Giant ball of yarn and socks!

My parents came over for a visit yesterday. It's recently been my boyfriend's birthday and my sister-in-law's birthday is coming up, so they went over to Nord-Trøndelag for a double birthday visit. Not only did they bring Bård a birthday gift, but my mom also brought me some stuff! She gave me a giant ball of yarn!

This is Verdi from Drops, a yarn I've been looking at several times in webstores, but never really seen in real life. The price was very off-putting...but I didn't know how big it actually was and how much yarn its worth! There is actually a whole sweater in there! Believe it or not!

The details say it weights 350g (12,35oz) which equals to 1225 meters (1339 yards)! That's crazy! I've already picked out a pattern that I want to spend it on, but I need HUGE ASS needles for it!

Pretty pretty! I know it seems impossible that there's enough yarn in there for that jacket, but after looking up the yarn amount needed for it, comparing the yarn they suggest using (which is Vienna, but the pattern says that Verdi is a good replacement), it looks like it might be enough for TWO jackets in this skein! Crazy time! Might not actually happend though... We'll see. Need to get the needles first!

She also brought a book filled with patterns of iconic "barne-TV" characters, both old and new...mostly new... Barne-TV is a TV-show made for kids only in the evening just before bed time. It lasts for about 30 minutes (atleast so it did back in the day) and had colourful doll characters that spoke to the kids inbetween cartoons or other small shows and sketches. While I couldn't care less for the first 3/4 of this book, seeing that they are mostly current characters, the last quarter makes me very nostalgic and I've GOTTA make some of these, even though they're mostly crochet...and all norwegian patterns... I'm most familiar with 'Murican crochet therms.

For dere norske. Boka heter Lag favorittfigurene fra Barne-TV og er skrevet av Lise Nymark. Utgitt av Cappelen Damm med ISBN nummer: 978-82-02-43118-1.

Over to something different. I finished up the ugly scrap socks last night. Weaving in the ends was a nightmare though! That's always the worst thing. And as I said yesterday, there was 20 ends on each sock! That's 40 in total! If I use 1 minute on each end, that's 40 minutes! For gods sake!

Stupid flash washed out the colours... I tried to use the short row heel instead of the one I usually use. Figured it would feel better for this type of sock. I also tried to make the leg longer than I usually do on these...which ended up in using more scraps...and then more ends to weave in... *sigh* But they're done now! Gonna probably make more of these! My 'Murican friends love them!

And while we're still on socks... I've started making Christmas stockings! Another one of my 'Murican friends have commissioned two Christmas stockings from me! I'm so excited cause Christmas Stockings aren't usually a thing over here. And the ones she asked me to make are so pretty!

 I'm gonna enjoy making these so much!

Endless nightmare!

The worst thing with the ugly scrap socks is the amount of ends that needs to be weaved in... With this pair, there's 20 ends on each sock... Ffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff...

Weaving in ends is probably the thing I dread the most with a project... It takes too long and you need to secure the ends good... But I rather sew them in good than to just tie a knot like I see several amatures do.

Ugly yoga scrap socks!

My appologies to you if you have phobias for feet.

I'm a sock person...or atleast I've become a sock person in my older years...and I'm still only 25 here... When I was a child, I was more of a bare feet person, but as I've grown older, I've become more and more obsessed with socks. Expecially wool socks or homemade socks if you like. Since I picked up the needles again, 4-5 years ago, it has just gotten worse. I wear my wool socks every day, all year around, so I'm very happy that we got cold floors in this appartment.
I don't wear socks because my feet are cold, no, I wear wool socks because it's comfy and cuddly. I even sleep with them! But in the warmest of summer, it can get too much, even for me some days... And I do miss sleeping with my wool socks on, but if I put them on, I wake up in the middle of the night and gots removes thems.

Then suddenly, I came across this one blog that said she had made yoga socks to wear during those warm summer nights! And it felt like I was struck by lightning! Ofcourse! Why haven't I thought of that yet? Didn't take long though before I casted on a pair. No particular pattern. I used 3mm needles to get them a bit tighter, 50 stitches and worked 1k, 1p ribbing for the whole sock pretty much.

