A yarny blind date

I've signed up for the Sock Knitter's Pentathlon (for which there are Ravelry and Yahoo groups) because, well, I liked the look of it. The group summary goes:
In honor of the upcoming Summer Olympics in Beijing, a sock knitter's pentathlon is being organized. This group will test your sock knitting skills. During the course of the year, competitors will knit 5 pairs of socks in 5 different styles.

That means a pair of socks in each two month period starting from 1st March. Having two months to complete a pair of socks feels do-able for me, where other groups that are doing a pair of socks a month, for example, send me into a panic just thinking about it. Two months gives me some breathing space! There is, of course (since this is an 'Olympic' event *g*) a competitive element to the Pentathlon - there are points awarded according to how you place in the finished socks stakes. But if you don't complete a sock in the allotted time, even though you're then eliminated from the competition element of the group, you can still knit along for the rest of the patterns for the fun of it. Perfect!

However! As I said, the kal / competition begins on 1st March - just over a day away. That's when the first pattern will be released... all we know so far is that the yarn we will need should knit to 8 sts per inch on 2.5mm (or thereabouts) needles, and that solid or semi-solid yarns will work best. Being on a yarn diet, I'm obviously not buying anything new and I hardly need to with the amount of sock yarn in my stash. But I can't decide what to use! Heeeeelp! I feel like, because I don't know what the pattern looks like yet, I can't choose the yarn / colour that will look best. Maybe I should just wait until the pattern comes out, but then I'll have to think about which yarn to pick and then rewind it, all of which will be cutting into my knitting time... and I know I wasn't particularly going to do the competition element of this, but I'd kind of like to see how I can do at it anyway.

I have narrowed my choices down a bit, though, so maybe I could get some opinions? Have a look at the poll below...

I haven't actually only picked (semi-)solid yarns, but I think the others are 'blend-y' enough that they wouldn't overpower a pattern. I'll probably have to wait to see what it is to make a final decision on that though. Anyway! Most of these are Yarn Yard Sock, with which I get a gauge of 8.5 sts / inch on 2.5mm (which gives the better fabric imo) or 8 sts / inch on 2.75mm. The only one which isn't is 'Ripen', and that's Posh Yarn Emily with which I get a gauge of 7.5 sts / inch on 2.75mm. So those are near enough to work - I'm just stuck on the colour! Help me choose?

Which yarn shall I use for the first Pentathlon event? Aubergine Byron Bay Duck Egg Blue (on right) Passionata Ripen Shelter Tour de France 41 Woodland

Posted by Lou at 11:22 PM in Knitting :: Photo album :: Yarn & stuff
Tags: kal, ravelry, sock pentathlon, socks, yarn
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Project 365 #3, Days 12-16: 21st - 25th Jan

Still playing catch-up with posting these, here are the next five days of my Project 365 photos. If you want to see all the photos so far, click on the Project 365 category link, or check out the Project 365 folder in the photo album.

On to the pics (click them for the full sized versions):

Day 12 - 21st Jan 08

There's an albino squirrel that lives somewhere around the back of my house. I was coming indoors when I saw it in the garden from the stairs window. Unfortunately, these aren't good pics - I zoomed right in, which means the digital zoom as well, and that's really affected the quality. Still, it's a lesson learned! I like the way this one is framed with the fence and the shed in the background.

Action shot! The caught-in-motion nature of this picture appealed to me - (s)he's zooming up the piece of wood that my downstairs neighbour has bracing the fence, and it was a pretty quick zoom as well. It was chance that I caught this one!

Another action shot, this one even more so... I think it gives a bit of an idea how quickly (s)he was zooming along. I swear the squirrel was in the middle of the shot when I went to press the button!

Day 13 - 22nd Jan 08

This is the table that lives beside my sofa, and has my evening entertainment essentials on it. At the time this picture was taken, that meant the remotes for the telly and digibox, my knitting notions case (the sheep pencil-case: used to be my school one actually), scissors for snipping yarn (mended with gaffer tape when the handle cracked), my mp3 player and AAA batteries, the first Harry Potter book (in German), a pencil, my knitting notebook (currently open to the stitch pattern I've written out for my Damson Gloves), current knitting project (said gloves) and pattern book, and a row counter, cable needle and stitch markers. Oh, and on the floor you can see the bag that my current sock in progress is in, as well. See, everything I might need while parked on the sofa of an evening. Although to be fair, there usually is a drink on there as well. :-)

Day 14 - 23rd Jan 08

I popped into C. House today, and since I was the only one in the sitting room, I took a snap of two of the guitars. And huh, I don't know quite what happened there, but there seems to be a ghost guitar in the picture as well..... *spooky music*
Then I went back to practising the chords that P had taught me. G⁷, C, ad nauseam... (until I reverted to my usual one-fingered picking out of various tunes *g*)

Day 15 - 24th Jan 08

This is the vase that sits on my dining table. It used to have a bunch of fake sunflowers in, but they're now, um, sprouting from the top of my didgeridoo. But anyway. Instead, it now houses these sparkly things which I originally bought as Christmas decorations, but decided to use all year round instead. I like shiny things!

