alpaca

Mmmm. I’ve been working on these socks slowly, because the yarn and the pattern are both making me so happy. Yarn: {Misti Alpaca Hand-Paint Sock Yarn Fingering}. Pattern: {Hedera} by Cookie A. It can be found in the Spring 2006 issue of Knitty. I had wanted a somewhat lacy pattern to go with the alpaca yarn, as I thought it would make the socks less intensely warm. Also, the yarn itself has this wonderful halo of wooly goodness, and I love the look of it with the lace pattern.

I finished the first sock today.

It’s so lovely I actually want to wear the one while knitting the other. But I’m not that obsessed, really. I swear. (*Cough*). Does anyone else wear one sock after finishing it? Please say yes.

In other sock news, I bought the book Favorite Socks: 25 Timeless Designs from Interweave with a giftcard I got for Christmas. So excited to knit more socks… I think 2009 is going to be a good sock year. But also a good crocheted owl year too. Woo!

happy new year

Even though it’s actually January 4th, Happy New Year! I’m absolutely feeling better, thank goodness, and have been up to lots of things in the past couple of weeks:

• I learned how to crochet! But I totally used a British knitting magazine, Simply Knitting, for the instructions. Later on I found out that British “double crochet” isn’t actually the same thing as American “double crochet”… there’s something called single crochet which is actually the same thing as (British) double crochet… and… yeah. So I’m not an expert yet by any means. But I made owls!

• I had Christmas with my family, and it was lovely and wonderful… many presents were given and received, including one Lovely Blue Jacket which I now wear everywhere. Mmmm jackets.
• I had a birthday! 26 still qualifies as “mid-twenties” though, right? (One grey hair– actually it was pure white– which I found recently says otherwise…)
• I lost one of my owl earrings. So sad. But I knit these:

They are Give A Hoot mittens, knit from Bernat Alpaca blend. One skein was just barely enough for both mittens… I started to worry near the end that I’d run out right before finishing the thumb, which would totally have rotted. But I ended up having a few inches left at the end. I love love love them and they almost make up for the fact that I only have one owl earring. I suppose I could sport a pirate look, but I think I may just have to let them go.

• I also finished the Bobbled Tam from the holiday edition of Vogue Knitting. I absolutely wanted a bright green hat, and I used Patons Classic Merino in Leaf to get this:

I have pretty much decided that knitting bobbles is a nightmare. Cables=heaven; bobbles= hell.  The bobble-hell connection was established while working on a knit Dalek (Extermiknit!), which I will take pictures of when I get stuffing for it. The hat is freaking adorable, but I hated knitting the bobble rows, which were rows 1 and 6 of a ten-row pattern. Five repeats. I think I shall take a long break from bobbles.

I’m hoping 2009 will continue on as brightly as it began.