First Socks of the Year

Always feels rather celebratory to finish off the first project of the year. These are pink; very, exceedingly pink. It's the thing for little girls these days.

Pattern: Improvised
Yarn: Lion Brand Sock-Ease Prints in Cotton Candy
Needle: 2.5mm
Gauge: 41 stitches / 4 inches

Very Pink Socks

Current Weather
-11C and partly cloudy.

2016 Year in Review

Let's take a look back at 2016.

Pets

Eclipse is still trucking along up at my friends' place. I suspect she loves retirement.

No health crisises from the felines this year. Squish continues to take his thyroid medication and he's actually not too bad about taking his pill twice a day. Other than that the cats are maintaining the status quo.

Soccer has another raging ear infection to finish off the year, I hope I can get this cleared up soon. He also seems to have slowed down a lot in the past few months. I hope it's just age as he turned 12 recently, I don't know his exact birthday as he was a rescue but I put it at sometime around the end of the year.

Ahab loves, loves, loves playing Scent Hurdle. He earned three titles in 2016. He started off running every heat in every race but starting in the fall I cut him back to one heat per race. He's old and I don't want him to get hurt playing the game. He sure gets excited if I pull out the barbells for a little practice.

Knitting

First thing finished in 2016 was a pair of socks for myself. Made from leftovers from a couple other pairs. I'm imposing a personal minimum of three yarns before they're Frankensocks.

Then I finished a sweater for myself. It didn't end up fitting as well as I'd hoped it would so I don't wear it much. This may end up in the Frog Pond yet.

Then came John Deer Knubbelchen in preparation for my Wee Niece's visit in the summer. Oh, and my Sister and Brother-in-Law came too but we all know who the important visitor was.

Next up more socks, for my Nephew this time. He's having a green phase which has continued into this year as he wants sock that are "green with maybe purple" for his birthday. Never argue with another person's colour choices.

Then some irresistibly cute Monster Pants. I made these too big for my Wee Niece but better than too small when it comes to kids.

Socks for my not-so-Wee Niece, she's still totally into pink. I live in despair that she will ever discover that other colours exist. No, not really; but I personally just don't care for pink. It's a harsh colour to my eyes. That's just me though.

Then I realized that if I was going to give my Wee Niece a toy upon her arrival I had better have one for the other little girl who was coming. My sister traveled with a friend who also has a young daughter. So I made a second Knubbelchen. I've been told since that this has become one of her favourite toys. How thrilling!

I wanted to try making more three dimensional toys but decided to break into the genre slowly so I made myself a Wee Little Bunny. He's presently sitting on my desk at work watching over my (dying) computer. The colour doesn't show particularly well in the picture, he's actually a soft yellow.

A friend of my boss had her gallbladder removed and since I'd knitted a "replacement" for myself as a joke when I had mine removed he asked if I could make another for her. Why not?

Feeling a bit more confident knitting three dimensional items I made a rabbit for my Wee Niece. When she received him on her birthday she kept putting him in a mixing bowl. My Mom decided we should call him Basil the Bunny because she was clearly trying to cook him up. We'll have to wait and see if that sticks.

Then along came another sweater for my Wee Niece. If you're sensing a theme here you'd not be wrong.

My sister who never wears socks (different sister than my Wee Niece's mom) asked for a pair of purple socks. How could I resist such a plea? I mostly knitted these while watching some exceedingly boring SQL training videos. They kept me awake.

At last something for myself. This sweater has been seeing a lot of wear. It's made from sock weight yarn so it can be worn indoors. This is a basic bottom up seamless sweater. I love seamless sweaters, mostly because I hate sewing. Learned that after making a couple of flat knit sweaters.

Found this pattern and simply could not resist making a dragon for my Wee Niece. I may have to make more of these as they're so terribly cute.

The first sock weight sweater was such a success I made another. I have a third on the needles and yarn for two more after that.

Some summer socks for me. These are mostly cotton so they're nice and cool for summer. If we get summer, which doesn't always seem to be a guarantee around here.

Then came the Great Sweater Crisis. I started making a Wonderful Wallaby using the colours found in a Hudson Bay blanket but it looked like it was going to be too large. So I made this little Mauve Wallaby which I greatly feared would be too small, have now spoken to my sister and it fits, just barely. It's made from sport weight yarn using the smallest Wallaby pattern with the sleeves and body shortened a bit.