Day 16 - 25th Jan 08

Finally, here's my second Hedara sock as it was on this day. I decided to start my "WIP of the week" plan, and picked the Hedara as the thing to concentrate on, starting on this day. I'd already had the ribbing done, so off I went with the leg section. I really love this pattern.

SP11 Package #3 - at last!

Due to mania, server crash and my sieve-like memory, I hadn't posted my final SP11 package squee-ing. So here it is now. I did mention on 3rd December that I'd received it, but that was as far as I got. (In that post I also mentioned that I'd been delayed in sending my final package out to my spoilee. Well, it's still here - my money situation has meant I haven't been able to find the postage yet. But it belatedly occurred to me that some virtual gifts were possible, and I'm putting a bit of cash by each week to send the non-virtual things! Also, I said that I had a new design for this site. As you can see, that's not in place yet either. Hopefully soon, though!)

Anyway! Even though the package arrived at the beginning of December, it was all Christmas themed and wrapped. Hee!

Not that I let that put me off opening everything right then, of course. I did think very briefly about saving it all for Christmas, but... nah. So what was inside all that shiny wrapping paper? The best SP package ever, that's what!

So, from back-to-front and left-to-right, what we have is:
- Some utterly delicious all-butter shortbread (YUM), two little boxes of Lindt ... truffly things that were also utterly yummy (one milk chocolate, one chocolate orange, nomnomnom!), chocolate money (hee!!) and a Christmas card!

- The letter Janey sent me with the parcel, A DROP SPINDLE AND FIBRE OMG!!!!!!!!!! (I may have bounced up and down and squealed with joy when I opened this - thank you SO MUCH, Janey! Seriously, this was the absolute top thing on my craft-y wishlist, and I'm so so chuffed with it :-D ) with instructions for getting started spinning, two skeins of Colinette Banyan in Fruit Coulis (which is one of my top three Colinette colourways) which Janey sent me because I'd been wanting yarn for summery socks - this is going to be ideal. Then there's two balls of SWTC Karaoke (50% soy silk, 50% wool) in Bluezzzz, which has tints of purple in the blue. It's gorgeous stuff, and since Janey suggested I make one of my hats with it, I've been pondering on designing something cool. I have some ideas :-) Finally in this 'row' is the one book I'd been really really dying to own - Interweave Knits' Favorite Socks. Oh, it's fabulous! The next pair of socks I cast on has to be from this book - I want to knit them all! Wheeeee :-)

- And at the bottom of the photo are the brilliant socks that Janey knit just for meeeee (yes, there may have been more squealing and bouncing, I'm not ashamed to admit it!) which I'll babble about more below, two adorable Christmassy pencils which are still in my desk tidy now in defiance of it no longer being Christmas, and last but not least, a fantastic booklet on Magic Loop technique - this is something that I'd mentioned (in my SP11 questionnaire, I think) that I wanted to learn, and I'd totally recommend this little book (by Bev Galeskas, pub. Fiber Trends). The instructions are really clear, and it includes patterns for wristlets, and for both top down and toe up socks. I haven't yet tried socks using this technique, but where I was totally intimidated by the very idea before, now I'm really looking forward to it! (I just don't have any 2.5mm or smaller circs, so it'll have to be for socks that I'm using 2.75mm needles up!)

So in conclusion.... THANK YOU JANEY!!! You've been the best secret pal I could possibly have imagined, and I hope we keep on staying in touch. In fact, I hope that since we live not so far away from each other, we'll be able to meet up some time. That would be lovely :-)

And here's a close-up of the fab handknit socks that Janey made me. They're Basic Cabled Socks by Brainylady [Ravlink], and knit in Opal Uni in my absolute favourite colour. And they fit perfectly. Whee :-) This was the first pair of handknit socks I've tried with short-row heels (I spent a ridiculous amount of time peering at the construction and ooo-ing and aah-ing over the stitch pattern etc etc before I even tried them on. I'm such a geek) and they inspired me to try short rows for my Fireworks socks that I'm knitting at the mo.

To round up, doing SP11 was a brilliant experience. I met two lovely pals and I hope I'll be keeping in touch with them both, I got some wonderful gifts (more than I ever would have expected, in fact!) and had a great time sending stuff to my downstream pal, Katie... although of course I do feel bad that I haven't been able to send the final things I have for her over yet. Stupid money, grrrrr! But on the other hand, that means she'll be getting a surprise package at some point. Mwahahaha!

