Shorts Story

I’m participating in a shorts swap on CNA at the moment. I can’t show off the ones I made yet, but I’ve also made another couple of pairs this week that I can share now.

I made these for my Tom and Jerry loving 5yo son. I bought the fabric a while ago and for once I’ve made something before the love has faded. I still have plenty of fire engine fabric from my older son’s “Nee-Nah” obsession of a few years back.

He’s delighted with them and has plans to wear them with his T&J pants from a previous swap, which are still much-loved and holding up well with frequent washing. Incidentally the Bat pants from that swap are number one son’s favourites and the drawstring bags were filled with toys for the trip to Grandma’s last week.

C is sad that he doesn’t have a T&J T-shirt to wear with his new shorts, but he does have a long-sleeved T&J shirt so I am now under orders to make some T&J trousers as well. I’m a victim of my own success.

While I was on a roll with the shorts sewing I also made these pink spotty ones for the shop which have sold already.

The shop is closed for our holiday now. There’s not much stock there anyway because I’ve been busy sewing custom orders, but hopefully I can rectify that when I re-open at the end of the month. Maybe this year will be the one where I’m actually prepared for BBM in November, but I wouldn’t count on it!

Hiatus Socks

I cast these socks on way back in February and finally cast them off a few days ago. It doesn’t normally take me months to knit a pair of socks, but I find that projects make little progress when you don’t ever actually pick them up and knit them.

At first I neglected them because I was knitting the eternally ruffled cardigans for my nieces, then I neglected them because they were designated as my on-the-go project for a period when I didn’t do much on-the-go knitting, and eventually I neglected them because I was spending more time sewing and I just wasn’t knitting anything at all.

After months of languishing unloved in a project bag the socks were finally lucky enough to be chosen when I had some knitting time last week. I had about six hours of travel time for our anniversary trip; four hours in the car back and forth to Grandma’s house and an hour each way on the train between there and London. That was long enough to take me from just beyond the heel to just about ready to begin the toe decreases which I finished a few days after I got back. Six months to knit a pair of socks is nothing to be proud of, but isn’t even close to my slowest ever sock record which is 10 months. Those were my first (and probably last) plain stocking stitch socks.

As you might expect from the slow progress on these, I liked the pattern, but I didn’t love it. The stitch pattern was simple enough to remember without having to keep checking the details, and the knitting was enjoyable enough, but I doubt I’ll knit another pair. I did like the short row heels however. I’m not a fan of picking up stitches so I’m not sorry to avoid a heel flap, but the first time I tried a short row heel I got a disappointing fit. So far these socks seem to fit much better, but I’ll have to wear them for a while to be sure. Even in England, summer isn’t the best time for wearing handknit socks, so it may be a while.

I’m still thinking about my pattern options for next week’s holiday knitting. I need something simple enough to knit in the car, but interesting enough that it won’t take me another six months to finish. It’s not as difficult to find likely candidates as you’d expect, so I have a shortlist of around a dozen patterns and I’m trying to narrow it down to one or two. It’s not too hard when I know I’ll probably knit them all sooner or later.

Sock Yarniversary

Last week my beloved and I celebrated 15 years of wedded bliss, s0 we took the boys to stay with Grandma and we went away without them for the first time ever. My globetrotting husband has spent many nights away from them (and me), but going away together without the boys was a rare treat.

We stayed at a nice hotel in central London, ate at lovely non-child-friendly restaurants and shopped without the small people with very short attention spans. It was a romantic getaway rather than a stashbuilding trip, but I still managed to squeeze in a visit to the John Lewis in Oxford Street where I made a few yarn purchases. The fact that my husband didn’t complain about this is possibly one of the reasons we’ve stayed married for 15 years.

I know I’ve said before that sock yarn is my favourite impulse purchase, so the haul above should come as no surprise. The colours are heavily skewed towards blue and purple which is also true to form. I’m nothing if not predictable.

I plan to take at least one pair of these on holiday with me, but which one? And what pattern to knit? I think I need a little Ravelry browsing session. I may be some time…