Socktastic!

The Christmas sock project is a little behind schedule, but I'm OK with that. Really I am. Score card - finished 2 pair, in progress 1 pair, to be done 2 pair. I still haven't mailed my cards or wrapped my gifts, or anything else I need to do before Friday, but all I want to do is knit.

Finished socks:

Dolly Llama - for my mom. These are my first-ever toe-up socks. I LOVE these socks. They are so cheery and bright. Plus they're super thick and warm. I hope she likes them as much as I do (or I might have to steal them back).





Brad's self-striping socks. Otherwise known as the socks that wouldn't die. These were my first socks with size 1 DPNs and real sock-weight yarn. They took forever. I really like how the contrasting toe and heel came out. But there are a lot of mistakes - like 2 different sized toes (not sure how that happened) and the mismatched stripes. But Brad likes them and they should be nice and warm.



Socks in progress:

These are for my dad. I really love this new yarn with the smaller stripes. I was mistaken thinking that the dark stripe was black, when it's actually dark grey, but the black toe still looks OK, I think. I hope I can get through these mistake free.






Future Socks:

OK, so maybe that's kind of cheating, but Dharia sent me a picture today of my custom-dyed yarn for my brother and SIL's socks. I am so excited. Yes, the black and gold is for the Steeler's. Dan will be thrilled with these. And the SIL will like the pink/purple, as they seem to be her favorite colors. Can't wait to start these when I get home.

Needle Carrier

I finally got fed up with having all my knitting stuff strewn across my apartment. My ingenious method of storing needles in the long skinny plastic bags that the newspaper comes in worked for a while, but eventually fell apart. So I decided to stitch myself up a needle carrier.

After some research I settled on this pattern It seemed to have the right size and number of pockets and I liked the flap.

Next, I dug though my fabric stash and found - the last of the bedskirt velvet and matching blue fabric. Just enough, too. Perfect!


I wound up making 2 modifications. One, I added elastic loops instead of the ribbon. I thought it would be more secure. And two, I put a layer of cotton batting inside to give it a little more structure. (note that the batting only went as high as the flap, you can almost see in the photo on the left that there's a seam across the bag. I put it there to anchor the batting and delineate the beginning of the flap).










The finished product.