Name that Sock

Wow. Okay. I think I will give up stitching and convert to knit-ism. You don’t seem to mind, judging from all the sweet comments you left on my previous post. Thank you. You’re all lovely.

Next week, on November 2nd to be precise, I will be turning 20.

(Remember: 40 is the new 30 is the new 20?)…

No, dang it, no more fairy tales: I WILL BE 40. Middle aged. I will be a dried-up old prune. And I think I will enjoy it immensely. Although it will be my first birthday without my Papa calling me early in the morning and singing Lang zal ze leven for me, which will make it a very difficult day indeed, I’m planning a weekend of festivities only my fellow stitchers will understand. Yup, you’ve guessed it: I’m going to lock myself in my cozy little cabin (Pelle is with the ex this weekend), finish a pair of socks and possibly certainly start a new pair; I’m going to drink gallons of coffee and green apple tea and probably a drop or two or three of red wine, and I’m going to start a new… sampler! Yes, that will be my birthday gift to me. A new sampler. This one, to be precise:

I’m sure the non-sock-knitters (aka the toastiness-deprived) among you will be relieved to learn of this plan. Although, you know, I have NO business starting a new sampler with all of my UFO drawers overflowing, but who cares. I’m nearly 40, I can do what I want.

Now, a couple of things about these socks:

1) I’m using one ball Scheepjes Invicta Colour, striping it with itself by knitting from both ends of the ball, as I’ve seen done on Ravelry.com. It’s not a lot of fun to knit with this yarn, because I think it came straight from the sheep (you know, after it’d been on a visit to the Lamb to the Dyer Salon) without coming across a spinning contraption of any kind. The stripes weren’t working for me, either. I mean, in a ball of dark purple, dark red, bright green, bright blue and bright orange, how did the dark red and the purple cross each other, leaving the more cheerful colours entirely out of the equation?
2) Stripes are surprisingly difficult to do well when knitting. Hence the supreme wonkiness of the first sock. The second sock looks a lot better.
3) I now need stripey socks in every imaginable colourway - and every unimaginable one, as well - or I shall never be happy again.
4) This colourway is yummy, I’m sure you’ll agree, and it’s called Grape Arbour. As I was knitting along (well, plodding, really), I was thinking of possible sock names to go with the name of the yarn, the look of the sock and the experience of the knitting. At first, I tended towards Chateau Chit, because of the crappiness of the entire thing, but now that I’ve started the second sock and it’s starting to all turn out exactly as I wanted it, I’m leaning towards naming this pair Chateau Chic. What think you, honeybuns?

Alrighty, off to discipline my unruly cat before he unravels my SIP... Pantoooooooooooooooef!!!!!!

Yours still thirty-somethingly,
Annemarie.

Victory is Complete

You’re a right bunch of gloaters, aren’t you? "Ooooh, Annemarie, your first sock looks gorrrrgeous. Really. Congratulations to YOU, you fabulous Sock Conqueror. But DO you realise you need two socks to make a pair? Well, why don’t you come back after you’ve finished that one - the second Sock - and THEN let’s see if you’ve still got such a smug attitude vis-à-vis sock-knitting."

Needless to say I do.
And do.And do.And do.My very first pair, which I’ve christened my Toadstool Socks. (Toadstool, because this allows me to pretend that they look deliciously autumnal, when in fact they just look hideously poisonous). The yarn was sold without a wrapper (there’s a surprise) so I can’t tell you who the manufacturer is.

In between knitting socks, I’ve also done some cross-stitch-stash-acquiring (for those of you worried that I’ve completely forgotten my reason for being on the WWW in the first place)

And yes. Some knitting-stash-acquiring, too, at the Craft Fair in Rotterdam.

I will leave you to guess which part of my stash will first fall victim to my crafting needs.

Yours, again, very smugly,
Annemarie.

Victory

Ta-da. Ta-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!

The reason I wanted to learn to knit was that I could knit socks for moi and for everybody in my family and friendly circle. Instead, I chose to knit scarves, cowls and some more scarves and cowls and a blankie or two, because surely, surely, knitting socks would be too difficult. I don’t know why, but I thought handknitted socks were the enemy that had to be fought tooth and nail.
So it was with not a little trepidation that I started my research into Sock-knitting territory. I read patterns, watched videos, read books, looked at pictures, I pondered and studied and thought and philosophised. And then I chose my weapons of destruction. In the form of kebab skewers. Not a good idea. I soon discarded said skewers and replaced them with two circular needles, following the advice of seasoned warrior Cat Bordhi, whereupon my enemy the Sock went very quiet indeed.

