FO: Cheery Freemason Gloves

These have been done for awhile.

(click for bigger)

And if you look closely at some of those pictures, you can see that they've also been broken in...by my cat, Mittens, who obsessively licks knitted objects until they get all fuzzy and puffed up. Anyway, I love them! It's currently too cold here to wear them, but they're perfect for late fall/early spring temperatures.

Yarn - Mama Llama DK (100% wool, 275 yards) in Day. I love this yarn! I've considered using it for a whole lot of different things - a cool motif in a yoked sweater, for instance, or maybe a scarf, perhaps a nifty headband - but settled on gloves, I think, because they're small (thus not overwhelming, because damn this yarn is bright) but show off the coolness of the yarn to good effect.

Needles - 29" size 4 Inox circulars. I'm having a weird dilemma these days when I have to choose between addis and inox greys - the inoxes are awesomely pointy (well, frankly, that's awesome for about a minute, but then gets kind of painful because I have a weird habit of pushing the tip of the needle around with my opposing index finger...but you know what I mean), but have a terrible cable, and the addis have that smooth-not-at-all-twisty cable, but are dull which makes intricate stitch manipulation hard. Life is hard.

Pattern - like the ampergrabbers that inspired these, I kinda made it up as I went along. I knit them from the wrist up, starting with about 40 sts. The pattern is based off a basic 2x2 rib, with the cool eye thingy in the middle (hence the freemason reference) made by increasing and decreasing in the rib pattern, like in Thelonius. I worked a gusset for the thumb.

ooooh! creepy masonish eye is watching you!

Stay tuned for the VERY LAST FO of 2008! It's worth the wait, promise.

FO (finally): Charade Socks

I finished Brian's socks finally!

The colorway in this picture is dead-on. Kindly ignore the weird bright greenness of the other pictures below.

Yep, the first of the Christmas presents are finally done. Which leaves my current sock queue like so:

1. Charade socks for Brian
2. River Rapid socks for Jennie
3. Vinnland socks for Van
4. Millicent socks for Sam
5. Rhiannon socks for Mandy
6. Spiral boots socks for Leila
7. Socks for Mom
8. Socks for Stepdad
9. Single cotton sock for Jen?
10. Indestructible socks for Jon

Whew. Load off my mind. Onto the knitting details.

Yarn - I finally found the yarn tag! I had to look all over for it, though. I found it in our bookcase -- as if someone (maybe me, I don't know) was using it as an erstwhile bookmark. Actually, it probably wasn't me, as I tend to dog-ear pages. In my circle of friends, this is basically as greivous a sin as eating babies. So it was probably Jon.

Anyway, the yarn is handpainted by wooldancer in the sublime marina colorway. It's 100% superwash merino (around 380 yards), and I have to say it was pretty awesome. Brian's got excellent taste.

Needles - size 2 addi turbos. Same ones I used for these.

Pattern - Charade by Sandra. This stitch pattern is super easy, which makes for good mindless knitting. Like always, I basically ignored the actual directions and just winged the sock construction, resulting in major modifications:

• The toe-up fairy strikes again! I casted on 24 sts (12 per side) using the figure 8 CO, and increased until 72 sts for the toe.
• For the foot, I worked about 50 rounds with a stockinette sole. This isn't a mod...it's just hear for completion's sake.
• I learned how to do short-row heels! Or, as I shall now call them, "heels brian-style." For these, I wrapped 10 sts on either side.
• I worked about 2" in pattern for the leg, and then worked 2" in 2 x 2 ribbing for the cuff. For that, I continued the plain ribs up the cuff and changed the textured sts to purls, cause I thought it looked cool.
  

On the non-Christmas knitting front, I've decided that weekends are for selfish knitting. So, I started a pair of gloves! I almost finished the first one.


The design is based of the ampergrabbers I made in May, and the traveling ribs are from these socks. They don't have a name yet.