Solving second sock syndrome

A lot of my knitting experience has come via my mother.
She spins, she knits, she crochets,she sews, she patchworks, she cooks yummy cakes and bikkies, she can make just about anything you ever need (erm, I see my addiction to multiple crafts is also inherited as well).

The one thing she has always said is that she doesn't knit socks.
She has knit one sock. Just one. Couldn't do two. Doesn't like knitting socks.

I've carried this with me a fair while.
I have always believed socks are tricky and once you've done one you're not likely to do a second one.

But knitting trends are leaning heavily on socks at the moment, especially with what is coming from the US. People are paying unbelievable amounts of money to buy beautiful yarn to turn it into socks (is $30 for a pair of socks extreme???), dyeing yarn to knit socks is all the rage and attending massive sock summits to fuel their passion.

Surely there is something in it.

So I thought I might give it a go. At least one pair so I can tell whether I like it or not.
But I suffer second sleeve syndrome quite badly, and a sock is just a version of a sleeve sort of.

Then I heard about knitting two socks at once. This had me very interested.
I'm not good at double pointed needles, I get ladder holes and I don't enjoy changing needles all the time. Magic loop isn't really my favourite either, but then I heard about 2 socks on two circular needles. This had my attention.

Unfortunately I couldn't find a lot of information out about it, so I just thought I'd jump in and nut it out... surely it couldn't be that hard.

So here they are... a little pair of socks (people with little feet in this family) from some hand dyed crepe.

They're actually on two circulars and after a rocky start I've really got the hang of it.
I'm up to the heal.

I should mention this is also my first pair of socks, so not only am I doing the two circular thing, I'm also learning about socks on the way. My guide? The Yarn Harlot and her simple sock recipe.

Can't wait until they're finished.

Guild Achievement Certificates

When I can find a spare minute I'm trying to knit my way through Certificate 1 in the NSW Knitters' Guild Achievement Certificate.

My 8ply tension ladder.

My 5ply tension ladder.

Textured stitches.My 5ply tension square (unblocked).

It seems to be a permanent work in progress.
It's not that hard or complicated, just time consuming.

This is fun....

I've always wanted to make some knitting needle bracelets after I saw these
months ago.
I wasn't quite sure how... but that has never stopped me.
Mum had left me a few knitting needles she'd grabbed from the Op Shop just for this purpose, but they have been sitting on my kitchen bench for months.
The other day I was on ebay (a rare occurrence I am a bad auction shopper) and caught sight of some red and green vintage needles for sale. They were going cheap.

So I finally did it.
How cute are they?
It did take a bit of fiddling round.


I'm wearing two red needle bracelets here.

It's very addictive making these things, I can see more coming soon!

Loved One Swap

No, we're not swapping loved ones, although...no, no wouldn't swap them right now, they're both asleep and the big one is on an aeroplane off to visit another Uni.

A-n-y-w-a-y!
This swap involved making and sending things for our kids. I only put my daughter's name down as the little man won't really be interested.
We were encouraged to get our kids involved, but the Little Miss wasn't that interested in the whole swap thing, more because she couldn't understand why we'd make something for a perfect stranger rather than making something for all her friends at school. I didn't push it too much, she is wonderfully giving, just this didn't click with her.

This is what she did help me make, the sweet treats to go with our parcel.


Cute, aren't they? Little cappuccinos.She loves making these and both kids sat at the bench helping, although the Little Mister likes to 'help' by eating all the freckles. Little Miss doesn't like chocolate (yep, you read right, she doesn't each chocolate - voluntarily) but we did make some with white chocolate buttons on top.
She did make sure there was a spare one to take to her teacher in the morning.
I made my 12 year old swappee a project bag.

Her favourite colours are purple and blue, so I hope she likes the butterflies which have a lot of blue and purple in them, I also lined the bag in purple.
It's a deceptively large bag.
I'm not a fan of the colours (purple is not my thing) but after carrying the bag round the house for a while I could have easily kept it. Will have to make my own (yep, add that to the list of things to do).




The swap needed a few other things in it and I have to thank my Mum for knitting the lovely purple headband with the heart clip and also for giving me the yarn to add into the swap, as well as the piece of rainbow 'string' that might make a nice friendship band.
I made the little bunny added some lip gloss, body glitter and I think I may have added some cute girly pencils + erasers + a high heel pencil sharper, but I'll have to wait for the parcel to arrive to check that.
And for her Mum, some handspun BFL that I overdyed + some chocolate.
This will be my last swap for a while. I'm swapped out.
There's lots of other things going on in my busy household so I might get back to swapping a bit later, in the mean time I might be able to find some time to get a few of those project bags that I'm envious of made for myself.

Blue Swap back

I received a package the other day and when I opened it out popped this beautiful bag.
Yummmmm...
And inside the bag this lot of bluey yumminess.
Some Organic Cotton Sock Yarn is from Yarnaddict yarns, some Cascade Heathers in a beautiful navy and some single ply Soy Silk from Normal Day.
I love it all. I haven't tried any of the yarns so can't wait.
The socks will definitely be for me, something with a simple pattern I think.
I've seen a nice scarf pattern I think the navy would suit and I'd like to do a lacey scarf with the soy silk, something to show it off.

Thank you to Christabel. It's a great swap.

Ishbel - finished

So it's finished and blocked.
I promise these are the last photos.













Until I start another one.