Picnic knitting

Yesterday...

Fantastic weather...

Good food...

Great company...

And a sock.

Perfect.

Hooray times two

The first Hooray:

My monkey socks are finished (ravelled here)! According to my sister, they look reptilian enough that if I sewed buttons for eyes on the toes I would frighten lots of people. Hmmm. Even so, they're warm and comfortable, and I might even get away with wearing them out and about under my jeans this winter! Maybe?

I have now cast on for a pair of fingerless mitts for my Dad's birthday which is in a couple of weeks. I'm optimistic that I might get them finished in time because the pattern is from Joelle Hoverson's More Last Minute Knitted Gifts. The first one is two-thirds finished so I'm still hopeful!

The second Hooray:

I'm finally back menu planning again! This is rather exciting because I find that menu planning gives me a sense of slightly more control in the highly chaotic world of parenting young children. It will also hopefully mean a reduction in food waste and less takeaway.

In addition to choosing meals using my normal methods, I've implemented Vic's Random Recipe system*. I have far too many recipe books for my own good, so I'm hoping this strategy might result in some of my neglected books getting some use. So far it's been rather successful, and I've found a couple of things I probably never would have cooked otherwise. To eliminate personal bias, I'm using random.org to randomly choose a shelf, then a book from that shelf, a page from the book and if necessary, a recipe from the page. Though this week's Random recipe was originally Fried Bows, a Spanish sweet biscuit. Rather than serve these for dinner, I used my commonsense and generated another random number for a recipe from the same book. I figure if the recipe or book chosen isn't a dinner type of thing, I can take one step back and try again!?! I might start to experiment with non-main-meal type recipes at some stage, but for now I'm working with a single theme!

Another change to my planning at this point is that I'm not allocating particular meals to particular days. Rather, I'm just selecting 7 (or so) meals to be eaten during the week, so that I've got some flexibility if I don't get to the right shop on a given day for particular ingredients. Right now I need a sense of control without rigidity, so hopefully this strategy will deliver.

This week's menu:

Gnocchi with tomato and pancetta sauce

Zucchini, bacon and onion quiche or frittata

Beef stew (from freezer)

Chinese chicken wings

Red Mullet baked with breadcrumbs and Rancio wine (Random Recipe from 1080 Recipes)

Eggplant Parmagiana

Zucchini pasta

*Vic has also started a Meal Plan Monday Linky thing, so if you're interested in joining in or checking out some other meal plans, visit here.

Space junk

When you have small children, lots of STUFF gets all over the place. While there are many disadvantages, like treading on something small when you least expect it (ouch! You'd think I'd learn to look more closely...) and every space in the house being taken over by kid clutter, I've discovered that some of it is actually useful!

Take this rather unattractive ball, for example. It's perfect for neatening up my toe grafting on my socks.

Which are now finished! Comfortably before the end of February, which was my self-imposed deadline, though not without a setback involving a two-year-old and the removal of all four needles that we wont talk about.

I will try to post proof of the completed socks in the next couple of days.

It's official

I was sitting in the waiting room at the osteopath the other day, knitting away on my particularly frightening monkey sock as I have done the past few times I've been in there, when the receptionist said to the lady she was chatting to, "Look at what she's knitting. It's a sock!".

And the lady responded, "Oh, yes, I know. I've seen her knitting in the medical centre!"

Clearly, I'm becoming the local crazy knitter lady.

my creative space...

Green, green, green, YELLOW!!

Green, YELLOW!!

Green, YELLOW!!

Green, green, green, YELLOW!!

Over the last couple of weeks, including some time away, a pair of socks have been taking shape. While the knitting can have it's rather surprising moments (the appearance of YELLOW(!!) in between those lovely greens can be a tad frightening at times), I think the finished result is quite pleasing.* Fortunately!

I've just started sock number 2, which I think I'd like to get finished by the end of February. That should give me enough space to work on other projects, too...

I'm hoping to have a satisfying and productive creative space this year, with a focus on the process rather than the outcome, though it will be nice to finish a few things, too! Of course, I have a long list of things I'd like to make, so it will be interesting to see how long it takes to get overwhelmed by outcomes and the process gets relegated to a requirement rather than a pleasure...

To visit the creative spaces of other more or less idealistic and optimistic crafters, many of whom will actually succeed in making what they say they want to (how novel!), go here.

*Except for the unfortunate 'Aussie, Aussie, Aussie! Oi, Oi, Oi!' parochial factor, but we can look past that for now...

How good is Ravelry?

My heel is turned, and I'm about to start on the next clue BEFORE the one after that is released!! I won't say I've caught up (that would be a little optimistic), but I'm rather chuffed that I'm currently not *too* far behind!

