No I didn’t. Ha, so there. Fooled you. It’s defeat, yes, and it’s de feet. Last night I pulled on my beautiful lovely wonderful favorite socks, my kai-mei in tosh sock, and what did my shocked eyes see?

NO!!!!!

I finished them April 29, 2010 (my anniversary, coincidentally!), so I haven’t even been wearing them a year. And they’re in rotation with all my other handknit socks, which I only wear during cold weather, so this is entirely unacceptable I must say. Really. Perhaps Tosh Sock is not meant to be used for socks, silly me. Do I take good care of them? Why yes I do. Handwash, air dry, lotsa care. Maybe I have bad feet? Why no I don’t.

Of course the only remedy is to make another pair of kai-mei, but I’ve learned my lesson and won’t be using Tosh Sock for socks, ever again. I’m all about the process, love knitting, loved making the kai-mei especially, but I don’t expect to get just a few wearings before the yarn disintegrates. For heaven’s sake.

I had big trouble with another madelinetosh yarn (merino, in this case), which I used for my Mondo Cable Cardi. I’d had it on for maybe 2 seconds (3, to be generous) when the whole thing turned into a giant thick pill. All that work, and it looks like a bad sheep’s fleece. I could continuously scrape off the pills, but I’m not kidding, the pilling happens faster than I can get them off. It’s strange to be complaining so bitterly about a yarn I’ve been so in love with; I do still adore the colors, she’s an amazing colorist, but the yarn bases have now let me down twice. Hmm. That’s a lot of money to pay.

Anyway, one more turn of the feet, and another Cookie A sock (angee) — here’s Katie’s next pair. One sock down, the other sock is now at the mid-foot region.

Katie's Paddy Socks -- Angee (CookieA of course)

This is KnitPicks Felici, in the sold-out colorway called green vegetables. It hasn’t been the best quality — there have been a number of places where the plys were abraded and the yarn was down to a lone-ply holding itself together. What’s up, you yarn makers you?!

Begun at the end of 2009, these were my first FO for 2010: Fools Rush Socks by Cassie Thoreson. I’d always wanted red and white striped socks, so I used two colors of KnitPicks Risata – buttermilk and spicy. I didn’t enjoy working with the Risata very much, and they’re not soft to wear. But dang if the color and stripes don’t make me happy! Tin Drum, by Gunter Grass, is one of my favorite books and red and white are important colors in that book, so I call these my Tin Drum Socks:

Fools Rush Socks by Cassie Thoreson, in KnitPicks Risata

Aren’t they cute? I made a 3rd pair of socks for my stepdaughter Anna, whose feet get cold in her dorm. She picked out the yarn and color – KnitPicks Felici, in the cochineal colorway, and I chose the pattern: Hedera by Cookie A. It was a nice mix of yarn and pattern:

a pair of socks for a cold dorm room floor

I realized I’d knitted a lot of socks for Anna, but none for Katie, my oldest daughter, so I presented her with a range of yarn choices and asked her to pick. She’s a pretty Irish girl, so both yarns had green bits. With the Lorna’s Lace Shepherd Sock Multi, I knitted Holes in my Socks! by Nicole Okun. It was a fun pattern to knit, and the fit was comfortable:

Holes in my Socks! by Nicole Okun (Lorna's Lace Shepherd Sock Multi, colorway Beverly 209)

Her other yarn choice was  Knit One Crochet Too Ty-Dy Socks, colorway meadow 1518. I returned to my old standby pattern,  Monkey by Cookie A., which I could knit in my sleep. Katie liked these, too:

Monkey by Cookie A.

I made a new pair of socks for ME, using this beautiful madelinetosh sock yarn in the crow colorway. This pattern, Kai-Mei, is in her new book titled Sock Innovation, and it was loads of fun to knit. I just plowed forward, not quite understanding what was going on, but it turned out wonderfully:

Kai-Mei, by Cookie A. - madelinetosh sock, crow colorway

A pair of pink socks for my worm farmin’ power liftin’ badass daughter Marnie: No-purl Monkeys, knit with KnitPicks Felici (colorway Positively Pink, and they’re not kidding about that).

i call these Minkeys - pink Monkeys

These Circle Socks, designed by Anne Campbell, in a Kaffe Fassett colorway (I call them my Wowie-Zowie socks):

Wowie Zowie Socks (Circle Socks, by Anne Campbell)

A pair of very plain socks (no pattern used, just plain old socks) in madelinetosh Tosh Sport, colorway tweed. The yarn is fantastic, and I hope it’s hardwearing:

tweedie-pie socks

Inspired by this truly gorgeous skein of yarn by madelinetosh (tosh merino light, colorway tern), I knitted the Traveling Woman by Liz Abinante. I looked through the project notes of other knitters who made the pattern, but didn’t quite take seriously enough the caution to bind off loosely. If I make it again, and I think I will, I’ll investigate different bind-off techniques so I’m sure to make it elastic enough to be able to pull out the points. Still, it’s pretty!

