Socks and Sweaters

I finished up the Narragansett Bay Socks almost two weeks ago, but the pictures have been languishing.

Unfortunately, since Nagoya currently lacks such necessities for good knitting pictures as ample sunlight and willing photographers, they didn’t come out great.

As I mentioned before, these are the Narragansett Bay Socks, a pattern from Lisa Lloyd and only available in the book, A Fine Fleece. A Fine Fleece is specifically intended to be full of projects for people who spin their own yarn, though they provide commercially available substitutions for every pattern. I myself used Knit Picks Gloss, in the colorway ‘Dolphin,’ which, admittedly, looked more grey than blue online.

I first heard about A Fine Fleece on brainylady’s blog (here) back in April and my interest was peaked both by her review and the mention of these socks, wince my family has spent almost every summer since I was born at Narragansett beach in Rhode Island.. I checked it out the next time I was at the bookstore and snatched it up once I realized how many patterns I needed right now. I’ve finished three, including these socks and the matching Narragansett Bay scarf (which I gave to a professor), and another 5 or 6 are waiting in my queue on Ravelry.

In the meantime, however, I’ve started up something new.

Care to make a guess?

Mittens of Triumph!

This post is to celebrate the completion of my set of winter items for this year – The Grey Album, we’ll call it. Every year, it seems, I go to knit myself a new pair of mittens, only to realize that the color/style that I have chosen doesn’t fit with anything I currently own. Unwilling to be seen in a red hat, grey mittens, and blue scarf, I usually dutifully cast on for a matching hat and scarf.

These mittens, however, gave me fits for a good month. They’re the Broad Street Mittens, by Janis Cortese, from the Fall 2002 issue of Knitty (free, online). The pattern is, oh, how to put this politely…poorly edited? There was much ripping back and cursing with these, more than I have had with a pattern in a very, very long time.

I spent most of today finishing the shell portion on the right hand, and finagling a pocket for the back of the left hand. Why a pocket, you ask?

For my transit card, of course. : ) This idea actually came from a different pattern, the Subway Mittens, by Colleen Meagher. It can be found in the Winter 2007 issue of Interweave Knits(not free, offline). I knit the mittens using the Ash colorway of KnitPicks Palette, a fingering weight yarn. The buttons are fired clay maple leaves, bought at Purls here in Tucson.

Scholar Collar, by Jared Flood (free, online). Knit in Misti Alpaca Chunky, color 403, a bulky weight yarn. Took two days.

Owl Hat, by Ruthie Nussbaum (free, online). Also knit in Misti Alpaca Chunky, color 403. Took one day.

See these on Ravelry, if you have an account – Transit Mittens, Scholar Collar, Owl Hat.

See, I needed to experiment with posting pictures.

DSCN1408, originally uploaded by maurionravelry.

Therefore, you guys finally get to discover the fate of the giant white blob that has been hanging around my neck for the past 14 months.

It’s called a Feather & Fan Shawl and the pattern is by Eugen Beugler.

I used Flickr to post this, but I think I’m going to stick with Photobucket from now on. At least that way I’ll be able to blog about more than one photo at a time.