Wonderful support

Hey all, thank you so much for your well wishes and prayers. This last week I've been in a sort of daze, going through the motions and nothing more. My grandmother did get out of the hospital and is doing much better, though there were some rough patches while that was going on. Thankfully, things are better now.

Perhaps because of my emotional turmoil, and stress, but I've been doing a lot of spinning lately. The result is some very nice yarn, but even better, I was able to achieve some emotional blankness that was very welcome. I've also done quite a bit of crochet and knitting... I have a lot of updates for both my Etsy store and Ravelry.

Which brings me to another thing. I did not manage to post once at all this week, which is grossly unfair to those of you who have been reading. starrypurplehaze, I have not managed to send out your yarn, though I did get your address, and I have a proposal to make.

I'd like to make the second to the last week and this upcoming week count for one big, last prize. I would post more, and there would be double to the amount of yarn to send off. People who have commented in the last week, your comments would count towards this last drawing (if that makes sense).

I think this is only fair, because I didn't give people much of a chance to comment. Hopefully y'all agree with me, because that's what I'm going to do.

Look forward to some more posts this week!

Continuing adventures with the boyfriend socks

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Originally uploaded by jenamberautumn

Now, I've only made one other pair of socks before I did these. I had always been told that socks were hard to do, but with the top down socks I worked on first, I found them quite easy. However, for my boyfriend's socks I wanted to try something different so I did some research on different sock patterns and came up with something I think I like. (This might change when I get to turning the heel).

For figuring out what needle size to use and generic information was helpful. However, for turning the heel I think will be helpful. The toe start might be an official pattern, but I "invented" it by casting on ten stitches, knitting the row, purling the next row, then knitting again, and then taking a crochet hook and creating ten stitches on the side I cast on, putting five stitches on four needles. #I knit in the round, for one circle. *The next circle I knit one, made a stitch, and knit the next four (so there were six stitches on the needle). The Next needle I knit four, made a stitch and knit the last. I repeated from the * for the next two needles. Then I repeated from the # so I ended up having ten stitches on my four needles. I then switched to my longer dipoint needles and knit in the round.

Unfortunately, I didn't have my boyfriend's measurements yet (for his foot) so I transfered my first sock onto my connected needles and started the second sock. Now that I have my boyfriend's measurements (as of midnight this morning) I can proceed. We'll see how it works out. It might come out terribly, in which case I'll try again. But so far, so good.

Lavish and Boyfriend Socks

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Originally uploaded by jenamberautumn

I got this in the mail the other day and oh god, I didn't expect it to be so soft. I have to admit I dropped what I was doing just to work on this. I looked up a real basic pattern for toe-up socks and I'm making a pair for my boyfriend. They're coming along quickly and the yarn is just amazing to work with- SO soft. I was susposed to be unpacking yesterday but instead I was working on these socks.

Knitting continental style has made such a difference to both my outlook on knitting and my speed. I'm so much more pleased with what I'm doing.

In other news, I've been playing around with Ravelry more often, with wonderful results. Also, I signed up for a yarn swap type thing (see my last post) and it's got me really excited about doing crafty stuff. I have a lot of different projects on my plate right now in different states of progress. I've got my own pair of socks and a stuffed kitten I'm experimenting with. I have a bathmat I almost finished, decided I didn't like it, and am now unraveling in order to do over again. The first time it just wasn't squishy enough for my tastes- too loose. But that's another story I"ll get to another day.

What projects are you working on? Is there one that you dropped because you just had to play with the yarn? Or is there a piece you made, decided you didn't like, and are now reworking?