Will I be doing SP12? No, I don't think so - not because I didn't have a good time, but because of the current money stuff. A future SP exchange, certainly. Perhaps the UK Swap one on Ravelry. We shall see :-)

Project 365 #2, Day 7-11: 16th - 20th Jan

Here are the next five days of my Project 365 photos. If you want to see all the photos so far, click on the Project 365 category link, or check out the Project 365 folder in the photo album.

On to the pics (click them for the full sized versions):

Day 7 - 16th Jan 08

It's Torchwood day, hoorah! So I changed my desktop wallpaper and icons in celebration. Not the best pic ever... I'm not really sure what the best way to take a photo of a monitor screen is, and it probably didn't help that I took this in the evening either. I'm really loving season 2 so far, by the way (3 eps in at time of posting). And it looks like James Marsters' character will be back, too. Iiiiiiinteresting....

Day 8 - 17th Jan 08

Xandermog, finding being upright by his food is just Too Much Trouble. Lazy beast! And look at that gut. Can you tell why he's on a diet? *long suffering sigh* (To be fair, I think it was his supper time, and I took Too Long to get to the kitchen, so he was having a bit of a lie down waiting for me. Or perhaps he was soooo starving hungry (hah!) he could no longer stand. He does make me laugh.)

Day 9 - 18th Jan 08

My "Fireworks" sock in progress. I'm knitting this with the Yarn Yard club yarn from November, and I'm using the contrast skein for the cuffs, heels and toes. So, I decided I'd try out a different heel technique while I'm at it. I'd got Lucy Neatby's Cool Socks, Warm Feet book last year, and although I hadn't started out using a pattern from that to knit the sock, I was able to jump in at the heel part of the Timberline Toes. So as you'll see, my needles are halfway through the garter stitch short row heel in this picture. I've finished the heel now - I enjoyed working it, and it feels like it'll be wonderfully cushion-y to wear as well - and I'm working on the foot.

Day 10 - 19th Jan 08

Another photo of Xander being his large and daft self. He was laying there for ages with his tongue stuck out like this. He's so dopey and cute. I also really do like how this close-up shot of his head came out. Obviously I'm biased, but I think it's a lovely picture of his big handsome face. N'awwww.

I couldn't resist including this one as well. Even though it's technically not what I was wanting or intending with the light reflection in his eyes, I just love the colour the reflection came out. It shows up better in the full sized photo where you can see the real iridescent quality of it.

Day 11 - 20th Jan 08

This morning, I went into the bathroom and discovered I had yet another little beetle-y visitor in there (there must be some hibernating in the wall or something, and waking up because of the heating because I've found about 10 with various markings and colours in the last few weeks), going round and round in circles on one of the window knobs. So I grabbed my camera and took some snaps. With some difficulty, because the cat litter tray is in the way and that part of the window is just above my line of sight. I like this one, though. You can see its little face. And wee little legs and stuff (I'm so scientific). Bless.

This one came out quite well too, and gives a better view of its shell. You can also see the wings poking out from where it had just been fluttering them about (maybe it was getting narked with me taking pictures and the flash going off at it). These photos also remind me that I really need to clean the top of that window. What with it being above my line of sight, I hadn't realised how grubby it was. Ooops!

Reconnected.

Oh thank .... well, whoever that guy was in 2nd line support who finally figured out what the problem with my internets was. Which was that when BT had done some work at my local exchange on the day I lost my connection (Sat 26th), they had either deleted or not re-added (depending on what they'd been doing) my ISP's domain to the list of ones that are allowed to connect. I spose no-one else uses that particular domain for their log-in round here - either that or it's specific to each broadband enabled line. Actually, that would make more sense. Anyway, they've now put it back on the system and voila, I can connect. It's liek magic, only with teknolegdgy *nods* I told them it was an authentication problem the first day it went wrong, but it took 10 days to get someone to figure out exactly where the trouble was. To be fair, the fact that BT were doing work on my exchange threw them off the scent so I had to wait for all sorts of tests and then a BT engineer to come out because everyone thought it was a line problem that just looked like an authentication thing... oh well. All better now!

So anyhow, I should probably get on with uploading the many many photos I have to put up, both for Project 365 and for my knitting progress. Which there has been lots of! I finished the Hedara socks and I've taken my Bigga jacket out of hibernation and begun the sewing up of that. Plus I'm still plugging away on the Chevron scarf of DOOM. Scarf in fingering weight = Never Again, as I think I've said before. But anyway, that's all for another post really. I'm off to bed.