A new year!

Happy New Year everyone!

Hope you all had a good time during the holidays. I decided to take a little brake from blogging, and well, maybe almost everything! I emptied my head and just did very little, which was just what I needed! :D I'm not looking forward to work on Monday after 2 weeks off, but I think I have the energy again to make it. I do hope I'll manage to keep more to myself and get less involved in all the drama among the colleagues and all, but we'll see.

Anyway, there has been knitting! I managed to finish up all but one pair of Christmas socks. I didn't make it on the socks for my mom. She was more dissapointed then I thought she would be. But I handed her the socks today and it's ok. I just didn't make it. I also only have 3 pictures and am missing a picture of the 4th pair, the pair of my grandmother. Those were finished only minutes before the gifting and though I mentionned having to take a picture of them I never did. I might try to do that tomorrow when I go to visit her, if I manage to remember.

So first of all, the pair for my uncle :

Yarn : a local sock yarn from my LYS (need to check the label), 2 strands held together (one solid, one variegated)

Needles : 3mm for the ribbing, 3.5mm for the sock

Pattern : my basic top down with long heel and dutch toe.

These turned out so great! I need to get some more of this yarn for a pair for the boyfriend, they seem very solid and good socks! And they didn't take very long either.

Aunts socks :

Yarn : 100% merino yarn (pink) and 100% superwash wool (white)

Needles : 3.5mm addi turbo

Pattern : fair isle pattern on the leg is from a pattern book I have, beside that it's a regular top down without ribbing, long heel and dutch toe

The smallest feet I had to knit for! And they fit perfectly. I only regret using the pink yarn as it's most likely not machine washable!

Moms socks :

Yarn : Merino 100 (some Italian yarn)

Needles : 3.25mm circs

Pattern : Pearls from Socken-Kreativ-Liste (german yahoo group)

First real beaded knit (except maybe for a lace shawl) and happy about them. rest of the sock is my standard sock recepy. Only made it less repeats as the original pattern was written for fingering weight yarn!

The 4th pair of socks was for my grandmother, a pair of anklets knitted on 3.5mm needles holding 2 threads together, both Annell Super Extra yarn (2 left over balls, as I returned all the rest I had to my LYS).

So that makes my total for the 54PairPlunge at 22. Still way behind and I won't catch up. I'll be happy if I make half of it!

Just before New Year I also decided I wanted a new sweater, and I knitted this one in 3 days :

(sorry for the missing top of the head, but apart from that this is the best picture the boyfriend took! In the end it's the sweater that counts, right?)

Pattern : V-neck sweater from Phildar Autumn/Winter 2007

Yarn : one strand of 100% superwash merino and one strand of 100% mohair held together, both brown

Needles : 8mm knitpicks options

Modifications : I knitted the lower body in the round (instead of the 2 blocks the pattern tells you to knit and just sew them together afterwards). The top were just 2 retangles put together. I think it looks pretty need!

The back is hold "together" with a strand of yarn like a shoelace! I should have done it higher up cause the sides keep slipping from my arms, but I don't mind much.

The yarn is superwarm and nice. I like it a lot! It was a quick and easy knit and I know this style is very popular and the sweaters like this in the store are quite expensive. It should have been a bit better knitted, the ribbing is not as good as I wanted it too, but it was a fast knit and nobody seems to notice this isn't storebought, so it's not that bad.

So the pair of socks for my mom was my first FO for 2008! I hope to have quite a bit more. I casted on a sweater for my boyfriend after lots of whining from him. It's cobblestone from Interweave. Hope it'll be a quick and easy knit, though it'll involve some math as my row gauge is off (stitch gauge is ok so I didn't want to switch needles, then that would have been off and that would have been more math again!).

I have some spinning to show but that'll be for a next post. No resolutions for 2008, can't keep them anyway. But I have some loose goals I want to reach. We'll see. Shortterm though.

Happy knitting all!