A couple of weeks ago I was lucky enough to spend a few days on the ski slopes in the French town of Morzine. I'm still healing after my knee accident two years ago so while I was fit enough to ski I built up slowly gradually increasing my skiing time. This mean I had knitting time and time to take some photos of recent FO's in the unseasonable warm weather.
First up are some plain old socks in self striping yarn (Schoeller&Stahl Fortissima Colori Socka Color) I bought at Iknit a few weeks ago. I've been trying out new technical and have recently mastered another type of short row heel, the Sherman Heel/Japanese short rows which avoids making wraps, making a neater heel. It took me a few goes to get the hang of it but now it's my new favourite technique. I also added in gusset increases by increasing in the lead up to the heel and decreasing after. This works whether you are knitting toe up or toe down.
Next up, unusually for me, is some lace knitting. I treated myself to some 100% cashmere hand dyed yarn from Hedgehog Fibres when I was in Dublin with p/hop last year. I've been keeping an eye out for the perfect pattern for it and found this curved shawl/wrap pattern on Ravelry which was interesting to knit but not too flowery. It's called Liliaceae and is available for free from designer Angelika Luidl (in German and English).
You begin with the lower edge, casting on a whopping 387 stitches. I adapted the pattern with two extra repeats as I went down a needle size from the pattern to accommodate the thinner yarn I was using. The pattern is worked over 39 rows which include some decreases then the curve is added with short row shaping. I slightly adapted the pattern by lengthening the short rows, adding them at 10 stitches rather than 5, on the last 5 pattern repeats to make the ends of the scarf slimmer as I'm planning to wear this as a scarf rather than a wrap.
I found this very enjoyable to knit. I think I really did jump in at the deep end before learning to swim when I tried to knit High Seas by Keiran Foley last year, which involves p2togs on the reverse side rather than plain purling. I will make this, one day. I will. I will!
I took Cookie A's Sock Innovation with me and worked on Milo socks, no photos yet, I've just finished the first sock. I would have taken Knit, Sock, Love with me but it's so much bigger and less portable than Sock Innovation. I still haven't made up my mind about K,S,L, I'm working on a couple of patterns from it so will review it when I've made something from it.
Just to break up the knitting here are some delicious cakes we had. Mr Gingerknits had a birthday just before we went away so I bought these from a lovely patisserie in town to celebrate. Luckily the woman behind the counter was used to dithering tourists as they had so much to choose from. I cut the cakes into quarters so we all had a good taste of each one between the four of us.
Finally, here's another plain pair of socks I've named Hot Toddy. I made these with TheYarnYard Toddy Natalie gave away on a trip to London, she'd been knitting with it and got bored so I have half a sock along with the yarn. The other yarn is a striping German sock yarn I bought in Berlin in 2009.
Check out the two tone heels, again made using Japanese short rows..
While I didn't wear these socks while skiing I did wear them on our last day where we gave up on the slopes as it was so warm and sunny the snow turned to slush, which is a bugger to ski on, and went for a woodland walk up to a defrosting waterfall or should that be icefall? There was still snow and ice on the ground but my feet were toasty!
First up are some plain old socks in self striping yarn (Schoeller&Stahl Fortissima Colori Socka Color) I bought at Iknit a few weeks ago. I've been trying out new technical and have recently mastered another type of short row heel, the Sherman Heel/Japanese short rows which avoids making wraps, making a neater heel. It took me a few goes to get the hang of it but now it's my new favourite technique. I also added in gusset increases by increasing in the lead up to the heel and decreasing after. This works whether you are knitting toe up or toe down.
Next up, unusually for me, is some lace knitting. I treated myself to some 100% cashmere hand dyed yarn from Hedgehog Fibres when I was in Dublin with p/hop last year. I've been keeping an eye out for the perfect pattern for it and found this curved shawl/wrap pattern on Ravelry which was interesting to knit but not too flowery. It's called Liliaceae and is available for free from designer Angelika Luidl (in German and English).
You begin with the lower edge, casting on a whopping 387 stitches. I adapted the pattern with two extra repeats as I went down a needle size from the pattern to accommodate the thinner yarn I was using. The pattern is worked over 39 rows which include some decreases then the curve is added with short row shaping. I slightly adapted the pattern by lengthening the short rows, adding them at 10 stitches rather than 5, on the last 5 pattern repeats to make the ends of the scarf slimmer as I'm planning to wear this as a scarf rather than a wrap.
I found this very enjoyable to knit. I think I really did jump in at the deep end before learning to swim when I tried to knit High Seas by Keiran Foley last year, which involves p2togs on the reverse side rather than plain purling. I will make this, one day. I will. I will!
I took Cookie A's Sock Innovation with me and worked on Milo socks, no photos yet, I've just finished the first sock. I would have taken Knit, Sock, Love with me but it's so much bigger and less portable than Sock Innovation. I still haven't made up my mind about K,S,L, I'm working on a couple of patterns from it so will review it when I've made something from it.
Just to break up the knitting here are some delicious cakes we had. Mr Gingerknits had a birthday just before we went away so I bought these from a lovely patisserie in town to celebrate. Luckily the woman behind the counter was used to dithering tourists as they had so much to choose from. I cut the cakes into quarters so we all had a good taste of each one between the four of us.
Finally, here's another plain pair of socks I've named Hot Toddy. I made these with TheYarnYard Toddy Natalie gave away on a trip to London, she'd been knitting with it and got bored so I have half a sock along with the yarn. The other yarn is a striping German sock yarn I bought in Berlin in 2009.
Check out the two tone heels, again made using Japanese short rows..
While I didn't wear these socks while skiing I did wear them on our last day where we gave up on the slopes as it was so warm and sunny the snow turned to slush, which is a bugger to ski on, and went for a woodland walk up to a defrosting waterfall or should that be icefall? There was still snow and ice on the ground but my feet were toasty!
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