I've now worn them two nights allready and I must say that it's successful!

 

But other than finishing up these, there's not much to document from me. Minecraft and Mario Kart 8 has sucked me back into the world of games for now, and I'm enjoying it while I still can since I don't have any major projects that has a timer set on them. I do pick up my summer pullover and work a few rounds now and then though. But there's no more progress on my dishcloth designs, sadly.

Scraps all day long!

Scraps, scraps, wonderful scraps!

So! I've just finished the first yoga scrap sock! Pulled out the most boring colors from my wool bag and worked up this thing! I was lucky enough to pull out exactly enough yarn for a pair! That's skills, man! I'm gonna start the second one now. I've managed to misplace most of my 3mm DPNS, so I'm currently stuck with using only four on these. I'm used to work them both at the same time, expecially when I'm using scraps because I need it to be exact, so I had to stop a row showrt on most of the colors I used, just to be sure... So it could have been a little bit longer  for my taste... But hey, it's night socks, who cares?

Looking at them, lying flat like this, they look horrible and you don't really know what it is...

But then you put them on and it's like someone took a sock and chopped off the heel and toe!

They're horrible to wear on our floor since it's all cold tiles, but they'll be awesome and snug in bed! And it's always a smart thing to keep your feet and ankles warm, even if it's summer, expecially if you got bad legs, cramps or other pains caused by cold. Personally, I do have knee pains, but I'm going to wear these just because full wool socks are a bit too warm in bed even for me during the warmest of summer...but it's so comfy!

Ugly Scrap Socks!

I love working with scraps! It's so much fun and the colors makes everything so interesting! Since I work alot with wool, I collect the pure wool and superwash wool scraps up and use them for scrap socks or scrap felted slippers.

Just before Christmas, I promised that I would make my dear friend and crafter Tiffany a pair of my ugly scrap socks since she has hardly worked much with wool and felt the wonders of warm wool socks before.

So I took a chunck of my superwash wool scraps and whipped up these, very colorfull and very stripey!

They're worked up just about from memory in the thypical "raggsokk" pattern. 3,5mm needles and about three different brands of superwash wool. I hope she'll enjoy them!

I still got more superwash, so I might make another pair too, since my hand is healing now my knitting speed picks up! These are a easy breeze to make!

Progress of the last couple days - 21th and 22nd jan

My sleep schedule has been upside down again so sorry for not pumping out these progress of the day blogposts for the few of you whom follows my blog.

As you may know, my sweater went to hell and I went to hell with it... All sad and tears and shit... But I did manage to frog down to the first raglan decrease again so I will continue it when it has cooled off some more.

In the mean time, I did actually manage to start two new projects...which I really shouldn't have concidering how much crap I got going on allready all over the place... The first thing I started was a squirrel amigurumi. Some time ago, I got this eyelash yarn in a yellow ocre color which I had no idea what to use for, but as it turns out, it'll be a good color for a squirrel's tail! and since the 21st was international squirrel appreciation day, I decided to make one from this Ravelry pattern.
Now, I've never been very good with 3D objects in knitting and ami's really aren't my thing, that's more suited for crocheting anyway, so ofcourse the squirrel looks like roadkill. I got one arm done and need to make the other before I sew them on, but for now, I got the body stuffed and attached the ears.

I was thinking about doing a couple, one in a grey winter coat and the other in a more "all year round" coat, but I might just stick with the brown one. Making another one doesn't really tickle my fancy right now. I'll also have to wing the tail probably, cause from what I see in the pattern, the tail looks like it's just brushed yarn.

The second project I started is more of a mindless knitting thing. I promised Tiff that I would show her how real wool socks are, and then make her "raggsokk"s whenever I had enough superwash wool lying around. Though I'm not sure if I still have enough, I started her pair anyway.
I started with burgundy and a nature white color, who knows what will come after this? I've done several ugly scrap yarn socks in the past, and these will be ugly too, just a heads up... That's what scrap yarn's for!

Hopefully, I'll be able to finish both of these new projects and then return to my Jackie sweater and finish that bastard off!