Nutkins Finished!

 

My nutkins are finished! I redid the toe on the first sock and it came out great. There was a wee nubbin on the heel of the second sock but blocking took care of that. They're a little big, but significantly easier to get on than my Spring Forward socks.




The Cherry Tree Hill yarn was great to knit with. Very similar to Dream In Color Smooshy. The red is a fun color and I've already worn them a few times. I can't get enough of them.

I also went ahead and finished my Jane hat. It was snug when I cast off, but blocking has loosened it up quite a bit. Malabrigo grows like a mofo when it's wet. No photos of that yet but they'll be coming soon. I cast on for a honey cowl this morning and it's going pretty quickly. I'm alternating the two colors every two rows and I think it's turning out ok so far. I also ordered the yarn for Kevin's Christopher hat so I should have that in the new few days and should be able to get started on it once I'm done with the honey cowl.

Good news and bad news.

Good news. I finished Nutkin 2! I got better at the short row on the toe and it looks good. It's a little big on my foot but whatever, I can live with that.

The bad news is, the toe on this sock highlights exactly how bad the toe is on the first Nutkin. This one is nice and round and very toe like. The first Nutkin toe came out really boxy and square. So, I have to rip the toe out and redo it. I'm not going to rip all the way back to the heel. The heel just doesn't bother me that much but the toe most definitely needs to be fixed. I've actually already ripped out the toe, that was fairly painless and I think I can redo the new toe and finish it by tomorrow so that's more good news. By this time tomorrow I will have a new pair of socks to wear!

Nutkin Round 2

So I did decide to go with finishing a pair of socks (can you believe I've only finished one pair after knitting all of these socks?). I'm making good progress on Nutkin 2.



I'm about halfway down the foot and I made it through the short row heel thanks to this tutorial that someone directed me to last time I whined about my Nutkin. The pictures and detailed instructions were great. I can't say that I'm a fan of this heel though. It's just so fiddly and even though I did it right I still think it's messy looking.



Messy messy! It won't be as gappy as the original sock, so that's nice but I'm not crazy about how it looks. I think the heel flap is much neater. Oh well, at least I'm getting another pair of socks under my belt. That is, unless I decide to rip up the first one and do it all over again the right way.


In other yarny related news, I got two luscious skeins of Malabrigo Silky Merino for Christmas. One in the Marruecos colorway and the other in Bobby Blue. What should I knit with them? Perhaps I'll consult my other Christmas gift Brave New Knits to see if it has any ideas. Whatever it is, it will need to be small, I've only got 300 yards to work with...

Ugly toes!

I realized I promised pictures of my ugly toes like...oh 5 days ago but I'm lazy so here they are now. I haven't fully decided exactly what I'm going to do about this sock yet. Knit sock two and figure out how to do it right then come back? Go ahead and rip this one up and redo it? Frogging still terrifies me a bit so I'm hesitant do jump right into it but one way or another it will need to be done. The toe on this thing is AWFUL. And the heel is holey. And not the good kind of holey either.







I haven't been completely unproductive. I did start a pair of thrummed mittens as my first Christmas project. I'm about halfway through the first mitten and it's coming along swimmingly. It is kind of hard to knit a mitten when it's still 80 degrees here in VA. Dude, seriously, the weather has no idea what it's doing anymore.

Short row heel?

So the Nutkins have something new that I haven't encountered yet. The short row heel. I'm following the pattern but I think I keep screwing up the yos on the purl rows. It kind of looks like a hot mess right now but I'll keep going with it and hope that it starts to make sense soon.

See, don't these stitches look so...wack?





I'm not sure how this technique is better than the usual way heels are done but I'll stick with it until the end just in case I wind up liking it more. I think the toe is going to be short row too so no grafting at the end! I was just finally getting the hang of that too.

I may actually get this sock done in the next week or so, which is like some sort of record for me and sock knitting. Nice.

Nutkin Pt 1

So the Nutkins are coming along swimmingly! I'm really loving this pattern. I love that it's simple and easy to memorize. I don't have any problems putting it down and then picking it back up again. I can always tell where I am in the pattern. I love it when stitches are easy to read like that. I love the red color of this yarn. It makes me think of candy apples and cherries and suckers. I love the fact that I've knit this much of the first so and I've been working on it for less than a week. It took me like 3 months to do this much of the Hedera's. I think I'm discovering more of my pattern preferences when it comes to knitting. I really don't dig complicated patterns that require concentration. I don't like yoing after purling. I like simple patterns with minor interesting details in them to keep them from being a total stockinette snoozefest. But just a few details so I can still watch Psych and Project Runway without messing things up.

The only thing I wasn't a big fan of was the folding over of the cuff and knitting it together. I'm not exactly sure what the point of that was.

Anyway, yay! I'm knitting again!