I seem to be averaging about one pair of socks per year and here’s the latest!
I love knitting socks more than any other knitting. It can be pure meditation, or often just easy knitting while watching a movie with just enough challenge in the heel and toe to keep up interest in the project.
And handmade socks are just so toasty and nice! The yarn is Madeline Tosh in the Vanilla Bean colorway and it’s such a pleasure to work with!
My 5/52 photo and a perfect mirror of myself these last few weeks. I am really starting to miss the light. It’s been on the news that this past January has been the dullest (in terms of sunlight) in about 50 years. I crave a sunlit afternoon so bad.
Instead, I turn to the next best thing: sleep. Me and the couch and the hot water bottle, we’re close in winter. Come 8pm you’ll find me fast asleep nearly every evening of the week.
So hard to get anything done when you’re sleeping all the time. Some socks, coming along very slowly. A new skirt, waiting for the finishing touches for weeks. Lots and lots of research for the business (exciting stuff in the works this year!).
Planning and dreaming and waiting for the light.
Yep, it’s that time of the year again. I knit through summer as well, but in fall I really get the urge to get out the needles whenever there is a bit of spare time.
I started rewatching all seasons of Gilmore Girls in the evening, knitting away at the same time.
In my knitting basket right now: this lovely lovely Madeline Tosh sock yarn (in colorways ‘dusk’ and ‘vanilla bean’), waiting to be wound and started as soon as I can decide which color I want to do first, and a local handspun yarn which will be a scarf.
I’ve been looking for wooden needle boxes and found two identically painted ones for circular and straight needles in my favorite thrift store a while ago. I love the bright red, I smile every time I look at them (and they are very handy of course, no missing needles anymore).
And finally, I’ve been making dishcloths for the new apartment.
I’m using organic cotton yarn for these and the simplest pattern I could find. I love no-brainer knitting, the kind that is almost meditative, where your hands start working away at their own pace undisturbed by counting and checking and thinking.
Incidentally that’s what I love about sock knitting, plenty of no-brainer handiwork, but just enough challenge in the heel and toe to keep me interested.
I know, I’ve been talking and talking about all the stuff I’ve been sewing and never showed a single picture. So today I made my boyfriend clear a wall in our apartment so we could finally get all that stuff photographed.
First off, a new dress. I saw this picture a while ago and knew I wanted to make a dress like that. I used the free Colette Sorbetto top pattern as a base to work from, redrafted the armholes, lowered the neckline sightly and used the tova dress pattern as a guide for the length of the dress. The final pattern definitely needs some tweaking but for a first try I am super happy with how it turned out.
The fabric is a grey linen and the bias tape was made from the fabric left over from this top.
I don’t really like how these pics came out colorwise but better than nothing, right? We just don’t have the right light in our apartment for taking pictures.
I love how versatile the simple grey dress is and can’t wait to pair it with some colorful accessories and tights for fall.
Sad but true, it is actually cold enough to wear wool cardigans at the moment. Also I can never decide whether to crop out the head or not, I don’t really like pictures of myself either way 😉
The dress has french seams and in-seam pockets (don’t ask how many times I ended up redoing them until I figured out how to add in-seam pockets to a french seamed dress).
And finally, because I don’t want to wait until the rest of the world is ready for warm things again, do you remember this yarn? The socks from it are long finished and I finally got them photographed today.
So, hope it was worth the wait 😉 I have some tops to show but didn’t want to cram it all into one post so there’ll be an extra one for those as soon as there’s time.
Have a lovely sunday!
I have been knitting since I was about 12 and though I never really ventured into complicated patterns or making sweaters (though that is something I really want to learn sometime!) knitting in winter is second nature to me. I am always on the lookout for pretty, high quality yarns from natural fibers. Apart from buying some wonderful rustic local yarn (which knit up into this), Etsy is great for yarn shopping and I love how I can get pretty, handdyed yarn from all over the world shipped to my little home.
I am absolutely, madly in love with this yarn from Etsy seller atreehuggerswife. It’s the charcoal colorway and wonderfully soft. She was so kind to wind it into a ball for me at no extra charge, which is great, because winding yarn into a ball by hand is so not my favourite activity. This yarn is on the needles right now to become a nice pair of socks.
