Tag: Hand Knit Socks

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Slowly Does It

A flatfish sourdough loaf is held in the right hand above the bread board. It has been cut and the crumb (cut side) is held up to show the camera.

I’ve done three hours of knitting today and I can’t show it to you (it’s for the next MKAL!), but there are some other things making some (albeit slow) progress that I can share with you.

Over the past couple of days I’ve made my first sourdough loaf in quite a while. The dough was still very soft when it went into the fridge overnight and spread a lot when I tipped it out of the banneton this morning. It’s a little on the flat side, but nothing like the frisbees that I have been known to create in the past. And, regardless of how it looks, it tastes amazing.

I’m pleased with the crumb – not too many large holes. Next time I will try reducing the quantity of water as I think in the past that has helped create a dough that holds together more before baking. Lots of sourdough bakers keep a journal of all their bakes with details of temperature, timings and quantities of everything. I could do that, but I’m not sure I’d remember!

My sock is growing. If you remember I’m using RiverKnits Open Day 2022 Show yarn in 100% Cormo wool. It’s not a breed I’ve come across before, but it’s knitting up really nicely. I paused a little with this over the weekend as I wasn’t sure if I’d made the leg too long. I knew the answer was to try it on and if the top of the cuff was tight on my calf I would need to rip out the foot, gusset, heel turn and heel flap and a little of the leg. You can probably tell from that list that I was not keen on this option, but I knew that if the socks were tight at the top they would either sag down my legs or stay in the drawer unworn. So, I was putting off the moment of finding out. Eventually I plucked up the courage and tried it on – it fits! Phew!

I don’t often knit ‘regular’ socks for myself, but when I do I knit them top down with 80 stitches on 2.25mm needles. I do a slip stitch heel flap and reduce the foot down to either 72 or 68 stitches over the gusset. I’m hoping to finish the pair by the end of the month, but then I’ve also challenged myself to finish my ‘Safe Space’ embroidery this month as well, so we shall see – I may have been somewhat over optimistic when I set my monthly goals as I do actually need to do some work as well!

Speaking of which! The Safe Space embroidery is coming on – the big flag at the bottom left that I posted about yesterday is now more than half finished.

I was able to do some of it in front of the telly last night with the aid of my little Serious Readers lamp that came as a freebie (!) with my desk lamp. They are both great and the little one is charged by USB which has proved handy in power cuts (while the battery lasts!).

I’m going to set up a new page on the website of “Where I’ll be” as I’m doing more workshops and other events now. In the meantime, there is an Introduction to Two Colour Brioche Knitting workshop coming up on December 8th (Thursday) at Yarn O’clock that has a couple of spaces remaining. Contact Anne at Yarn O’clock if you would like to book a place.

I’m trying out Mastodon as a new social media platform and am gently finding my way around. If you are on there you can find me as @KathAndrews@toot.wales – it’s also encouraged me to have a go at learning Welsh and I’m on Day 3 of my adventures with Duolingo. So I now know how to say “Noswaith dda, Kath dw i. Sut dych chi? Dw i wedi blino!” That’s “Good evening, I’m Kath. How are you? I’m tired!”

So, as ‘dw i wedi blino’, I’m going to stop here, make dinner (bread plus curry made yesterday!), have a cup of tea and put my feet up for a little while before watching ‘quiz night’ on BBC2. Take care one and all. Hwyl! K x

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Blue

Three squares of stranded knitting with celtic knot work designs are joined with dark grey garter stitch borders. The centre square has a blue background with grey pattern and the outer squares have a grey background with blue pattern.

Many of the things I’m making seem to be blue at the minute! But then it always was my favourite colour, even when I was little.

The Nevern Throw Expansion Pack is nearly there. I’ve joined as much of it together as I can until I get back home to where the final square is pinned out. It will definitely be dry by the time I get to it.

The blue doesn’t show up so well on Mum’s carpet, but I promise you it is blue and dark grey. I’m just making one of each chart for the expansion pack so folk can see what each of them look like – and to give me something lovely to put on the front cover!

Also blue is my Morph, from Woolly Wormhead’s Cuboidal collection. It’s growing well and I’m very pleased with it so far. I keep thinking that with the crown at the bottom it would also make an excellent bag…

That’s the inside of the Hat I’ve shown you there – it’s so clever how you don’t break the yarn at all until you finish a round of mitred squares, so even if you’ve got a single ridge of one colour at the start of each square like I have here, there aren’t loads of ends to deal with.

