Socks: Challenge Accepted!

Since I started knitting I used to admire with envy the beautiful socks other Raverlers posted on their profiles: plain, laced, multicolored, unicolored, …. I confess that I absolutely LOVE Dona‘s socks, and my wish is, one day, to knit beautiful socks like her. I was really looking forward to imitating this people and showing pictures of my feet wrapped in adorable socks. When I was living in Brussels I bought three sock yarns and I even started two different toe-up socks that stayed unfinished for months. I never completed those two projects.

But I continued faving socks and queueing up patterns, until I decided to take action. I’m in the group Free Pattern Testers and whenever I see an interesting project and I feel I have time I offer myself to test the pattern. It’s a very good way of getting patterns for free, helping the designer and also a way of committing yourself and being sure that you will finish a project in a reasonable lapse of time (a bit of pressure is always good).

I saw a pair of socks that looked reasonable easy on that group and I decided to give them a try, they were the Fruit Lace Socks. I had to finish that pair! There was no excuse, I was going to finish my first pair of socks! Challenge accepted!

These were cuff-down socks featuring a lace pattern and there was only one size available, so I knew from the beginning that those socks were going to come out way too large for me. Never mind. I wanted so badly to finish a pair of socks and get out of the jinx that I just continued doggedly. There was not a specified foot length so I adapted it to my feet and the result was a lovely pair of socks to wear at home over another pair when my feet are cold (yes, that happens even in Spring).

The reason for this success was not only a clear pattern and the pressure, but also a good election of needles. Just before starting this project I remembered one of Dona‘s favorite needle brands: Addi. By chance I have a friend who has an online shop that sells this brand of needles, and she is also one of the knitters that come every Friday to our Madrid Knits meetings, so bought two circular needles from her (2mm and 2.5 mm). I have to say that I absolutely love this needles. They meant a big change in knitting socks because the joint of the needle and the cable is so smooth and it makes the magic loop so much fluid and painless. I remember my first time with Prym needles and how much I suffered moving my stitches from the cable to the needle. It also didn’t help that at that moment I was an English and a much tighter knitter, but that’s another story that deserves its own post.

My next pair of socks were custom made. I wanted to reuse the yarn of one of my unfinished projects and I was afraid of running out of yarn. I had only 50 grams that I purchased in Brussels and it was going to be extremely difficult to get more. I was on a hurry, I was on track, I was not going to look for similar yarn. I have small feet and I was going to make my save-yarn socks. I thought that a lace pattern could save some yarn and I really liked Dona’s socks for Barbara, so I decided to try something similar, but toe-up not to run out of yarn in the middle of the foot. I was also afraid of SSS and I felt lazy to weigh my yarn (although I have a scale!) so my final decision was to make toe-up socks two at a time. I was a bit worried that that could make things difficult, but now, looking backwards, I can say that it was one the best decisions I made related to knitting: No SSS, no need to weigh yarn and both socks will come of exactly the same size. No row counting, no uneven tension due to stress (that sometimes happens), dry hands, sweaty hands, … This was going to be the definitive recipe. To be able to accommodate a pattern similar to the one of Dona, taking into account that I have much smaller feet (she has a 40 size and I have a 36), I needed 48 stitches in total. I used 48 stitches also in later projects and it’s what works for me. It’s a bit tight but some negative ease when making socks is desired, since then tend to stretch a bit with the use and we don’t want wrinkles inside our shoes.

Feather & Fan pattern:

1. K
2. k2tog x 2 + k1,yo x 4 + k2tog x 2
3. K
4. K

For the sock I used the pattern You’re putting me on socks with a flap heel. I just need to say that these came out lovely, a bit too multicolored, and with a too short heel and low instep. I decided that I was going to modify that for the next time. But I had enough yarn and even some left.

My next pair of socks was also custom made. I was again inspired by one of Dona’s pair of socks but I added something extra to make them less boring (I already mastered the sock technique and I wanted more!): two cables on the sides plus the cable on the back of the leg. This yarn also came from Brussels. I added two extra repetitions to the instep. This heel is longer it fits much better my feet.

My fourth pair of socks was made from the same yarn of the second pair. I had 300 gr, enough for two pairs and it was thick and warm, perfect for winter socks. This time I wanted to make Hermione’s everyday socks since it was a big hit in Ravelry. The original pattern is a cuff-down design, so I adapted it to my own needs: toe-up and 48 stitches. I finished this socks in one of my visits to Vigo at my mother’s place and she loved them. She chose a color and I promised to make a pair for her.