I toddled merrily along until I reached a notoriously dangerous area in this hostile land: the region of Heel, Heel Flap, Heel Turning and Gusset Territory. Again, with the help of the brave soldiers who went there before me and who put up videos on the internet to guide novices like me, it turned out that the enemy was actually a bit of a lazy bastard, not even bothering to make an appearance. Honestly, I never saw him! I conquered Gusset Territory with no problem at all...

Well. Until I came to the last picking up part of the Gusset, because there the helpful videos just... stopped. There were videos for soldiers carrying kebab skewers and there were videos for those who use one long circular needle (probably for strangulation purposes), but knitters who came armed with two circs were left in the freezing cold. I was left to improvise, and I’m proud to say that I made it through, leaving a few scars here and there, but nothing that won’t fade with time.

In the end, as I said, the Sock turned out to be not much of an enemy at all. It was more my fear of the Sock that made me think he was the enemy than that he really was after my blood. But, if I may be allowed to wax political here, that is so often the way.
Actually, it was friendly fire that nearly killed me in the end. By the time I had to cast off (not weave in but actually cast off), I became reckless, because the weapons you need to finish off a Sock are these:

Now, those I can work with. Or so I thought. It took me two bloody hours to cast off ten stitches. Of course I could blame my YouTube instructor, who told her pupils to use a “ridiculously long thread”, and when I’m told to use a ridiculously long thread, I tend to use a ridiculously long thread. Only, when knitters say a “ridiculously long thread” they don’t really mean a “ridiculously long thread”, they mean “roughly the length of the thread you use for cross stitch”, which, as we all know, isn’t “ridiculously long” at all. Anyway, I used a ridiculously long thread and it knotted and twisted and tangled, and ohhh. Never mind. I won.

Next up: same territory, different weapons. And an enemy that wasn’t.

Yours smugly,
Annemarie.

You soxy thing

Wow. Inspiration to write is about 0.003 percent. Which is a bummer, especially considering that writing is what I do to make money. And yes, translating (especially novels) is writing, in case you were wondering if you missed anything. A couple of months ago, my erstwhile hairdresser asked me if a translator is required to re-write the whole text from A to Z in the target language. He thought I just pressed a button on my computer and the computer did all the work and I was just there to oversee things, or something. I was a bit miffed, actually. Translating is hard work. You know. If you have inspiration. Which I don’t.
Obviously.
Okay.
Next subject.

In my last, stitchy pics you were promised and stitchy pics you shall get. And a knitty one, too :o)
Remember Isabella Johnston? Well, Isabella the Red Cow Sampler is finished and framed and photographed in a most unflattering way, but this was the best I could do:

Whoopee! When I got this back from the framer’s, I spent a good half hour drooling over her. While I was standing there in a pool of saliva, two thoughts crossed my mind. The first was that I will only ever be truly happy when every inch of wall space in my house is filled with samplers like these, and the second thought was that I !%$^?*?&#!!@:o(( forgot to finish the leaf of the rose in the right hand corner! Thankfully, I happen to think that this adds all the more charm to the piece, so I don’t worry about it. Much.

After admiring Isabella for a while and after wiping the floor, I picked up Needleprint’s Sarah Harris and spent some time with her.

But you know what? My knitting keeps calling. I’ve never had it so bad before, and all because, eventually, all this knitting will hopefully lead to me having an enormous stash of hand-knitted socks. That’s my motive for doing any craft at all: I want the finished product and in order to get my greedy hands on it, I have to make it myself (or spend cartloads of money on other people’s work, but me being a humble translator, and an uninspired one at that, that’s not going to happen). And so I am very happy and proud to present my very first sock-to-be:

Whether you’re a beginner or and advancer; whether you’re senile, or inebriated or intoxicated or otherwise feeble in the head, there is absolutely NO excuse for this sock yarn, unless you’re knitting socks with a view to giving them to someone you really dislike. This yarn is hideous. My theory is that once I’ve managed two socks in this yarn, any other pair of socks will be a doddle to knit (note my optimism here. I’m still thinking I can finish this sock – which of course still needs a heel flap, a heel turn, a foot and a little pouchy thing to encase five toes). If I succeed, I fully intend to wear them with pride (inside my home where, thankfully, no-one requires me to be sexy. And for those of you wondering if knitted socks can be sexy at all, I would suggest you take a look at these babies:

Designed by one Cookie A. of Knitty.com fame. I think these are très sexy, in a Jane Austen-y, Brontësquely sort of way. I don’t know what that says about me, but there you go.)

Well, I know it will be hard for you to get through the next couple of days, wondering if I will manage to finish this sock, or, failing that, my translation. I will be back as soon as I have anything newsworthy to share!

Yours soxily,
Annemarie.