artsy fartsy santa says

merry christmas!

have you all had a good holiday weekend? mine has been filled with lovely gifts, lovely food, lovely bubbly, lovely chocolate, and lovely company, so i'm all happy.

i even finished all my xmas knits, which of course were only meant to be two, but ended up being four. i also managed to finish my xmas stocking, though that happened so late i didn't get a chance to fill it. who cares, it looks quite pretty hanging by my fireplace (where i light a bunch of candles so i don't have to deal with going outside in the rain to the mice-inhabited wood stack).


specs
pattern: aran christmas stocking by teva durham in handknit holidays
yarn: gjestal topp't tå (100% superwash wool), held double: 5 balls in shade 909 (red) and 1 ball in shade 900 (natural white)
needles: 8mm knitpicks options circ (magic loop)

do you know what's great about making christmas stockings? there's only one of them! at the very beginning of the project i was all excited and thought "hey! these are great! i'll make two of them so the husband and i can have one each!" then it hit me: here's that rare chance to get away with making only one sock. shouldn't i embrace that opportunity? yeah. we'll share the stocking. (and it's not like i managed to fill it, anyway.)

now, can i tell you a secret? promise you'll keep it to yourself?

i hate knitting cables.

dear lord is it ever boring. you can never get a rhythm going, because you have to stop and dig out your cable needle and rearrange all the stitches and bla bla bla. for this stocking some cables even required two cable needles. ick. i guess cabling without a cable needle is better, but even then you have to stop and rearrange the stitches. i don't care how good the end result is, cabling is b-o-r-i-n-g.

i'll take a good lace pattern anyday.


specs
pattern: embossed leaves socks, interweave knits winter 2005
yarn: koigu painter's palette premium merino, shade p521, two hanks
needles: 2.5mm ebony dpns

look at the pretty heel - from now on i will go for a garter stitch edging on all my heel flaps:


the picked up stitches along the flap are perfect. no holes whatsoever. ingenious.

oh the lovely yarn. so soft and smooth! such gorgeous colours! still i ended up giving these socks away. crazy. however, i decided my mother, with her normal-coloured skin, would be the perfect recipient of these, as my pasty legs looked something between dead and moldy in this colourway. not the look i'm going for, usually. fortunately i have a rather fine selection of koigu in my stash, so i'm sure there will be some socks for me!me!me! at one point.

right now, though, i have to dash - i have a date with some plum laceweight and a pretty, pretty pattern.