Traveling Woman by Liz Abinante, in tosh merino light (tern colorway)

And this lovely little Baktus scarf, my subway knitting project knit with Noro Silk Garden Sock and a skein of KnitPicks Essential:

wearing the baktus scarf

A lace ribbon scarf in Rowan Felted Tweed – pattern and yarn selected by the recipient, my friend Susan Lee. She saw my Peasy and loved the yarn, and asked if I’d make her a scarf like my orange malabrigo sock lace ribbon. I wouldn’t have put the yarn with the pattern, but it’s ok!

lace ribbon scarf (Veronik Avery), in Rowan Felted Tweed

A very meaningful project – an heirloom project – was a wedding shawl for my daughter Marnie. I learned a lot, making this, and while I’m not sure how many more cobweb-weight shawls I want to make, I am very happy with how it turned out.

placeholder shot of blocking - will replace with full shot after I give it to her

I made this sockhead hat to donate to the BSD Project, using yarn that my stepdaughter gave me for Mother’s Day earlier this year. Although I got really bored with all that stockinette round and round and round with sock yarn, I did love the outcome:

a hat in search of a home

It took me long enough, but I finished a cardigan – Peasy, by Heidi Kirrmaier. I used Rowan Felted Tweed, in avocado, and bought some beautiful little Italian handmade leather buttons, oval-shaped. I love the sweater.

Peasy, in Rowan Felted Tweed. LOVE.

Peasy in the park

A second sweater finished on the heels of Peasy, even though I cast on for it Dec 26 of last year. One dilemma after another – it was the high of finishing Peasy that made me haul butt to finish this, the Mondo Cable Cardi – et voila:

At the end of the year, I had 2 sweaters on the needles (Dark & Stormy and Eve’s Rib), a scarf in progress for a friend, an afghan in the works, and a set of monsters coming together for Katie. Not as much knitting as I’d have liked, but that’s life.

MITTS: I made these Gasteropoda by Kristi Geraci for my daughter Marnie. She doesn’t like anything clinging to her wrists; she’s an artist and carves and draws a lot, so she needs to be able to make fine motor movements; and she doesn’t have good heat in her apartment in Chicago, so her hands get cold. I thought this pattern just fit the bill, in every way. It was also a lot of fun to knit! I used Sunday Knits Nirvana 3 ply, in a rich espresso color. Soft, light wool.

Marnie's Gasteropoda mitts, pattern by Kristi Geraci

SOCKS: Since I’d never made socks before, I started with the very popular No Purl Monkeys by CraftyPancakes, which is a slight tweak of Cookie A’s monkey sock pattern published in Knitty. I made three pairs (two for my stepdaughter Anna, and one pair for me) using Felici, the very soft self-striping yarn from KnitPicks. Mine have held up beautifully to a lot of wear, and to a lot of washing and drying in industrial machines. Good stuff.

Anna's green monkeys

Anna's taupe monkeys

my blue and purple monkeys

And one more pair of socks, using a beautiful skein of madelinetosh sock in Scarlett – Nutkin by Beth LaPensee. It was fun to knit, and while the yarn requires more care than the Felici, I never mind.

my Scarlett Nutkins

Even though it’s hard for me to wear hats since I get such ridiculous hat hair, I made four hats in 2009, only one of which was for me:

Felicity by Wanett Clyde – made by me for me, using madelinetosh DK, in a gorgeous colorway called Iris. The reason for the name is obvious.

my Iris Felicity

And for Marnie, to accompany her mitts, I made this wurm by katushika. I used the same yarn I used for her mitts, and it was glorious:

Marnie's wurm

I want to make another one for me! Then a hat just to have around, the Beaded Braided Hat by Lee Ann Bonson. I’ve made a bunch of these, they’re fun to knit because you get to do cool braiding, some colorwork (and you could easily draft a new pattern for the band), and a beautiful decrease on top:

see the beautiful flat top?

Then one more hat, a Marsan Watchcap by Staceyjoy Elkin for my soon-to-be son Tom, who is marrying Marnie this summer. Somehow I never got a photo of the finished cap. My bad!

