WIP update

I finished another set of squares on the coat yesterday so I thought I'd post some update pics.

I have five of the seven waist level squares done. There will eventually be seven squares on each level, just shows how much work I have left to do.

A better pic of the colors.. though still not a great one. It's a dark and drizzly day here in Ohio.

what to do?

I have the next two days off... this is the first time in 10 years that I'm not working for x-mas eve and day. To top it off, I'm not close enough to my family to waste the day away with them.

So what to do?

1. Movie - which one?

2. work on long coat

3. work on socks

4. clean house (nope.. got someone to do that for me)

5. eat Chinese

6. hold up cats

7. spin

I'm confused...

Most sock yarn comes in 100gm skeins and is more than enough for me to make a pair of socks out of.

I discovered tonight that my first pair of Wollmeise socks took up 125gm of yarn. Now it is a thicker yarn and I did still knit it on 1.5's with a gauge of 9stitches/inch but still.

It looks like the second pair will also take up a bit of yarn. The first sock weighs in at 62gm. Both socks are from Cat Bordhi's Pathways book.

So, here is my question.

Is it the sock yarn? Do all Wollmeise socks take up more yarn?

Or, more importantly (since I just destashed all the leftover Wollmeise)

Is it the different pathways in Cat Bordhi's book that take up so much yarn? Will I need to weigh out my skeins into two separate balls before knitting anymore socks from her book?

Socks, socks and more socks

One of the things I like about traveling is that it seems to be the only time I get any sock knitting done. When I'm at home, I have trouble working on socks while that sweater (or in this case coat) is sitting there with it's 20 balls of yarn that can't travel anywhere because it weighs a ton just sits there looking at me.

I got the new Cat Bordhi book for Hanukkah. I love the concept but find it a bit off putting that the template only works if you have the same gauge (including row) for each pair of socks you make on it. I tend to make four or five pairs a year and with all the different yarns out there I tend not to repeat more than twice a year (if that... I currently have only two sets made out of the same yarn base).

So I decided to go back to her Pathways book for my travel sock. I picked the Foxglove master pattern with my own (probably not my own, but I'm not using a pattern) pattern to break up the stripes/pooling. I'm using a skein of we're different Wollmeise in yellow and blue with green at the color joins and knitting on 1.5s. My first pair of Wollmeise socks are wearing very nicely but I still think the yarn is a pain in the butt to knit with. It is not tightly plied and does split, especially if you're frogging. I may destash the remainder of my 80/20 single skeins when I get home.

search terms

I've noticed that a lot of people who find this blog are typing "thickest socks" or "thickest socks ever" into the google search.

Are you looking for a pattern or do you just have cold feet?

If you're curious.. the larger size ones take a bit over one skein (I actually think it's 1 1/2) of Lamb's Pride Bulky and fit a women's size 9 foot.

HELP!

This showed up on my doorstep today. As some of you may know, Warm Woolies is shutting down shop at the end of this year. They have been my knitting charity of choice for the past few years and on one of the ravelry groups, we were asked why we knit for them.

It was supposed to be a contest with one winner, but I guess they have a lot of yarn to get rid of, cause I wasn't the winner.

It's a box full of wonderful yarns (the computer's camera doesn't exactly capture it) that I've never knit with. The Synchronicity hiding in the bag will probably turn into some type of shawl (there are 10 skeins there, which isn't enough for a sweater for me). What is buried under it in the pic are the two circular needles (one a Lantern Moon!), two sets of double points and four pattern books.

What do I do with the Fixation and the Serenade?

There are 17 skeins of the cotton/elastic fixation. I'm not even sure I'll be able to knit a yarn that has elastic in it without turning my hands all red.

There are 12 skeins of cotton/angora Serenade, which I'm thinking of something for my grandmother in Florida, but I'm not sure.

I'm not a huge fan of knitting with cotton, so even the soft angora might not make up for the 70% cotton.

I'm not greedy, if someone has a good idea for some of this, I'm willing to share (some of it). I hate to hold on to it for the next SP swap, could you imagine a box with 17 skeins of blue fixation???