So my fifth pair was again Hermione’s everyday socks in pink for my mum. I got the yarn at La Guerra de los botones and it’s very very soft. My mother uses the same shoe size so things are easy, it’s exactly the same pattern. These came out so soft, so comfy, so wonderful that I’m sad to give them away, but happy because I know my mum will love them.

I got some variegated yarn for the future, but I will probably make plain socks from that one. I also want to get from La Guerra de los botones yarn in dark brown and bottle green to make more Hermione’s everyday socks since I love them. It’s a nice pattern and the socks come out very stretchy and comfy.

After this I can conclude that I finally fulfilled my challenge, that I found my perfect personal sock recipe and that I made five pairs of socks in less than two months. Before it was madness to me, but I think I can go for the 12 pair of socks in one year challenge.

***

Note: My personal recipe:

• Cast on 10 stitches following Judy’s magic cast on (2 times, one after the other in the same needles, don’t be afraid).
• Increase with M1L and M1R every 2 rows until you have 48 stitches.
• Work st by st in pattern until  when your ankle starts.
• Work 9 increases on sides with M1L and M1R every 2 rows.
• Unmount socks, the heel is worked one by one.
• Work heel as desired. I do a flap heel with heel stitch.
• Mount socks again. For the leg you can work 2 at a time again.
• Knit the leg.
• Change to a smaller needle and do 1 x 1 ribbing.
• Do an Elisabeth Zimmerman’s sewn bind off.

Campaign for Wool

Last Thursday some knitters and crocheters met in Madrid for this event:

Despite the big amount of pollen in the air, I decided to join them and attend this unique event, where I met lots of people.

You can watch the entire program at:

The part about the “Gran Tricotada” starts on 42′ 52”.

http://www.telemadrid.es/?q=programas/madrid-directo/madrid-directo-17052012-0

The owls are not what they seem

I always wanted to make this sweater. I proposed for a KAL in the group Madrid Knits and it won

After looking for an alternative wool for the Owls since Christmas, I finally decided myself for Cascade Ecological Wool. I’ve always been sensitive to wool, not really allergic and the perspective of buying wool online always scared me. I need to touch it, to feel it, to check if I’m going to be able to wear it. On the other hand, I left acrylic relegated to the bottom of my drawers. I started crocheting with acrylic because it was cheap, it was ok for amigurumis and it didn’t itch. But now that I’m knitting, I can’t stand it. I tried a blend of wool and silk some months ago to make a sweater and the feeling was totally wonderful. The elasticity of the wool, its forgiveness, all those praises we read everyday on Ravelry and blogs. All those are true. And I wanted my sweater to be ultra-warm. I’m always cold, even during the hottest days of Summer (Spanish Summer) I always have a cardigan or a sweater with me, just in case. I don’t mind temperatures of 45ºC, but I can’t stand the cold.

The main alternative for the Owls was this Cascade Yarns Ecological Wool, and I found out that I could buy it from France at a very good price. I think it was 28 euros plus shipping, making a total of 36 euros, for two skeins, just what I needed for my sweater. I read a lot of opinions about this yarn at Raverly, and although most of them were very positive (incredible yarn, soft, warm, etc), some of them were a bit worse (the yarn smells, it itches hell, it grows after blocking, “I’ll never use it again”). After two desperate months looking for a yarn I decided to take the risk having in mind that for that price I was not going to get anything better.

And the wool arrived and it was really like having two sheeps at home.

It was rich, woolly, smelly and dense. The smell was not disgusting at all like some people said, but natural and sweet. Knitting with this yarn was a total pleasure and the project was finished in no time. At the beginning I was afraid of having allergy to this wool (some people had and I have a lot of allergies) but my fingers were ok, I didn’t sneeze during the process and my asthma didn’t get worse. The body took me some days. At that time I was so busy emptying boxes at home that I didn’t have time for anything else except for work and sleep. But at the end I got in a hurry. On February 10th I had to leave for Belgium for my boyfriend’s thesis defense, the temperatures there were the whole day below 0ºC and I didn’t want to be cold. The only option was knitting as fast as I could. I made some calculations and I decided to stick to them and finish my sweater in time. That meant: 1 day for each sleeve plus 1 day for the yoke plus weaving in. And I made it! Knitting until I had to go to bed but I made it The last day I went to a close by shop to buy some buttons and my Owls was finished.

After reading several reviews of this pattern in Ravelry I decided to move the back decreases and increases from the back to the sides. I found this blog post with the exact mods that I wanted to make (thank you, Mamatronic).