Tom's Marsan Watch Cap - I really did finish it!

And cowls, I made 11.

1. helechos cowl, 2. Marg’s spiral cowl, 3. attabi cowl, 4. brown and blue attabi cowl, 5. marg’s attabi in progress, 6. candle flame cowl, 7. destroyed cowl wrapped, 8. holland cowl on, 9. madelinetosh pastoral – spiral cowl, 10. noble cowl finished, 11. Venetian Grassy cowl closeup

So many beautiful cowls, such beautiful yarn. Silky malabrigo, Blue Sky Alpacas Alpaca and Silk, Berroco Pure Merino DK, madelinetosh DK (in fig, tart, and venetian), madelinetosh bulky cashmere, and madelinetosh pastoral (in chamomile and bosphorus). The Attabi Cowls were all gifts, and I want to make one for myself because it’s fun to knit. Maybe in 2010.

Three scarves in 2009 -

Queen Anne's Lace Scarf in Noro; Lengthwise Cable Scarf in madelinetosh dk; and Lace Ribbon Scarf in madelinetosh sock

And finally, the last 2 FOs in 2009. ISHBEL – I fell in love with this pattern, as did thousands of others. It has been knitted 7,000 times and it’s in more than 3000 queues. You go, Ysolda. I knit it once in madelinetosh wren, and once in a beautiful purple wool from Sunday Knits.

By the end of this year, I was a considerably better knitter than when I began! I also enjoyed making several items for a set, as I did with Marnie’s wurm hat, attabi cowl, and gasteropoda mitts. I want to do more of that.

Of course you do.

madelinetosh pashMINA people - colorway: mineral

You know I talk a lot about madelinetosh. I love her yarns, her deep and rich colors, the yarn bases themselves. So I’m a member of the yarn club, which means that in a 4 month period, I get three surprise packages. I know what kind of yarn I’ll get, I just don’t know the color. This time I got three skeins of pashmina (pashmina, people! merino, silk, and cashmere!) in this beautiful color she calls mineral. It’s yummy, and I can’t wait to have enough time to knit with it. What should I make?

Even though I don’t like Noro, I took one more chance because this was on sale. And boy am I glad I did – unlike the sock yarn, which might as well be made of straw, this one is s-o-f-t. Soft soft soft. It’s 45% silk, 45% mohair, and 10% wool. Soft wool. I got 2 skeins each of these gorgeous colors:

noro silk garden - nothing like silk garden sock!

like a pile of jewels.

And now let’s turn to KnitPicks. I promised Marnie a pair of socks; I’ve knit the other daughters a couple of pairs of socks each, so now it’s her turn. Felici is not just incredibly soft, it stands up to a lot of wear! My pair just might be my favorite socks — I definitely wear them when I need comfort. Marnie graduated from Smith College and knows her way around feminist thought, so why not pink!

Felici positively pink

Felici green vegetables anyone?

And one more from KnitPicks – Stroll Tonal, fingering weight. Two skeins of this golden beauty:

Golden Glow - a perfect name, right?

Why oh why do I have to waste all those hours in sleep? Think of all the knitting I could get done.

I hadn’t knit socks before, but this pattern was easy, and set my mind very clearly on What Socks Are About: top-down, and Cookie A. The yarn – Felici, by KnitPicks, was a dream to work with, and loads of fun as the stripes unfolded. I made these in February of 2009, and the photos above were taken today. The yarn has held up to a hell of a lot of wear and machine washing (in industrial washers and dryers!), and it’s just so soft and wonderful, still. I highly recommend the yarn for socks.

But right now I have the hiccups and they’re driving me nuts. I’ve drunk water upside down, I’ve held my breath, I’ve cursed {a lot!}, and nothing stops them. So I think I’ll sign off and stomp around for a bit, cursing some more and shaking my fist at the hiccup gods. Happy knitting, everyone!

To see other posts about resurrected finished objects, click here:  knitcroblo6

So what’s on the needles? There’s one I can’t reveal here, the wedding shawl, but here we go:

2nd Kai-Mei, ready to work the heel

My Kai-Mei socks – I’ve been sneaking little wearings of the finished sock because it’s so dang wonderful. Madelinetosh sock, in crow – feels kind of hard when you’re knitting it, but as the fabric flows from the needles, it’s softer than you think it’ll be. And when you soak it and block it? Really so nice. The pattern is clever and fun to knit, but when I was knitting the first sock I was just going on faith (Cookie A faith) because I couldn’t see how it was going to work. I highly recommend the pattern and the yarn.