Also on the needles and another “bus project” (yes, I knit on the bus on my way to work. I am old enough not to care what people think and I wouldn’t want to waste a whole hour of knitting time a day). It’s beautiful and incredibly soft alpaca yarn from the alpacas of the farm I stayed on in Canada for a few weeks in 2009. I am making a cowl with it and hope to finish it in a couple of weeks. I would my projects would finish as quickly as new ideas tumble into my head 🙂
Another beautiful Etsy yarn, from seller onefatslug in Australia. Have I mentioned how much I love getting packages from all over the world? This year alone I have been getting packages from NY, Knoxville, Alaska and Australia, all from independent little businesses.
This sweet ice-blue knitting basket was found on a thrift store hunt and I love love love it. It is big enough to hold all of my current projects (in addition to the ones shown above there is always the odd other sock project and dishcloth on the needles).
And finally, cleaning out my yarn stuff from all the years I came across these wrist warmers. These were the first thing I ever knitted, at age 12 or 13, when my dad’s girlfriend taught me to knit. I don’t remember having had such style as a teenager but I love them and they still fit and now that I found them again I have been wearing them constantly. I remember knitting them like socks on 4 double pointed needles. A super quick project and they really keep you warm in winter and can be worn with just about anything.
Remember that lovely local yarn from a couple of weeks ago? Here’s where I am with that so far: The pair of socks was finished pretty quickly and I have been wearing them inside constantly ever since.
(They’re the same length, the picture just makes them look uneven).
These are honestly the warmest socks I’ve ever had, this yarn is so great. They look a bit out of shape here, but that’s only because I am wearing them all the time. And I must remember to make the shafts longer, they always come out too short.
Two skeins of the chunky mustard yellow yarn went into this cowl. This was almost exclusively a ‘bus project’, knit on the 30 min. bus ride to and from work, so it took me quite some time to finish it.
I will probably need to wash this once to soften it up a bit, but I love love love how it turned out, I really can’t get enough of that colour.
I am already on to the next pair of socks in a color to match the cowl, though from a different yarn this time. I’d love to find some less chunky sock yarn in the same quality, it’s bugging me that nice yarn is so hard to find. Come summer there will be craft fairs all around though and I hope to get some pretty colored sock yarn there. Also I’m already scouring Etsy like crazy.
I firmly believe that knitting is therapeutic.
There is something very calming about sitting down quietly and comfortably to knit socks (or scarves, or hats).
And the great thing is that you’ll end up with something wearable and unique eventually.
For my german-speaking readers, I’ve just discovered the most amazing youtube tutorial series for knitting socks and especially heels here (here for the heel part only). She also teaches crocheting, so I’ll be learning that next!
One more cowl was in order and this Lana Grossa Baby Alpaca yarn is heavenly soft and wonderful to knit with:
Excuse the cheesy flower photo, but they were the last of my birthday flowers.
Not that I’m done with seed stitch though! I have a lovely teal scarf in the works right now.
I could knit all day in fall…if I didn’t have to go to work and if I didn’t fall asleep as soon as I come home. I have been getting up at 5.20am all of last week with the intention of getting house work done in the mornings, so I don’t have a big pile of washing and folding and ironing and cleaning to do at the weekend. So far, the only result of getting up early has been more blog reading though…
But back to knitting! I love love love these gorgeous socks that Jenny from wikstenmade knit. I think I need to go buy sock yarn (not that I don’t have sock yarn, but nothing I like enough colourwise to get me through a pair…you wouldn’t believe how many single knit socks I have).
And just yesterday these beautiful mittens arrived in the mail from Anniki of woolmint from Estonia:
This is her photo, it’s still dark here so I couldn’t yet take photos myself. I got them for my birthday and they are gorgeous and fit perfectly! I can’t wait for colder weather so I can wear them with my new light gray winter coat (no, I’m not fashion crazy, why do you ask?).
The only drawback of fall is that it gets dark so early…soon I won’t be able to take photos during the week because by the time I leave work it will already be dark. How will I get through whole weeks with taking photos only at the weekends? Maybe I should take the jump and become a full time photographer after all…if only there were the security that I could actually live on that 😉
little home by hand 