This is what has appeared in the current October issue of Knit Today magazine.
Recognise any familiar faces? Well perhaps this close up will help.
Well this was taken back in the summer on a day when we actually had a bit of sun for more than a five minute slot. It was outside the National Theatre at the Alternative Village Fete. You may remember reading from my earlier post back in July. This loopy sample was knitted up to attach to the Great British Sheep project been run by Gerard and Craig from Iknit London which they took on tour to Camp Bestival. The whole project was to raise awareness of all the fantastic breeds of british sheep that are out there and the fantastic yarns that come from them. Sadly I can't remember which breed of sheep this particular piece was knitted from but I can tell you how lovely it was and how I love the colours.
But this is not the only way I have been going a bit loopy this summer and more recently in the past couple of weeks.
Yes the time has finally come to pull out the long 2.5mm circular needle and learn the Magic Loop. And if that isn't enough I started learning the whole thing toe-up. Finally prompted by the most recent Socktopus sock club pattern designed by Anna Bell.
These arrived in the middle of the summer holidays as part of a larger Knitpicks order I placed and was lucky enough to have a friend pick it for me in the States and transport it home.
So first I had to learn Judy's magic cast on which took a few attempts to get going but then I was fine. I decided as this was a new experience as well as knitting the sock club ones toe-up and magic loop it would be a good idea to have a practice pair going at the same time to work out the construction, pick up, short row heel and all of that.
So here is the first pair, progressing nicely.
I have already learned that the increase in the toes here is too pointy and know what to do next time to stop that from happening. Basically, increasing every round for the first few and then switching to alternate rows, but they are a practice pair so that is the whole point. To knit them and see what works and what doesn't. I am certainly going to have to practice my wrap and turns ready for the short row heel thing which I have attempted before on DPN's with varying degrees of sucess and a bit of fudging.
The yarn for these is the Cherry Tree Hill left over from my secong attempt at my men's cable socks design which took just an extra 15grms of the second skein. I am taking no risks here, with 100grm of sock yarn and toe up, knitting nice and plain and simple I hereby claim a whole pair of ladies socks from the knitting goodess. Thank you.
I have also started Hopscotch which are the toe up sock club socks I have put myself through all this pain to be able to learn to knit. I love this colour and this pattern by the way.
So it just remains to say a big thank you to both Alice and to Diane for spending the day with me recently and helping teach me this new skill to add to my repertoire. Alice and Diane are running a series of sock and spinning classes over the coming year and details are on the socktopus website. Diane is also doing online spinning tutorials which you can download on her blog.
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