Sock yarn

My first cabled sock yarn on Hansen Minispinner:

One thread is BFL hand dyed by Swedish spinner and knitter polpo:

I plied with red and dark gray longwool and orange and yellow merino. 225 grams, rather thin.

As you can see we still have lots of snow, but it's melting. At least I hope so.

Socks and first snow and spindle bags

I've been knitting socks. Surprise? And today we got the first snow. It melted.

The yarn is hand dyed Super Biffle from Easyknits.co.uk, a semi solid BFL yarn I like very much. Cat Bordhi's Ocean Toes to the left, Jane Cochran's Hedgerow to the right. Someone will get a Christmas present :)

I bought more sock yarns at the fair in Tampere. Surprise? Four skeins of Hopeasäie Sukka, BFL of course. It's finer than the Super Biffle and very good for really thin woolen socks.

The rest of the shopping is a new singing Tolvana from Tolvana to keep company with the one I bought last year, a nice hand dyed Merino top from Louhittaren Luola, and a box for my sewing whatever they're called in English (bobbins?). Now I have to buy more bobbins so I have something to keep in my new box.

My sewing is almost finished. Here are my first three box bags:

Long and narrow for spindles! Someone will get a Christmas present :)

Butterfly and socks - Fjäril och sockor

There are lots of butterflies now. And I have new socks, knitted from my own handspun yarn.

Det finns mängder av nässelfjärilar nu. Och jag har nya sockor av eget, handspunnet garn.

Double Fun Socks

Jag glömde ju alldeles bort att jag skulle visa makens Double Fun sockor som jag började sticka i december. Visst blev de färdiga, och det för flera veckor sedan! Jag har t.o.m. tvättat dem en gång redan.

I completely forgot I promised to show hubby's Double Fun socks which I started knitting in December. I finished them several weeks ago! I have even washed them once.

Double Fun Heel, Oh Yeah! = Triple Fun

Doubleknitting a two-color intarsia in the round is faster than knitting the usual way once you get used to it. Intarsia in the round is boring if you have to turn the knitting every second row and knit from the wrong side . But I can't read books and doubleknit at the same time, so I have to listen to audio books. That's nice if you like the way and voice of the reader. If not, it's a pest.

I have reached and conquered the critical point: the heel. I have knitted a couple of different short row heels earlier, especially on my knitting machine, so I thought I'd manage this one too. I'm not particularly good at maths, so I used eyesight when deciding how many stitches I needed for the heel vs the instep. I like a deep heel, so I took a few more stitches for the heel. On Ravelry I write down what I'm doing, because I want another sock in the same size :)

Leena would have helped me if I'd got lost. She's a teacher, she knows how to lead lost knitters back on the trail. "Remember to tighten the stitches" she advised me on Ravelry, so I tightened, and tightened, and this fantastic yarn didn't break. Cascade Heather. And look, it's a heel!

Double Fun Sox

Leena Siikaniemi is fond of double knitting, and now I understand why. Her pattern Doublefun in the book Think Outside the Sox is really fun to knit. I can see lots and lots of potential in this pattern. Leena has used 3-4 colors in her socks, I have only two. On her Ravelry pages you can see more of her beautiful graphic patterns. Search in Patterns for Doublefun and you'll find her.

Leena has used one of my favorite yarns in her long socks, but that yarn is nowadays very difficult to buy. It's a designer yarn from Maisa Tikkanen, a Finnish felter, spun at Pirtin Kehräämö. I don't have enough of it in my stash for a pair of socks anymore. I like thin socks I can wear in my trainers, so I chose Cascade Heather for my first pair of Doublefun Ankle Socks.

The finer yarn forces me to change the amount of stitches and rows in the patterns. The heel will be really interesting to figure out. I'll tell you more when I get that far. Remember, I knit and spin many garments and yarns all the time, so finishing one particular project isn't a hasty business. Have patience!

Intarsia with two colors "in the round" is easy in doubleknitting. You knit in the round in flat knitting technique, if that makes any sense. As I use a circular needle, I have only one needle to struggle with. Neat!

Det känns lite konstigt att visa sockor i värmeböljan - här har det varit varmt, vackert och stundtals ordentliga åskväder i en vecka. Men jag vill visa mina nya sommarsockor stickade av Caprifools vackra garn. Ett par i en mörkare nyans, det andra lite ljusare men med samma färger, rosa, brunt och grönt. Den mannen är en mästerlig färgare (jo, stickare också!)

It feels a bit funny to show socks in the summer heat we've been having for a week, with sunshine and thunder storms. But I want to show my new summer socks, knit with Capriool's beautiful yarn. That man is a masterly dyer, and knitter. The yarns are pink, green and brown in two different saturations.

Breeze from Knitty, and Ribbed Ribbon Socks from Wendy D. Johnson's Socks from the Toe Up

Sockor, socks, sukat

English below Suomea alla
 
Det är snart jul. Vilken överraskning! De senaste åren har släkten glatt mig genom att önska sockor i julklapp, riktiga, handstickade sockor alltså. Under sommaren och hösten brukar jag sticka de små sockorna, men i november upptäcker jag att de stora, alltså 45-46:orna, inte ens har garn att bli till av.

Alltså blir det stövelsockor åt de storfotade i år. Med grova stickor av 7-veljestä. Här "använder" Kasper det första paret, storlek 42-44.

It's soon Christmas. What a surprice! The last few years my relatives have made me happy me by wanting socks for Xmas. Real, handknitted socks, that is. During summer and autumn I use to knit the small socks, and in November I find out that the big ones, 45-46 (don't know what the size might be in other countries) don't even have the yarn to make them from.

That's why I'll knit bootsocks with thick needles this year, from 7-veljestä, a thick sockyarn. Above you can see Kasper "using" the first pair, size 42-44.

Kohta on joulu. Mikä yllätys! Viimeisinä vuosina sukulaiseni ovat ilahtaneet minua toivomalla sukkia lahjaksi. Siis ihan oikeita käsin neulottuja sukkia. Kesän ja syksyn aikana tapaan neuloa pienet koot, marraskuussa sitten huomaan että isot, 45-46, eivät ole edes lanka-asteella.

Siksi neulon saapassukkia tänä vuonna. Paksut puikot ja 7-veljestä. Yllä voit nähdä Kasperin "käyttämässä" ensimmäistä paria.