More Socks

As you can see from the percent bars to the right of these posts, I really like the Tadpole sock pattern. It's very easy and fast-especially on two circulars doing both socks at the same time.

My latest pair is being done on #3 dpns with Bernat Baby sport yarn in a white/blue/green colorway. It's a huge ball of yarn and I know I can probably get two adult pairs of socks out of it and still have some leftover. Looks like they're going to have blue/green speckles all over them, I think I'm going to like it. Anyway, I'm doing these on dpns this time because I don't have any #3 circulars. I can still do the pair sort of at the same time since I have two open sets of dpns and raided another set to get two sets of five so I can start the other sock once I get going on the first one. Then I can just alternate socks after each pattern repeat and have the pair done practically at the same time. Now I'll get to see if it's easier with the dpns or circs.

I know, people probably frown on using acrylic yarn for socks, but I have very little money to work with so I get what I can afford, and acrylic baby yarn is very soft nowadays. Maybe not as soft as 100% merino like Knitpicks Palette or Knitpicks Essential sock yarn with nylon, but it's soft enough not to irritate my feet.

Anyways, I never worry about what other people say, I just do what I like within the law and purists can make a face-just hope it doesn't freeze that way ;)

Crochet Ribbing

I'm sure 99.9% of crocheters know about the sc ribbing-work back and forth in sc, working in the BLO of each stitch. This does make for a stretchy piece of fabric, but sometimes it doesn't seem to be stretchy enough, or it loses its stretch.

I was reading online somewhere (I'm sorry, I can't remember where, or what pattern) and the person was using a SS (yes, slip stitch) ribbing. I thought to myself, "How ingenious". It's basically worked the same as the sc ribbing, only you use ss, still only crocheting in the BLO. This ribbing-although it's more tedious-is far superior to the sc ribbing, IMO. It's very stretchy, looks almost exactly like the k1, p1 ribbing of knitting. The only thing you need to look out for is accidentally not crocheting all the sts, and to keep your tension on the loose side. If you tighten the sts too much, it will be very hard to do the next row-believe me, I've had to rip back when I wasn't consciously trying to keep my tension a bit looser than normal. And it really isn't too tedious if you keep your tension slack, it goes fairly fast once you get going.

Anyway, I thought I'd share this information to any crocheter out there who would like to try this for sweater, sock, mitten or fingerless glove pattern-it really is soft and stretchy.

Edit: I found it-it was a free pattern for crochet socks that I found and saved.

This is a pdf file, so you'll need either the Adobe reader, or some equivalent to be able to read it.

'Nother Capelet

Here's a not-so-good picture, it doesn't show the colors well at all:



It's from the American School of Needleworks book titled Crocheted Collars by Mary Thomas and the pattern is Pretty Pineapples. Book number 1047.

Instead of thread and steel hook, I used Bernat Soft Baby yarn-one blue and one green held together-and a size J hook. I repeated the pattern six times and it just fits around my neck and the capelet just covers my chest.. I also only ch-5 for the button loop and made a button with a size F hook and the blue yarn.

Hope you like it.

I lied...

I said I didn't have anyone to model my capelet...

Meet my granddaughter, Kadi. I put the capelet on her and she decided she liked it. When I got the camera down and got on her level to get the pic, she squatted down too, so the capelet actually comes down to about her belly. But isn't she cute???

Capelet

I got the picture of my finished capelet. I didn't have anyone to model it so it's hanging by the door. I hope you like it.



I made it using two colors of Red Heart Super Saver yarn. Since they were partial skeins, and didn't have wrappers, I'm not sure what the exact colors are. One is pink, the other varigated-fiesta, I think, since it has the festive colors of Mexico in it.

Anyway, the pattern can be found here. I hope you enjoy making it, it only takes a few hours. And if you wash and dry it afterwards if you use RHSS yarn, it will come out soft and fluffy, especially if you use fabric softener. I haven't washed mine yet, so it's still a bit stiff and doesn't drape right, but I am going to wash it before I wear it.

Finished

I figured out how to get the capelet a bit smaller and still use an N hook. Use smaller stitches. I've also changed the pattern up enough that I'm going to post it on my pattern blog in the morning when I can take a picture of the capelet I just finished.

Using the slightly smaller stitches at the beginning brought the neck in so it fits great and doesn't stretch out so it slides off one shoulder. I hope you guys like it as much as I do. I'll add a picture tomorrow, it's bedtime for me right now, I just thought I'd put this up before I head off to bed, I just started my monthly this morning and I feel really icky right now.

Pattern

In this post I wrote about copying a capelet from a picture of one for sale. I had written down how I did it in notepad, but since have lost it. At least I still have the one I made and can extrapolate from that.

Actually, I'm going to change it up some and probably use a bit smaller hook since the original one does go off the shoulder some, and I don't want that. I'm also going to add some rounds of sc between the other rounds to make it a bit longer and give it a bit more body. I might even put it up in my patterns blog if it turns out all right. It's really very simple, and only 6 rounds as done now, so you could make one up in no time. I really want to make some in some different colors to go with different dresses that I wear to church since they usually keep it quite cool in there and my shoulders get kind of chilly during services.

Anyway, stay tuned, cause it might be awhile-I want to make one and take a picture before I put the pattern up and I have a few things I want to finish up first, as shown by my progress bars over to the right.

Just FYI, the original is a pattern for sale, so I'm going to work on mine to make it significantly different enough to post and still be a nice, airy capelet.

Triangular Striped Shawl

I was experimenting with some acrylic yarn I've had, like, forever, and using a typical diagonal dishcloth/baby blanket pattern-except, instead of increasing by using YO, I simply increased by KF&B of the second stitch of each row. Then I decided to try changing colors for stripes. I think I'm going to continue it out and make a shawl instead of making a great big square.

It should be very colorful by the time I'm done:

Left-leaning decreases

Left-leaning decreases

This lady has compared seven types of decreases which lean to the left. As you can see, there are only two of them that look fairly decent-#3 and #7, which is her own creation.

However, on socks-when you're making the toe-you decrease on every other round, and I've noticed on that round that the left-leaning decrease (most use ssk) is bigger than the stitch on the following round, which makes that side look-well-slightly wonky compared to the other side, which looks neat and tidy.

I'm trying #7 now, which is a bit involved-but not too, and I'll see if it comes out any less wonky than using ssk or skp. I wish I could find a left-leaning decrease that will match the right-leaning decrease when you're only decreasing every other round.

And, rather than call it that long name that she calls it, I'm going to call it Nona's xk2tog-which stands for Nona's crossed stitch knit two together.