I didn’t have time to block it and I’m really scared of what will happen. I hope it’s not going to grow too much, otherwise my sweater will be ruined. That weekend in Belgium (I was only in Leuven and Helcheteren, sorry girls) was cold, ultra cold, reaching temperatures of -12ºC. But I had my Owls and I was warm. Wow, this sweater is ultra-warm!!!

I wore it a couple of times here in Madrid with a thin coat it I still love it. It itches much less than in the beginning and it’s already loosing its smell. A pity, I got used to it and I learned to like it.

Moving

It’s been one month since last time I wrote something here. This last four weeks have been a bit hectic due to our moving from Brussels to Madrid. The 14th the moving company came to put everything in boxes and take them away, and the next day we were also gone.

We visited around 15 or 16 apartments in two days, and one of the last apartments we’ve seen the second day was the perfect for us. In our favorite area (Malasaña), with gas heating, airco, good materials and very close to the public transport. I should add that it’s very close to a square that it’s always full with dogs and children. I love the sound of dogs and children!

During the first days I explored the area looking for wool shops and I’ve already found four! The closest one is called La Guerra de los Botones, and the girls there are very friendly and they periodically organize diverse workshops.

But when our boxes arrived I realized that my stash is… how to say it, … huge. My wool was inside a big box like the ones they use for clothes and light items, about a meter high. And there was also a bit more in a other two boxes. Ups, did I really have ALL this wool at home in that little corner of the living room?? So I think I have to stop my compulsion of buying wool if I don’t have a project in mind, and the wool I already have, I should use it as soon as possible!

This apartment is smaller than the one in Brussels, and we are still drowned in boxes. We finally bought a bed with big drawers under and I stuffed my wool there in the meantime while we don’t get something for the living room. I was also knitting something, but that goes into another post

Two things

With almost everything waiting for the moving company my mind is already gone from here. I was a bit stressed before Christmas but all the nervousness is gone now. At the beginning of this week a colleague asked me if I would be missing something from Belgium in my new life. And I could come up with just two things: my knitting group and my colleagues. Nothing else.

I had very bad experiences here (maybe that’s why I couldn’t finally adapt) and I never expected that my departure could be like it is. I said goodbye with almost tears in my eyes to the SnB Brussels girls and today I had a lunch at work in my honor.

After very long time thinking that I was not going to miss anything, I almost feel sad for not seeing this friends anymore (or at least for some unknown time).

Luckily internet makes our world a very small place.

Last SnB Brussels (and this time for good)

After saying goodbye to my knitting friends of Brussels, wonderful Ihanitse decided to organize an extra emergency meeting and say goodbye in person. She even put a picture of me with my halliard and wrote this lovely description:

Our very own lovely Elena (aka “I-learned-to-knit-lace-la

st-night-and-made-this-little-shawl-called-Ishbel” aka “co-ordinator extraordinaire”) packs her needles, hooks, boyfriend and dance shoes and changes grey Brussels for the warmth of Madrid.
This is an emergency meeting for all who wish to knit together with Elena for the last time (although I’m sure she’ll be back to visit in the future). Elena already thought she’s off the crochet hook but we lassoed her right back in: http://elenaknits.wordpress.com/2012/01/09/last-snb-brussels/
Just like the true yarn addicts we are, we say – just one more round! See you in ViaVia this Wednesday from 6pm or after work. January meetings are
Wednesday 11/1
Wednesday 18/1
Sunday 29/1 Kristin, Wincy, Johanna and for the last time – Elena

The knitting time was, as usual, great, and seeing them for the last time, priceless. I’ll keep in contact and hope that we can visit each other in the future.

People divide the world among, friends, mates, acquaintances, and unknown people. For us, knitters, the world is divided between people we would knit something to and people we wouldn’t. I have now more people that fit into the first category.

Girls, I’ll never ever forget you, and I wanna see what you’ll be making.

A picture is worth a thousand words

And I would add that a video is worth a thousand images.

I bought Ysolda‘s Elijah pattern a couple of weeks ago. To start the head of the elephant you need to do a circular cast on also called “casting on from middle disappearing”. The link that appears in the pattern is this one:

http://techknitting.blogspot.com/2007/02/casting-on-from-middle-disappearing.html

I tried to figure out what that meant but it didn’t work for me. That reminded me of my Knitting Bible book, where I got the notions, but at the end I really needed videos to figure out how to make things. I found the equivalent of the previous link in YouTube. And this time, I could make the circular cast on:

I’m still a beginner, but when I hear/read other beginners asking how to do something or that they are not able to figure how something works, I always say the same: use YouTube, it’s free, it’s very useful and you can learn anything out there.

