I think I am getting close to where I need to start the heels on Rhiannon’s socks.
She is a US 7 women’s foot so I am using the internet to help me gauge how long the foot needs to be based on averages. Negative ease can help me here along with the fact that wool stretches out. It should all be fine.
I need to dust off my turned heel instructions…..
Happy Knitting!!
The 2026 comfort blanket is growing nicely.
The alternating skeins was a particularly helpful stroke of genius. It does make a lot of yarn management necessary but I think I am put my big kid pants on and deal. I realize that I have no idea how big this will be with the yarn that I have.
The good news with crochet is that I can always spin more yarn and add more later. Happy Crocheting!!
The Christmas before last I got a spinning advent calendar. And I only half succeeded with spinning the first 12 days.
In my stash clean I found the bag I had the rest of the days in and moved upstairs next to my Sparrow. I have lots of long zoom meetings in my future so I think I will set my intention to spin on this project during those instead of disassociating or doom scrolling.
The only slight hiccup is that the numbers fell off several of the bags therefore I am no longer certain which day is which. But given that this has set for over a year I think done is better than perfect. The spinning or advent police won’t come after me.
Happy Spinning!!
Rhiannon’s socks are coming along nicely. I think working socks in tandem is just how to trick my brain to work better.
This yarn is working up at least semi consistently across the two socks. One side is micro striping and the other side has some thicker black stripes. I haven’t decided which “side” is going to be the bottom of the foot and which will be the top.
I am also very torn about the kind of heel. I feel like a turned heel is the right choice but I feel nervous about knitting that kind for a person I have never met before. I just need to put my big kid pants on and just knuckle under I guess. They will fit someone if they don’t fit my intended recipient.
Happy Knitting!!
The 2025 Advent Socks #2 are done and blocked even!
Pattern: My own toe up vanilla sock “recipe” with 64 stitches and an afterthought heel
Needles: US 1s
Yarn: The Cozy Knitter Bliss Sock for the 2025 advent with contrasting white mini and an extra KFI Collection Teenie Weenie mini in grey.
This combination of yarns used accounted for 282 yards of yarn. Not bad for a women’s medium is sock. And I used up all of three yarns without adding scraps. I do realize now that one white toe is longer than the other. And I cut the heels in by where the colors changed and not by measuring both socks. In hindsight, I should have measured both. So one foot is definitely slightly different than the other. I don’t think by more than a couple rows. It should all work out fine for my friend. She wears these insider her Birkenstock sandals or just has house slippers.
Now on to focus on the black and white socks! Happy Knitting!!
2026 has started out ROUGH. Add that to short, dark and cold days and I have been needing comfort more than usual lately. I decided to work with some of my handspun.
I have had my 2025 Pigskin Party handspun on my desk since the fall and this scrappy spin in a glass jar calling my name. None of this is a consistent weight or grist. And the colors are crazy so I decided to make a granny stripe blanket using a 5.0MM hook.
I chained 150 stitches and set to work. I very quickly noted that I needed to alternate skeins to help hide the variation in yarn and break up the crazy colors. So I have three skeins attached. One actively working across and one each on each side. I pick up the new color when I reach a side and drop the active one. I think this is making it look more purposefully crazy.
And when I work on this I try to stay centered and let go of the chaos. Many vibes are being worked into this blanket!
I did a DEEP purge in my storage and laundry area this week. I took several bags of kids clothes to the local Boys and Girl Club as well some household stuff to the thrift shop. It felt really good to have more space!
And I did in fact find the tub of knitting items that I knew I was missing. Some of this yarn I had forgotten about. It was a lot of Caron Simply Soft and some chenille for blankets. And weirdly a ton of knit picks back from my craft fair days.
I kept some of the knit picks and put a lot of the rest into my donate pile. And reclaimed an entire storage tub!
Now on to the knitting part!
The tubes for my 2025 Advent Socks 2 are fully completed and I’m ready to start the afterthought heels.
This recipient has slightly smaller feet than me. She is the one who gets my shrunk or slightly felted socks when they are too small for me. I usually make a 7 inch leg for my foot so I decided to cut in the heel at 6.5 inches to not knit quite as deep. This could be a disaster? But I was hoping to get something to fit her more custom than my hand me downs, lol.
I am using some contrast grey to make the heels as I used up all the white in the toes. The good news is that knitting stretches and some negative ease helps with fit and sliding down in your shoe. I’ll have to find out after I deliver her gift box!
Happy Knitting!!
It has been an eventful and cozy weekend. Both tubes for my 2025 Advent Socks Take 2 are close to done!
We had some snuggly fire time and watched a few movies. I powered through most of the rest of the rainbow and almost ready to bind off the ribbing. Just a few more minutes and then I can calculate and cut in my afterthought heel.
I will have to use some scraps or minis from my stash to do these heels. I need to do some stash diving to find the right mix. I am thinking a neutral grey?
Happy Knitting!!
Jellybean has really blossomed into a reader as he progressed through elementary. We read a lot of his books together: Magic Treehouse series, The Bad Guys, Cat on the Run, etc. He learned how to make his own bookmarks at school and it covers his love of art too.
He borrowed my phone last week to google some images and he free hand drew me a bookmark for my new Christmas books! I love it so much and all the more that he gets my hobbies. It’s really weird having a “big” who share things with me 🙂
Happy Reading!
Michele plays with yarn, food, and music in Portland
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