The next step involves picking up stitches along the outside of the heel to start knitting the gusset (that bit on either side of the back of the heel that has a diagonal line pointing up towards your ankle - have a look at your sock and you might get what I mean?). Picking up stitches is something I've generally made up as I've gone along in the past, with varying success, so instead of making a mess of my otherwise rather lovely socks, last night before (theoretically*) going to bed, I asked for advice on the sock-a-long forum on Ravelry. By the time I woke up this morning, a number of smart knitterly types had responded with much sock-knitting-stitch-picking-up-wisdom! So, while the execution may still leave something to be desired, I have the theory this time which surely must increase the odds of success.

Ravelry is really good. If you're even vaguely interested in yarn craft, you should go there and check it out!

*Last night my 1 month old slept for 40 minutes between 6pm and 1.40am when she finally went to sleep for nearly 6 hours straight. I am simultaneously ecstatic and exhausted. Hoping for more of the long-time-sleeping and less of the long-time-waking in the near night time future!!

sans heel

There was three quarters of one until I decided that my stuff ups slipping one at the start of the heel flap really needed to be fixed. And I'd nearly caught up!

Even so, I'm still having fun, which bodes well for the potential completion of sock 2.

A sock cuff - spoiler alert

I have a sock cuff!

Just in case there's anyone out there who is participating in the sockalong and hasn't finished the cuff (highly unlikely, but stranger things have happened...), a pic of my cuff is below.

It's rather fancy, and involves tiny cables which I managed using a spare dpn because I don't own a cable needle and there's no way I was going to learn how to cable without a cable needle at this point in time!

The clue for the leg came out last night, so hopefully I'll find some time to work on it soon!

*******

Sleep update: About 7 hours, including one 2.5 hour block. More like this, please!

Socking along

Because I'm a few neuronal connections short of sane at the moment, I've decided to join in (late) with the Through the Loops Socktoberfest Mystery Sock-A-Long. I remember this time last year a few bloggers were participating and I was thinking that if I knew how to knit socks that it would heaps of fun! I was reminded in the last few days of the potential adventure by Leonie, and thought it still sounded like fun. Now that I've knitted one and a half socks in my lifetime, I figure I'm qualified to join in...?!

I'm planning on using Fanny's Fingering Yarn* in Chilli Pepper from my stash (above), because it fits with the recommended solid or semi-solid colourway. It's a gorgeous deep rusty red, and I hope it will be lovely!

I figure that if I've finished one sock by early November, I'll be doing exceptionally well, and if I've managed to get anything done on the second sock, it will be a bonus! Now all I need to do is wind my yarn, knit a small swatch and then knit a cuff, which looks like fun. I already know all the stitches involved in this bit, which is a bit of a miracle!

*Does anyone else find themselves needing to stifle a very primary school-esque guffaw at this name? Or have I just spent too much time over the last few years working with primary school aged boys?

My creative space

Déjà vu? Almost! Except that this is sock #2. Which means....

sock #1 is finished!! I'm particularly excited about this, because now I know I can knit a sock, and I also learnt how to do kitchener stitch to finish the toe. So two new skills have been added to my kit bag!

Even the heel flap went relatively well, considering that this is my first ever sock. The right side seems, well, right, except for a loose-ish connection where I picked up stitches for the gusset (the bottom of the bit that looks kind of like a triangle above). On the other hand, the left hand side?

A less successful effort. The picked up stitches are quite loose, and my decreases down the gusset have resulted in a big line of loose stitches next to the decrease line. (At this point I need to apologise for my shocking photos - I'm reliant on my iphone for the foreseeable future as my camera has decided to refuse to speak to my computer. Hurrumph.) So I'd be interested in any tips you might have to avoid the same issues on sock #2!

Even still, I'm rather chuffed that I knitted a sock. The flaws don't make it unwearable, so I'm still doing happy dances in my head every time I see it ;-)

If you're looking for some inspiration, or just like checking out what other people are making, visit the home of My Creative Space!

A turned heel!

How cool is that!?!

This is going way faster than I had imagined. So much so, that, unless I run into unforeseen difficulty from here, this may be a new addiction. Hmmm.

Socking along

I'm making progress, far more quickly than I'd anticipated! I've finished the cuff and nearly finished the heel flap. Apparently the next bit is where it gets scary, but it's been a rather satisfyingly quick process until now!

I'm using Marie Greene's Beginner Sock-a-long instructions, which so far have been really simple to understand. My only modification has been to do the majority of the cuff in stockinette rather than rib (mainly to facilitate sensible conversations while still managing to knit in my currently limited multi-tasking capacity!).

There are a couple of things I'm a bit confused about though. All the pictures of other people's socks in progress have the right side out, but when I'm knitting mine, the wrong side is out. Is this just because people turn them out so pictures look nicer? Or am I knitting inside out?

I'm also very interested in any tips for dealing with dpns so that I don't feel like I'm knitting with pick-up-sticks! I keep having to adjust the needles so that the one I'm knitting from is on top. Is this odd?