Receiving

After seeing hoy K. treats hand made items, I tend to forget how normal people usually do. K. always wears his crochet hat with fleece lining when it’s cold outside, he likes to hold and cuddle my yarn balls when I’m knitting and he recently asked me to knit him a scarf similar to the one I made for my father. He even came with me to choose the wool.

Making something for somebody so thankful is a pleasure, and I enjoy making things for my loved ones. But again, I’m never prepared for the reaction, or let’s better say, lack of reaction from my family in general. I made an Ishbel shawl for my mother three months and a half ago. Almost everybody said that it was very beautiful, but they didn’t have an idea of the amount of hours and effort put there (again, K. sees me all the time knitting at home, so he knows all that it takes to knit something). Next I got some complaints about the material, that it felt too cold. The truth is that I also preferred something different, but in the local shop close to my mother’s place (and the hospital) they did not have a great variety of yarns available. At least I got one of her favorite colors. Due to the material (I hope) she couldn’t wear it during Summer.

Since her surgery it looks I’m obsessed with knitting, and this is what I made for her for this Christmas period:

This was a very easy and quick shawl to make, and the result was very good. I gave it to her for Christmas and she liked it a lot, but again, I think my family in general gives more value to bought things rather than hand made. When she was on the phone with my aunt she was describing the presents she got and forgot to mention the shawl. I made nothing for my sister because I know she completely disagrees with this hand-made knitting stuff when you can buy something similar in one of those Chinese shops for a couple of euros. As you see, my family doesn’t understand about materials either.

Finally my mother was wearing it yesterday while we were talking on Skype

When thinking about writing this post, I had this Yarnharlot‘s post in mind. Read it, it’s priceless. And now, I’ll continue knitting K.’s scarf while he keeps holding and cuddling the yarn while we watch something sitting on the sofa.

Last SnB Brussels

Yesterday I organized and assisted to probably my last SnB Brussels. I must confess that I didn’t feel like going because of the bad cold I caught just when I landed in Belgium. But I made an effort and it was worth it. I saw some old and new faces. We knitted and we bitched. It was kind of sad that I missed some girls there, but at this time of the year it’s completely expected, since some people are still coming back from they home countries.

I’ll never forget you girls. I may meet other SnB in the next future, but you were the first for me and you’ll be present in every little stitch I knitted with you.

Ishbel for a long way from the darkness

I started this project while my mother was at the hospital due to surgery, almost at the end of September. One of her parathyroid glands had to be removed and the doctor informed us that this was an extremely easy operation and after a couple of days my mother would be happily at home with very little pain and a tiny scar at the base of her neck.

But as you know, thing tend to come out totally different from expected.

The operation lasted for four hours, she lost two littres of blood and had to stay in Intensive Care for two days. Her blood preasure reached alarming values of 5-2 and they had to stuff her with liquid to raise it. The first time I could see her she was crying with pain and her conscience was fading due to morphine. She doesn’t remember those days and I’m sure it’s for the best.

After two days they took her upstairs to her room and soon she started to have breathing problems. I remember a night that she could barely breath. She thought she was going to die. The next morning the doctors found out that what she had in her lungs was the liquid that they’d been stuffing her for the previous days. She was also completely swollen and couldn’t even bend her fingers. They also said that due to the respiratory problems she could also have a heart failure. Believe me, each of the ten days that she stayed at the hospital, we had a brand new surprise that made our hearts sink.

And all that without taking into account that they couldn’t find the gland they were looking for, and they even had to cut more than it was foreseen… for nothing. They also cut part of her sternum and even today she has pain and has problems to sleep on her side.

The surgery left her a scar in her neck bigger than we expected. A bit T.

I then understood that me spending days and nights beside her bed was not enough. I needed to knit my love into something that could be useful and use my efforts to make her come back to us. So I decided to knit Ishbel.

This being my first lace pattern and because of the situation, I miscounted here and there and I had to unravel the lace part. It’s when I learned the use of guide lines and took a short break just when I came back to Belgium. It’s not a very good idea to knit a lace shawl with yarn made out of cotton and rayon after spending hours sitting in a room of a hospital with low light and your mother suffering.

I started over the lace part and the second time I could focus more than the first.

I finally finished it during my following trip to Spain in October and blocked it there. After hating the knitting and the yarn used several times, I have to say that I am very pleased with the result and it was worth it.