OK, next?

oh, my dearly beloved Ishbel, languishing....

I do love this Ishbel, knit with madelinetosh lace, in lettuce. It’ll be my 3rd (why do I think “she’ll be my third”?), and the pattern is fun and the color is great and I love the whole deal but it’s been set aside for so long that I struggle to pick it up again. Once I finish the wedding shawl I’ll return to this because it’s going to be fantastic.

Next?

what is wrong with me?!

Stop it, me! Stop! Why did I start this one?! I had plenty to work on, the last thing I needed to do was to start another project, but I did. This is Baktus, and I got about 1/3 of the way through it with Noro Silk Garden Sock (pictured above, the yarn cake) when I decided that I’d rather alternate the Noro with a black yarn. So even though I had no business starting this one in the first place, I frogged it and started over, alternating it with a KnitPicks Essential Kettle Dyed, in soot. [Lori, do not start another project!!]

such a 3-D blankie!

Totally Autumn, which I’m knitting with Cascade 220 Heather in chocolate, so it’ll be more like a blanket. The photo represents the length I get from one skein; since we want it to be ~6 feet in length, I’ll need 7 skeins and of course I’d bought 6. Luckily the sale is still on at Webs, so I bought additional skeins.

Next?

hanging my mondo head in shame and denial

This project, the Mondo Cardigan in madelinetosh merino (graphite) has been so painful. I had enough yarn to complete the sweater, but I foolishly didn’t look at all the skeins before I started. One of the lovely things about madelinetosh yarns is the variability in color, but this time it bit me in the butt. When I got to this point on the first sleeve, I noticed that my last two skeins were quite obviously blue. That would not work. I couldn’t find any graphite in any of the online stores, so (to use Yarn Harlot’s phrase) I threw up the Bat Signal in the rav forums, pleading and begging. Very kind raveler Glennae offered to sell me two of her skeins, which looked like a match to mine, but that would leave her with an insufficient amount of yarn to knit a sweater – the reason she bought it. I didn’t want to leave her in that spot, so I basically just went into denial and ignored the problem. Then, last weekend, I “randomly” decided to look through ravelers’ stashes to see if anyone had any of this yarn, and found Jenny – boopersin on ravelry. Jenny, O Jenny, my new BFF and savior. I wrote her asking if she’d sell, told her my sob story, and she quickly agreed. Isn’t she wonderful? Friend her immediately if you’re on rav, she’s a keeper (and Glennae too, if you don’t know her yet). So Jenny’s two skeins are winging (or brown trucking) their way to me, which means I’ll be able to finish my Mondo Cardigan. Whew.

Next?

froth and beads

Is this technically “on the needles,” given the fact that I’ve obviously pulled out the needles? Apparently not. It’s gorgeous. It’s Liquid Silver, by Rosemary Hill, with Elann Silken Kydd, a luscious and halo-ey mohair and silk blend, with glass beads. I started knitting it when I first returned to knitting a couple of years ago, and honestly, it was beyond my beginner’s skills. I struggled with the very thin yarn on the very slippery needles, with nothing on hand to thread the beads onto the yarn. So I got this far and then put it away. Apparently at some point I pulled the needles out – to use them for another project, probably? – but I don’t remember doing that. The pattern would be very easy for me now, so I hope to frog this and just start over with the same pattern. After all, I have the beads.

I know this is supposed to be a fearless inventory, but I’m not being fully honest here. There’s a sweater in progress, halfway up the back but I don’t like it so I’ll frog it and reuse the yarn, and a Christmas stocking for one of my girls, just begun and set aside.

There. Now I’ve been really fearless, I’ve confessed my excess. I feel much better. And I just noticed how many of my projects are made with madelinetosh yarn. I love her.

Hedera, in KP Felici, colorway cochineal

a pair of socks for a cold dorm room floor

my rav project page here

The snow has been really amazing here in Manhattan – yesterday we got just shy of 21″ of snow in Central Park! We’re knocking on the top 10 list of biggest snowfalls since 1869 or something like that. Here are some newer shots from my neighborhood…..

isn't this a strange icicle?

in front of my building

my street corner

panorama of Riverside Drive

birdie num num

my little corner of Riverside Park

Riverside Park

stop reflecting on the snow

snowy gargoyles watching over us

Now, off to make pillows and watch people play in the snow outside my window. The city has proclaimed that this is snow day, and they’ve set up places to play and sled, and they’re serving hot chocolate. One reason I love this town, they do things like this.