new year - new things

Happy new year!

Traditionally the new year or the old year starts with a bit of a year in review, and if you are curious about what I knit last year you could go here and see what I spent the year doing, I do plan to review the last year soon, its good to look back and reflect.
And yes I did buy my own body board (boogie board to some), and yes it has been baptisted, all of us spent the morning at Brighton Beach yesterday, and I was as warm as toast.
But new year - new project, this is one that has been on my to knit list since the Knitty Spring 2008 issue came out, and I have more yarn, 2 more lots of sock yarn.

My newest project is a heavily modified Froot Loops by Kristi Geraci. Once during the year Poppy, aged 6 admired a sock I was knitting and asked if it was for her, it wasn't, so I said so. She sighed, and asked how come I get all the pretty socks? What she meant was I tended to knit her plain ribbed socks and she had noticed mine were fancier, prettier, and generally nicer ... so whats a knitting mum to do but knit her Froot Loops, in a size 6, which means recalculating them to fit her little teeny feet, and I'm knitting them toe up - which makes it easier to try them on her as I work. I cast on on the 1st of Feb 2009, and this is where I am so far ...



I'm using two techniques to re-size this for her, first I've traced around her foot, and used it as a template. I cast on and increased until the sock was a little wider, perhaps 0.5cm or quarter inch wider than the tracing of her foot. To work the heel I'm using the heel method of Widdershins (also from Knitty - where would I be without that resource?).

I love the lace pattern used in these socks, little columns of O's, real O's, with holes in them. I imagine this might become a stable in my knit library, and am already imagining them replacing ribbing or around mitten cuffs or topping off a sock ... lots of places.


Now I've also done another little modification, cause when you knit toe up - you knit the instep pattern first, leaving the sole plain. And the lace of Froot Loops is not symmetrical - and that looks odd when you start the instep patterning. So ... I've mirror imaged the lace across the instep for. symmetry. And I'm working the heel flap across 50% of the stitches - which uses the same chart as the instep, and makes the maths easier

And sock yarn, well - considering that I have enough yarn to knit 15 socks already in stash (and probably more as two of those yarns are cones), I don't need any more sock yarn. But need is such a subjective term and completely ignores any aspect of opportunity and timelyness that knitters must keep in mind - sometimes we buy a yarn because we are unsure that it will be there when we look for it next time. Two things tempted me, Vintage Purls brought the prettiest palest yarn to knitting in December and I forgot to tell you all about it, and James of Joy of Yarn updated his online shop with his Noro stocks. I'm not aware of any one else selling this on line in New Zealand (tempt tempt NZ readers - his prices included shipping)


so thats me for now, I've spent the morning on ravelry updating my stash and library - and have a few more little things to do there, but it feels like I've been on the computer all morning, so now I'm off to do other things ...
take care, hope your new years brings new projects and not to many challenges
na Stella