December WIP

This months WIP is a sockfest. While I haven't been blogging I have been crafting away. In November's What's New post I mentioned that I had two yarny advent calendars. Both from indie dyers and both sock yarn based. The one from Bluebell yarn I decided to use the yarn to knit up some socks. This is out of my comfort zone as I have no control of how the colours create the sock. My sister believes this exercise will be good for me. Initially I planned to work on one sock at a time but the stripes were too large so I decided to make the socks match. I knitted both socks alongside each other and counted used 15 rounds per stripe. The result is the socks above and I have photographed it with the yarn that will be the toe. By the time you read this my socks will be finished and all the ends sewn in. Today's yarn will start a pair for my sister. I worked out that I will have enough for her since she has much smaller feet.

I also made a start on December's socks. I haven't had as much time to spend on them and I am hoping that I will not fail my monthly sock project at the last hurdle. This yarn is so lovely to knit with and the pattern is fairly simple and addictive. If it wasn't for my other projects I am sure I would be almost finished by now. Although I will be doing a new heal (new for me) and I am slightly worried about managing it.

 

For my third and final pair of socks I am working on my sisters birthday socks. I designed the pattern myself and had to do a bit of tweaking and started again a couple of times. I have one sock down and I am a good way into the second. Lorraine's birthday is in two days and she has been spending a lot of time over at mine so I'm not sure I will meet the deadline. Thankfully I have my sisters small feet and the fact that they are ankle socks on my side.

Lastly, I thought I would show you what I am doing with the second advent calendar. Another activity which takes me out of my comfort zone. This one is from Lisa of For the Love of Yarn. Lisa sent a pattern for a shawl along with her calendar. I had planned on using it but struggled to follow it. My excuse was that I had little time between work and studying and so I went for another option. I decided to use each mini skein as they came to create a granny square lap blanket. I'm really not used to not planning out my colours but I'm enjoying it. This is the blanket up to date. Today's colour is a red which I will look forward to adding. I don't think the yarn will make the blanket as big as I would like which is okay. I have plenty of mini skeins in my collection which I can use to add to it. Think I will have to put them into a bag and use pot luck to pick them out so that I continue with the random colour theme.