The outside looks like this:

NOT blue is the sock I started at Yarndale. This is my usual plain sock to fit me (80 stitches on 2.25mm) and it is in the RiverKnits’ Open Day Special colourway of “Ankh-Morpork” on Cormo wool. Again, I’m very pleased with how it’s turning out so far, although it has been a little neglected in the past couple of weeks. I’m hoping that by posting a pic of its progress here I will actually remember to take it out of it’s project bag and work on it!

I used the hat for background as I thought there might be a chance the sock would be completely camouflaged by the orange and brown carpet (c.1978 – wool lasts, but you knew that).

Just a short one today as I’m at Mum’s and there is a cup of tea to be made and a game of scrabble to be played.

Take care of yourselves and make something in your favourite colour, K x

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A Little Fall of Rain

This week has flown past – I can hardly believe I’m writing another blog post already!

The main image of today’s post is the Helmet hat I made for Sue from my hand spun yarn, the pattern coming from Woolly Wormhead‘s Introspection collection. I realised I hadn’t taken a photo of her wearing it since it was blocked – and this overhead shot shows the crown decreases really nicely.

Some good news – I have finished recording and editing my videos for my new Craftucation course, An Introduction to Lace Knitting. They are currently in the process of being uploaded to the website and that just leaves the final bits of transcriptions to write and the still images to capture from the videos for the pdf downloads. Hurrah!

A screenshot of the first title page for my lace knitting course. The text on the left reads "Introduction to Lace Knitting, 1.1 Welcome". On the right is a sample square of different lace stitches worked in pale blue DK yarn. The background is a wooden desk.

In a week or so I will upload one of the introductory chapters here – they are free to view before buying the course anyway, to give you a flavour of it. That’s probably better than showing you the out-takes where I end up blowing raspberries at myself for tripping over my words!

Looking back at last week’s post, I see that more knitting progress has occurred than I’d realised. The first of my Good Riddance Socks by Laur of the Blings Designs is complete and I’m just about to start the short row heel on the second one.

One complete multi-coloured hand knit sock lies on a pale gold carpet with a sock in progress on top of it. The sock in progress is being worked toe up, starting in stocking stitch with two colours held together then going to a section of 2-colour brioche. Stocking stitch returns just under the needles (dpns). The colours change randomly as each yarn runs out.

I’ve also passed the half-way mark on my ‘secret’ project, so that will be complete in the next couple of weeks which is fabulous as it gives me plenty of time before the deadline. I really wish I could show you this, but you are going to LOVE it when you do eventually get to see it – in September. The yarn was dyed especially for me to match a picture I sent the dyer. The picture relates closely to the name of the pattern. The dyer will then be making yarn kits for the pattern to coincide with publication in September!

I don’t yet have photos of everyone’s finished Calon Cariad shawls, but they are going to make a stunning collection when I do manage to bring them all together. Some people are still working on them I know. It was lovely to get feedback about including Zoom events as part of a KAL. Those who attended really appreciated them and said it gave them more of a sense that they were taking part in a group event, rather than just knitting and sharing photos of their work online. It’s something I think I will do with future KALs and MKALs – though I might need to invest in the Zoom package that stops your meeting unceremoniously ending after 40 minutes!

The embroidery of Mum has stalled a bit, although I did do a couple of hours on it yesterday for the first time in a while. I’m not sure I can see the difference yet from my previous update photo as my current colour – dark brown – is so close to the black that it’s hard to see. I have decided the next colour I choose to work will have a clear contrast with the dark brown, black and olive green there so far. I need to be able to see some progress being made. What do you think?

A piece of cream linen with patches of tiny black, dark green and dark brown stitches. The fabric is marked off in squares with fine black thread and pale blue thread marks the centre lines. The image of a laughing woman can just be made out in the emerging picture.
The same embroidery as the image on the left with more stitches worked, adding a very dark brown.

A book I pre-ordered back in August arrived recently. The Sourdough Whisperer by Elaine Boddy. It’s the second of her books that I’ve had and they are both brilliant. I love the tips and tricks and ways to revive and boost your starter and different things to try if your dough isn’t behaving the way you want it to. As you may remember I’ve had some spectacular failures in my baking adventures (total frisbees!) as well as successes and this book mentions the effect that being in a hard or soft water area can have. We have incredibly soft water, so I followed the suggestion to reduce the water content by 30g and it worked a treat. At first I wasn’t sure all the flour would mix in, but it did and we’ve been enjoying a cracking loaf for the past few days.

A round sourdough loaf sits on a cooling rack.

It had finally stopped raining and drizzling – there was even some sunshine! – so I interrupted my blog writing to grab the opportunity to go for a walk. Less than ten minutes out the door en route to the post office the rain began once more. Just a little fall of rain. It’s a shame we weren’t wearing our hats when we went out!

Take care, keep safe and keep knitting, Kx