Tosh, Plucky, Cascade, Malabrigo, Twisted Limone, Colinette, BWM and others

Tosh, Plucky, Cascade, Malabrigo, Twisted Limone, Colinette, BWM and others, originally uploaded by stitch-by-stitch.

And just for full disclosure, here is all the other stuff I have. This is it. All of it. Well, besides stuff that's currently winging it's way to me. Some Numma Numma, Trailing Clouds and more TML. Really...does anyone NEED this much yarn???

All my Wollmeise glory!

All my Wollmeise glory!, originally uploaded by stitch-by-stitch.

My oldest has just toddled off to his first day of primary school leaving me at home with my gorgeous 2yr old. So much easier looking after one! So I decided to use this opportunity to take out all my stash and have a good look. This is all my Wollmeise. All fingering at the top, then the DK and then the lace. I just wanted to lie on top of it all. Come to think of it, if someone else was home, I would have and posted a pic of that! Instead, I sorted it and put it all back in the cupboard.

Tara socks

Tara4, originally uploaded by stitch-by-stitch.

On a whim, a couple of fellow knitters and I decided to do a yarn swap over christmas. That got us to thinking what we would do with our new yarns. We decided to do 3 KALs throughout the year with a limit of 3 months each. Each of us would get a turn at choosing the pattern. Jules was up first and she decided on this gorgeous sock pattern. As you know, I've been on a bit of a sock bender so these knitted up pretty quickly for me. But it has taught me (finally) a valuable lesson on tension.

I'm a tight knitter by nature. But the fabric in my socks, especially using travelling stitches and twisted rib, was very firm with little stretch. It makes for a challenging time putting the sock on. Don't get me wrong, once these babies are on, they are lovely and snug.

I also discovered an interesting Wollmeise fact. I was getting A LOT of overtwist in Wollmeise. To the point where it sometimes impeded my work. Well, I had a lightbulb moment and realised that it was the fact that I was holding the yarn so tightly over my tension finger. I realised by holding it so tightly, it essentially took all the twist out of the yarn going into the work and pushing it towards the ball. A bit like if you were to run your fingers down an old fashioned phone cord, you straighten it out, but you gather all the twists on the other side of your fingers. When I loosened my grip, there went the overtwist. And it made knitting all those twisted stitches so much easier! Lesson learnt.

Raituli

Raituli, originally uploaded by stitch-by-stitch.

You know what it's like when inspiration hits. You just must make one RIGHT NOW. I saw this hat and needed one, so off I toddled to Sunspun to buy the yarn. I sat under a tree in my backyard on a 37deg day and knitted away. Yep, unfortunately inspiration can hit anytime however inappropriate :)

Color Affection #2

CA#2, originally uploaded by stitch-by-stitch.

So I've finally finished this monster. It's a monster because I made the laceweight size in sockweight yarn. There were close to 500 stitches in the bind off! I hated knitting this one. I wasn't sure at all about the colours. The Edison Bulb reads green when in fact it is a true highlighter yellow. But now that it's off the needles and blocked, I don't hate so much. I will show it to my knitty friends and get their honest opinion whether it works for me or not. I can tell you right now, it doesn't work for me today with an expected temperature of 41deg!!

2012 knits

2012 knits, originally uploaded by stitch-by-stitch.

Well looky here. Who's been a busy girl then? Check out all my knits for 2012. I had no idea there were so many. Not bad for a working mum of 2 kids. 13,541 metres!

Baby socks

image_medium2 (1), originally uploaded by stitch-by-stitch.

After knitting myself 2 pairs in record time, it was time to knit a pair for a baby. Husbeast's BFF just had his 3rd baby - a girl! the first 2 were boys. These flew off the sticks and look so cute. The proof will be in the pudding whether they stay on with the extra twisted ribbing.

Wollmeise Rainbow socks

Wollmeise Rainbow socks, originally uploaded by stitch-by-stitch.

I guess I'm on a bit of a sock knitting kick at the moment. I just love Wollmeise Fruhling and Fuchsia (the first 2 colours) and started another pair of socks. I was just going to make it 2 colours when the need for stripes struck me. So I just pulled out any scraps that matched as I went. This is what I came up with. I'm not much chop on this construction of sock, but it was the only one I felt like trying to achieve the contrast heel. I might try the afterthought heel next time.

Fruhling, Fuchsia, Neptun, Lavendel, 47ag, Fruhling, Vamp (? mini) and Ooohm

Pretty Twisted cuff

Pretty Twisted cuff, originally uploaded by stitch-by-stitch.

My next FO is this cute little cuff. I really wanted to use Wollmeise in Gazpacho but I didn't have enough in scraps. So I went stash diving and found Malabrigo Sock in Stonechat. After finishing, I trawled Etsy and couldn't come up with the perfect buttons. I happened to be going to Sunspun to meet some yarny friends so I brought the cuff along. And guess what...? The perfect buttons. Yippee!