In the end I did finish the Hudson Bay Wallaby and I sent it over to my Wee Niece with my folks when they went over for Christmas this year. I'm so jealous of the fun they must be having over there.

And because I had so much fun making toys I finished off with a Polar Bear. I think she's a girl we'll see what my Wee Niece decides. The sweater is not part of the bear so I predict lots of "take the sweater off, get someone to put it back on for me" from my Wee Niece.

My older Niece and Nephew also got toys this year. They don't look like much but who couldn't use a Hacky Sack? Maybe they'll become all the rage at the hockey rink. They also got books for Christmas although they were delivered on Boxing Day. The Hacky Sacks were a great hit and we spent close to half an hour playing with them, guess who got to help demonstrate them?

The tentative plan is to knit three more for each of them for birthdays or Easter so they can have juggling balls. Maybe I'll use the leftovers from their Birthday Socks; that's a thought anyway.

Then socks for Mom for her birthday in early December. These were late and are presently waiting for her to come home from Scotland.

Since I'm using up some vacation time at the end of the year Dad's birthday socks got finished in plenty of time for his birthday in January.

And finally socks for my Nephew. This puts me ahead for 2017 as his birthday isn't until February. He specifically asked for "green with maybe purple". And so I deliver. Colours are much darker than they appear in the picture.





Let's break down the numbers, just because:
24 projects completed
8 toys
8 pairs of socks
7 items for my Wee Niece
7 sweaters
3 items for my Nephew
2 items for my not-so-wee-Niece
2 bunnies
2 knubbelchen dolls
1 dragon
1 bear
1 human organ
1 pair of pants (trousers for any UK readers)

Final Socks

The final completed project for 2016 is a pair of socks for my Nephew. His birthday isn't until February so I'm totally ahead of the game. For now. I don't think he's reading this blog, he's a bit young for it yet, so I'm going to go ahead and post about his socks. If he is reading this I guess he'll have to pretend to be surprised on his birthday. Or not, as receiving socks from me on one's birthday is hardly Earth shattering news.

Yarn: Schachenmayr Regia 4-fädig 4-Ply Solids in Green and Purple
Pattern: Improvised
Needle: 2.5mm
Gauge: 41 stitches/4 inches

As requested, "green with maybe purple"

The colours in the socks are actually much darker than they appear in the picture above.

Now I will have to cast on my Niece's socks right away and try to stay ahead of the game. If so maybe I'll manage to make my Time Traveler socks this year. Such excitement.

Current Weather
-4C and partly cloudy.

Wordless Wednesday

Birthday Socks

Yep, more socks completed. Super boring men's socks for my Dad. What is it about men and colour? Or rather, the lack thereof. This is the first time I've made socks with this yarn and it is definitely workhorse yarn, it's a bit thicker than most sock yarn I use, and I found it a bit scratchy. Won't matter for my Dad though, he's indifferent to scratchy socks.

Pattern: Improvised
Yarn: Patons North America Kroy Socks 4 Ply in Flax and Gentry Grey
Needle: 2.5mm
Gauge: 36 st/4 inches

Yarning

Went to The Knitting Room today to see about some yarn for my Nephew's socks, he's asked for "green with maybe purple". Very metro. Not that I told him that, I wouldn't want to discourage a love of bright colours especially in a nearly tween boy. I did succeed in finding both green and purple so I'm set there.

I also found a lot of other lovely yarn so I treated myself for Christmas, in fact I purchased yarn for a total of five more pairs of socks and only one of those might be for me. You know you love knitting when you consider purchasing a load of yarn, almost none of it destined to be worn by yourself, and consider it a Christmas gift to yourself. Naturally, I didn't think to take group picture before storing it all away. I did however take individual shots for Ravelry, not posting all the individual pics here though.

Made excellent progress on Dad's socks over the past few days. In fact I've finished the first sock already. Considering how slowly the last two pairs have gone I'm thinking I might have my sock mojo back. Here's hoping anyway. Of course, this does mean that I've knitted pretty much nothing else lately. It's a balancing act. I really miss commuting to work via transit; I got so much sock knitting done on the train. Sigh. I'm off work until next year now so I have great plans for a sock knitting/Netflix marathon.

And just in case I'm not back before December 25:

Current Weather
-5C and snowing. It's been snowing all day.

Wordless Wednessday