but it seems I’ve completely missed it! Oh well.. I had all these plans in my head for something cool to do, but then just got too busy to do much about it. Oops.. maybe I’ll make up for it next year

However, in the past week, I managed to go from this

to this!

Angelina of Zen String suggested in her group on Ravelry that we should all do a KAL with her yarn in February.. and chose the very popular February Lady Sweater (if anyone recalls, I’ve knit a couple of the baby versions, including one from handspun yarn for my daughter, and another for my neice that I don’t seem to have blogged about) and since she offered a generous 20% off on yarn for the KAL, how could anyone resist?  I chose to make mine from Verde Worsted (and OMG do I *love* this yarn!!) in Secret Garden, which quickly became a favorite colorway of mine when I made a pair of socks from it during the Ravelympics last year. I got a very late start on my sweater, not even winding my yarn until the 19th, but just 5 days later I had my new super cute sweater finished.  It’s surprisingly warm despite being rather short.   I had hoped it would block out a little longer, but it didn’t really seem to… it’s okay though, because I’m still totally thrilled with it!