This Elf Knits – Knitting, Handpainted Yarn, LYS reviews

My daughter goes to a private Waldorf school that relies heavily on fund raising. Every year they host an auction and each class contributes an item or a basket for it. My daughter’s class was responsible for putting together a basket appropriate for a baby. Last year my husband and I knit a duck and this year decided to do a little simpler of a project.

My pick was the Small Mama Sweet Sugar Seamless Infant Kimono. Carina Spencer was generous enough to allow me to use her pattern for the auction.

I contacted Kara from Disco Baby Knits and she hand-dyed some superwash Merino yarn in her Solaris colorway with trim. Her colorways are beautiful and they all have an out of this world spin. Definitely check her out.

This was a great sweater to knit, especially for my first one. It is all knit as one piece, so no seaming at all. You start at the neck and knit your way down, leaving stitches on scrap yarn for the sleeves. Then you pick up and add the sleeves and the board trim. Easy peasy and the result is super cute!

It has a button closure on the outside and an i-cord tie on the inside.

Carina also offers a great tutorial on doing a button loop that I will definitely be using on future projects.

And here is the finished basket.

The winning bidder got it all for $150 which is great for our school. Thank you to Carina and Kara for helping out! I really appreciate it

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I finally finished my other Perambulate Sock last night. Just over a year in the making and I have finally finished the first pair of socks that I ever started! Yay! Once I got the basic pattern down I could pretty much do it in my sleep. Made for quick work on the second sock. Doing the heel in pattern was a bit tough, but again much easier the second time around.

My husband thinks they are the nicest pair of socks that I have knit so far. I think I may have to agree with him. The color is nice and the pattern has a cabled look to it. After I finished the first sock I wasn’t sure if I would ever use the pattern again. Now I think that I would use it for another pair of socks.

Yay me! I just want to pat myself on the back for finishing them

Knit on size 3 DPN needles
Zenstring Lotus Toes Fingering weight yarn
Jaime colorway

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Finally a finished one, at least half a pair of socks anyway. I finished up my first Perambulate Sock yesterday. This sock was a whole year in the making, as I first started knitting it in September 2007. I had no idea what I was doing and I definitely picked a much too difficult sock for my first go at it. I didn’t even knit a gauge swatch and the result was something that would not fit over my ankle.

So I put it away. For a long time. I picked it back up while on vacation this year. I ripped the whole thing out and knit a gauge swatch. I moved up two needle sizes and I was on my way again. So much easier now that I know so much more about sock knitting and knitting in general.

Here is the first one:

It is knit on Zenstring Lotus Toes fingering weight in the Jamie colorway. Looks pretty good I think

It has the look of cables without cables. I do not recommend this pattern for a beginner. Look for a pattern from Knitting Pure and Simple for that. Off to cast on the second sock!

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This was the fastest pair of socks that I have ever knit. I’m sure it helps that my skill level and understand of sock architecture increases with each pair. Plus this was a really fun pair to knit. Sure the colors are bright but I tend to wear socks that are a bit off the ordinary.

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After finishing the Reina socks this week I was in sock knitting mode. So on Thursday I balled the Dashing Dachs Froggin yarn and cast on. The June Woolgirl Sock Club was another pattern by Lisa Dykstra. Again she put in a new technique of a right twist. It is where you knit two together, keep the stiches on the left needle, put the right needle between the stitches, knit one, and then drop them off the left needle. Sounds difficult, but is very easy to do. Gives a bit of a cable effect.

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I finished the Reina socks this week. I really loved knitting these. The Mama Llama yarn was super nice to work with. It is very soft and slides on the needle very well. I was also able to use my brand new sock blockers from the Loopy Ewe.

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Gwen and I are now equipped for summer. I have finished making us matching Aloha Eyelet Kerchiefs. This was such a fun little project and I learned how to crochet a chain for the ties. Yay for learning something new I also want to say that Angelina’s work is amazing. She dyed the yarn with very short chains of color, so there is absolutely no pooling at all. Here I am styling my new kerchief:

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I am just so pleased with the second shipment of the Seven Deadly Spins Club. It is such a nice and quick project and I have already finished half of it. There is a spoiler below, so if you have not received your shipment yet and do not want to know, don’t click on the link.

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The swap that I sent out about a week and a half ago finally arrived. It had to travel from the U.S. to Canada, hence the long shipping time. Plus it was a mail holiday in Canada yesterday. Anyway it arrived and she loved it.

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This past weekend was full of basement cleaning. We are preparing to list our home of ten years to move closer to my husband’s work. With that comes a need to purge “stuff.” We shipped our daughter off to Grandma & Grandpa’s house for the weekend and got to work. During breaks and downtime though, I found time to finish my second Gluttony Sock.

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