On the Third Year of Christmas

For the past three years, I’ve been knitting for the family. I did six scarves a-swinging’ and ten sock pairs dancing. This year it was gloved hands a-waving, and I apologize up front because I did an appallingly incomplete job photographing them. Two pairs of mittens, five pairs of fingerless gloves, and two more pairs with half-fingers. As I’ve said, I did a horrid job documenting the work, but not pictured in the “go team” picture above are Chris’s stripey gloves shown here. Perhaps the rest of my family with favor me with some shots of their gloves in action? (Hint, hint?)

For all I’ve been talking about here in this little corner of my digital world, you would think I hadn’t been knitting much lately, or at least not much outside the realm of covert Christmas projects. Not true. I’m just too lazy to blog about it.

But I have knit several pairs of stellar socks that actually have decent photos, so let me share with you my...

Slayer Socks

This pattern Buffy Anklets was gifted to me by a knitterly friend as a Happy Stitches present. I knit them up in Cascade Fixation, with little blood red beads.

And then there were the...

Green Veggies Socks

Best. Socks. Ever. Knit up in KnitPicks Felici in the Green Veggies colorway. I devised my own pattern and worked these toe-up using Judy’s Magic Cast-On (which I doubt I need to tell you is frakking brilliant) and a heel flap (yes ma’am you heard that right; a toe-up sock with a heel flap - Sensational Socks lives up to it’s name). Here’s the thing about knee-socks. They’re made for people with normal-sized calves. Here’s the thing about ballet classes. They do very not-normal things your body. I took a couple of standard-sized knee sock patterns and calculated the rate of increase for the calf: 10%. I measured my own leg circumference as it changed from ankle to calf: 80%. Right.

I hodged the pattern together myself, but I based my increase design on one I read about over at Streets and YOs, very clever and eloquent.

And that brings us to...

Frankensocks - It’s Alive!

I co-founded a Ravelry group for freaks like me who like to read gothic horror novels and knit accordingly. October brought us Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and these socks spliced together from unearthed bits of yarn left over from the sock projects of long ago.

The group is on to Dracula next, so if you’ve got a deep and burning desire to knit that bright red scarf to hide any tell-tale bite marks on your neck, hop on over to Ravelry and join us.

So that’s my needles. Mostly fingers and toes.

And just because ever since I started fighting with the calf increases on the Green Veggies Socks, Ania65 insisted that this picture was necessary, here it is. I guess this is what happens to the Land of Sweets after they’ve been sitting around for far too many days after Christmas.

Happy New Year everyone. May 2011 bring many finished projects that make you happy and also friends who are good enough to listen to you blather on about them.