Socks Finished, No Longer Cursed

The second sock went much faster than the first. I suppose that as the skein diminished, so did its evil potency. :-)

Sunday afternoon:


Sunday evening:

I very much like socks that are coordinated, instead of matching. I think they're more interesting as siblings rather than twins. Come to think of it, for me, that goes for earrings and mittens too.

Why the Signatures Craft Show is worth the $6 admission: NONIA has a booth. Check out these (relatively) inexpensive, good quality 100% wool, handknit mittens. The adult mittens are $20 a pair, but the kids' mittens are only $12.50 a pair. Putting them on is like wearing a piece of Canadian history (the Yarn Harlot explains why, here).


Someone was selling these crocheted fingerpuppets, which I snapped up for - who else? - my nephew.

Can Sock Yarn be Cursed?

The last time my sister got a pair of hand-knit socks, she seemed to like them, so I'm knitting her another pair with the same yarn with which I tried to make fingerless gloves. This isn't the reclaimed yarn - the failed gloves are still in their failed-glove form - this is just another ball from the same dye lot. BTW, notice I didn't say that I was making these for Christmas. At the rate I'm going, I can only hope that they'll be finished by Easter!



Sadly, I've had to rip back twice already. There's a tiny black-hole somewhere in this project. Even though I did the math, there were not enough stitches in the cast-on to fit over the heel. Of course, I to had knit a few inches before trying it on to discover this. Rip, rip, rip. Wind, wind, wind.

The second time, things were going well, and I started picking up stitches for the instep - except that I had forgotten to turn the heel! I noticed this after a few inches past the pick up, and wondered if my sister had really thick heels to fill in this sock, or maybe she could use them if she ever breaks her foot and it's in a cast. Sigh... rip, rip, rip. When I picked up the live stitches, of course I had ripped back into my heel stitch pattern, so of course - not having the patience to figure out which stitches were slipped and which were knitted -I didn't bother to orient the stitches properly, and that left huge gaps which I'll have to sew up later.

Is it possible for sock yarn to be cursed?

I'm tempted give up and work on my other project. Here's a sneak peek.


I got some nice feedback on my One-Seam Teddy Bear Pattern from Maureen (who is blogless). She's tweaked the instructions to make the bear pear-shaped and - be still still my heart! - totally seamless. Scroll to the bottom of the pattern to read her suggestions.

The doll bag is finished. I shipped it off to my niece in the UK.




And, for no reason at all, here is something I picked up at the JCCC flea market event for fifty cents - a Doraemon snack container (on the left).

The Little Tikes figure (on the right) is "Betty Bookworm" and was my younger son's favourite toy when he was a baby, likely because it looks like me.

Shopping

Some shopping finds.

1. But first, the knitting content. The doll purse is progressing nicely. I abandoned the pattern after making the head, modifying it as I went along to get a decent-sized bag.
   
   I also changed the face to make it less severe than the traditional Andean design (here).
   
   
   The opening of the purse is at the back. All it needs is the strap, and then I can felt it.
   
   
2. Here are some recent purchases. These cute wooden pizza and sushi sets are for my nephew and niece. I love the wooden bowl of soya sauce and lump of wasabi. The Star Wars Galactic Heroes pack is for my nephew.
   
   
   
3. I bought yarn of course. There's a new Mary Maxim store at the Yonge-Eglinton Centre, in the location where the Lewiscraft used to be. The yarn is 14% off (so no taxes) for a limited time.
   
   
   
4. I also got new horror manga. They're finally publishing Kazuo Umezu's work from the 70s in English. Here are two pages from Drifting Classroom, a serialized last-man-on-earth themed novel.
   
   
   The big hole in the ground is where the protagonist's school used to be.
   
   
   The school - note the little people on the roof - somehow transported into the distant future where everything is sand and ash. These panels are from volumes 1-2. Volumes 3-5 are not yet available, so I don't know how the story ends.
   
   I really hope Umezu's other stuff will be translated someday, or at least re-released. I'm holding out for Left Hand of God.
   
   
   Along with the works of "Kazz" (as the fan boys call him), I'm rabid about collecting anything by Junji Ito (Uzumaki, posted here), Keiji Nakazawa (Barefoot Gen, posted here), and Toshiki Yui (hentai master). I'm always on the look out for this material.
   
   
5. Marie Claire Idées is not a magazine I buy regularly, but it's reasonably priced in Canada, I know enough French to be able to read it (although, not enough to understand "Bon Cop, Bad Cop", except when the anglophones spoke French), and this issue has many pages of geeky book-lover crafts. In case you're not familiar with this title, it's like Martha Stewart Living but with more emphasis on DIY and less on displaying the homes of the wealthy.
   
   
   
   A book lamp and embroidered "open book" placements.
   
   
   An interesting shelf with plaster blocks shaped like books, and corsages.
   
   What's particularly nice about this publication: almost every object is denoted as, "Explications en fin de journal."
   
   
6. Oh, I got a very nice score at the thrift store a few weeks ago while shopping for Halloween costumes. I picked up a dogi jacket in my size - it had no blood stains or even signs of wear - for four dollars! I nearly hyperventilated when I snatched it up, and had to calm myself before walking to the cash register. Normally, a new adult dogi is about eighty dollars or more, so you can imagine my excitement.
   
   

Fish Purse and Doll Purse WIP

I've finished the fish purse.

Here it is before a run through the washing machine:

Note the crappy, loose garter-stitch edges.

Here it is after:

I love how garter stitch looks after it's been fulled. The sloppy edges get gently rounded and the texture becomes subtly bumpy.

Note the size difference, before,


and after.


Now on to the doll purse.

The opening of the bag is in the back.

I'm making this one a little bigger, as the llama and fish bags turned out to be too small to hold my wallet and keys. They are just right for sock projects, however.

Fish Purse - WIP

But first, the strap of the llama purse is done.


There were a few minor errors in the pattern, but most of these will be caught by the intermediate knitter. For example, when adding waste yarn, the instructions say to, "...k9 on contrasting waste yarn, slip these 9 sts back onto left hand needle...", but omit the part about knitting the sts again with the good yarn.

Here's my current WIP, the fish purse from the same book, Andean Folk Knits.

Instead of doing endless, tiresome bobbles for the scales, I substituted a checkered fair isle design instead.

There is a major error in the tail chart, which you can see in the photo. The error is really unfortunate as the written instructions say only to, "work tail as charted". The problem is that the chart for the body shows the two halves (front & back of the purse), but the chart for the tail shows the whole tail as being the same width as the two halves of the body (instead of the width of one half of the body, which it should properly be).

Sadly, I can't find any errata for this book, so I had to resort to guessing at what I think the instructions should have been. At least it's shaping up to be fish-like.