knitted toys / knitting / sock knitting

Two’s company

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I’m sitting in the garden. It looks like it’s going to rain any minute, but actually it’s quite nice. The birds are singing, and aside from that it’s quiet and fresh. I’ve just made tomorrow night’s dinner and there’s a plum clafoutis in the oven too. Actually, I tasted half a plum while I was prepping it, and it was completely tasteless, so we’ll see. Might sound like an episode of the good life, but we’re not there yet.

I’m still in sock and gardening mode at the moment. (Although I’m also making a pink elephant.) After the woolly-wholesomeness of my last socks, I fancied knitting socks in a really bright colour. So I bought some Cascade Heritage yarn which seems to get good reviews – and actually, is quite cheap for the amount you get in a skein.

I started the stripy one first. Then, we went to see friends (finally!) and I thought it would be good to take something easy and mindless with me, so I prepped the second sock. Sometimes I like knitting while I’m talking. In the end it was such a joy to see them, and to sit in their beautiful garden, I didn’t knit much. But I carried on with the simpler sock when I got back. I was intending to make a corresponding pair for each, but now I’m not so sure…

Originally, I was going to reverse the stripes on the stripy one. Thinner at the top, wider apart at the bottom. But now I’m thinking I could just make another 2 socks using the same yarn in any way I fancy and mix and match them. If they all use the same colours, who’s to say they’re not a pair? Plus, I’ll only wear them at home anyway, so does it matter? Not really. So I’m using these as ‘trying it out’ socks and knitting whatever I feel like. I’ve got a hunch I’d prefer this yarn on a smaller needle, actually. We’ll see about that.

Last summer I made some bunnies for the children of friends abroad. I have no idea when I’ll get to see them and hand the bunnies over. The kids’ll probably be fully grown at this rate. But a few weeks ago I decided I wanted to reknit their clothes. Just suddenly decided I didn’t like them. I was going to knit them in the Krea Deluxe cotton I bought – but it’s so splitty! The colours are absolutely beautiful, and it’s organic cotton yarn, but it really does split and if you’re knitting on small gauge needles you’re forever picking up the single strand of thread that gets left behind. So I put the clothes on pause. Then inexplicably decided to knit a pink elephant with the yarn instead.

How this is different to knitting clothes, I haven’t worked out. But the beauty of a hobby is the option to abandon all logic and/or quality control when you feel like it and just get on with things.

This project bag is lovely – a xmas gift from the friend I mentioned earlier.

If you’re the sort of person who might make the elephant pattern using the Krea Deluxe yarn and wonder if the yarn is strong enough to take the weight of curling up the trunk, the answer is no. It took 5 attempts at sewing that up before it did what it was supposed to. Krea didn’t cut it, nor did some random (what I thought was strong) yarn I found in the drawer. Eventually I used a bright red yarn – maybe a cotton glace? Luckily it’s true – you can’t see the thread you use to sew up mattress stitch. It does get buried in the stitches themselves. And now the head is done, she’s quite nice. I’m making an elephant with shoes on. I haven’t made an animal with shoes in ages. We’ll see from the finished article if there was a reason for that I’ve forgotten.

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