YIP.10.30 – Boo!, originally uploaded by earthchick.

Well, hello there! I certainly didn’t mean to stop blogging for almost a month. I’ve just been a bit busy. So when it’s a choice between knitting and blogging about knitting, well… what would you do? Exactly. (For the record, I’ve also been doing lots of spinning. And canning. And just trying to keep up with the speed of life.)

But without further ado, I present you my Socktoberfest socks. These are my first completed Socktoberfest socks since October 2006! I joined the Through the Loops Socktoberfest Mystery Sock Knitalong last year, and I got precisely this far:

… before I realized I had a miscrossed cable or two. I put them aside with every intention of going back to them, and then I just didn’t. I forgot that I once swore I’d never knit little cables in dark sock yarn again, and now I remember why. I love the pattern so much and I still have hopes of returning to it someday. In the meantime, I did end up harvesting some of the yarn for the edge of my Damson shawlette.

Anyway, back to this year’s Socktoberfest. This time, I was ready and raring to go. For a couple of weeks, I plotted and planned, and searched for the perfect fall yellow. Then Heather very generously gifted me with some Socks that Rock Mediumweight in Olivenite, and it was perfect. Turns out the yarn and the pattern were a perfect match.

pattern: Through the Loops Socktoberfest Mystery Sock ’09 by Kirsten Kapur
yarn: STR Mediumweight, Olivenite, less than one skein (I measured, and I have a whole 100 yards left! – so the pattern took only 275 yds for me)
size: smallest (56 sts) for my narrow size 7-7.5 foot
needles: size 0 – it’s all I ever knit socks in, because otherwise my gauge is too loose; this time I used dpns for one sock and 2 circs for the other so that I could knit each part of the pattern for each sock before proceeding to the next clue
cast on: October 1
finished: October 29
mods: None. I don’t mess with perfection.
verdict: These are hands-down my favorite pair of socks ever and absolutely my favorite sock pattern ever. Kirsten is a genius at design, and this pattern was so cute and clever. I love how the mock cable travels down the heel. I LOVE THESE SOCKS!!!

raveled

With Socktoberfest over, I immediately cast on for a very fast, very gratifying project that I’ll be showing you soon (I’ll give you a hint: it’s an uber-popular women’s garment that took only 8 days to knit). As soon as that was off the needles it was time to gear up for something else: Vestvember, of course!

Unfortunately, whereas Socktober helped me finally get my sock-knitting mojo back, I have had nothing but failure during Vestvember so far. I am doing a basic V-neck pullover out of Classic Elite Skye Tweed. I’ve worked with this yarn on these needles before, so I thought that gauge-wise I was okay. Think again:

Yeah, it was about 12 inches too big. So I went down three needle sizes and swatched. It looked like all systems were go, and I came up with this:

But I will not be defeated! I frogged again, did some math, and then cast on with 32 fewer stitches. So far, so good. I might not be done by the time Vestvember is done, but one of these days I will have a vest. In the meantime, I’ll just enjoy my happy yellow socks.