Flying the Flag

I have been really looking forward to the World Cup, so when I saw this brilliant Yarnissima pattern I knew I had to track down the yarn and knit a pair for my beloved, which is exactly what I did...



Aren't they fab?! They are knit in Regia Nation Color which has now been reinvented as Regia World. The red, white and blue screamed 'patriot' and it was only after knitting them up it actually dawned on me that rather than flying the Union Jack he would be waving the French Tricolore.

I rushed out and bought something more appropriate



and in order to cover all bases...







Come on England!

Less Haste, More Speed

I can't believe we are already in to the second week of the 52PP and I have acheived the grand total of half a pair of socks. It's a very pretty sock though.

Sneaky peek...



I am knitting these for a friend in exchange for a skein of Wollmeise. Dangling Wollmeise in front of my eyes will make me do pretty much anything, except maybe intarsia. The pattern is Rumpled by Alice Yu, better known as Socktopus and the yarn is Eidos by The Sanguine Gryphon in the colourway Pyrrus and it reminds me of a certain fictional cat...



I love Orlando, such beautiful books.

Fools..

It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt - Mark Twain

I have signed up to the 52 Pair Plunge. The challenge is to knit 52 pairs of socks in 52 weeks starting on 1st June 2010 and I thought it would be good to record my progress by starting to blog again. Any cheering from the sidelines that you are able to offer would be most welcome.

I love knitting socks, which is just as well!

A sneaky peek of a work in progress:



These are the Karenina Sock by probablyjane and are a charity pattern for p/hop. They are nowhere near as complicated as they look and knit up surprisingly fast, but you don't need to tell people that, let them think you have laboured for hours.

I will be back with an update and hopefully some finished pairs of socks

Still Here!

I was going to make excuses for having been away for so long but the only one I have is that I have been so busy! It's incredible how quickly life moves sometimes and so true that you really do have to grasp it with both hands before it slips away.

My blog station called me back following a wonderful episode on the bus...

I am in the process of knitting another pair of Canal du Midi socks for my other half and as they are a secret surprise for his birthday they are my current bus knitting project. I was busily clicking away the other morning and heard, 'What are you making?' I took my earphones out and a little girl was looking at me and my knitting. 'It's a sock' I said, 'would you like to see a finished one?' I got a very enthusiastic nod in return. 'Now, you have to remember that I am making them for my boyfriend and my feet are not this big!' I got another nod.

I have to emphasise at this point that my beloved is long of leg and long of foot and his sock is therefore, well, long! Following a rummage in my knitting bag I produced the finished sock and held it up for the little lady to see. She took a look at it, looked at me, then looked at my feet! By this time the sock had garnered quite a crowd and her reaction to my work and the size of this incredible piece of knitted fabric produced an excellent comedic moment on the bus. It not only made my morning but my day.

Yep, I'm still here and still knitting.

Le Tour - Le Grand Fin

I made it!

Did you see me riding full blast down the Champs Elysee with the wind behind me and La Asphalt Chanteuse flapping in the slipstream just before midnight?

It was a hard fought battle at the end, but with grit and determination I made it!






I am left wondering now if I have done enough to earn my King of the Mountain jersey as it has certainly been an uphill struggle at times.

I have learnt a lot of new techniques throughout the course of the Tour...

1) The Double Start Cast-On
2) Using contrasting colours for the cuff, heel and toe of a sock
3) A new heel technique (apologies that I do not know the official name for it)
4) The rosebud toe (which was later abandoned in favour of kitchener stitch)
5) Shaping through the calf to give a better fit
6) Lovely twisty cable stitches done without a cable needle

All in all I am pretty pleased! There are a couple of things that I will do differently next time, for example, I am not that keen on the way the heel sits when it is on the foot and I started the contrasting wool a couple of lines too early but, hey, this is only my fourth pair of socks.

I can't wait to see all my fellow Moutons Volantes cyclists crossing the line with their garments in hand, it has been exciting to see what everyone has been knitting and the gusto with which they and all the other riders have approached this project.

Right I do believe it is time for a well deserved glass of something very cold and slightly fizzy...Salut mes amies!

Need For Speed

Stage Four: Cholet Time Trial

Phew, just made it through the time trial!

The official desciption of this stage is 'short and intense, but also smooth', and as I am finding the TDF stages are relating spookily well to my sock stages. I have 'intensely' sprinted through the heel of La Chanteuse and have learnt a new technique in the process. By knitting to the bottom of the foot then beginning even short row shaping you get a lovely right-angled heel cup to sit your foot in.


As you can see I have worked in the Asphalt yarn again for contrast and will pick this up again for the toe. My main concern at the moment is that everything seems to be going rather too smoothly...

Au revoir mes petit pois!

Le Tour Stages Deux et Tois

Stage Two: Auray - Saint-Brieuc

Following a slow start I feel that I am making good headway and have rejoined the 'pack' in this stage.

The main colour has been introduced and after originally naming it 'Chartreuse' I have change it to 'Chanteuse' the French feminine word for singer. Combine this with Asphalt and in a rough Franglais I have christened my TDF socks 'La Asphalt Chanteuse' or 'The Singing Road Socks'.


This particular section of the race is described as 'short and tense on hilly roads featuring the climb up the Mur de Bretagne “wall”' and it seems to describe perfectly how the sock is progressing. Getting to grips with the travelling pattern is a tense affair and a couple of my little birch Brittany needles have developed a nasty bend but they are hanging in there. There is a relief though as the pattern calls for a knit 2, purl 2 rib on needles 1 and 2.


Having a look at other Team CA projects everyone is putting an excellent first push and probablyjane has posted a superb commentator's report and there is the low-down on all the other competing riders.

Onwards and upwards!


Stage Three: Saint-Malo - Nantes

Moving confidently on to Stage Three with the promise of 'a rolling early part of the stage along the banks of the Rance, through Dinan and Calorgen, (plunging) into Brittany on straight and fast-riding roads to end at Nantes, the farthest point of the Loire area. This will be the first real chance the sprinters have at a stage win.' This looks as though it is time to settle back in the saddle, don my comfiest cycling shorts and knit like the wind down the leg before facing the time-trial tomorrow and the possibility of a heel?

Knit on mes amies!

Le Tour de France Knitalong 2008

Le Grand Depart - Brest to Plumelec

And we are off!

Well almost!

I have got off to a slow start as the riders left Brest on the first leg of Le Tour, my yarn finished its journey from Edinburgh to London and threw my project plans into disarray. It is so beautiful that I decided my chosen project wouldn't do it justice and have had to rethink at the last moment. I am considering this to be a technical difficulty along the lines of having the wrong saddle for the terrain. On a more positive note my Yarn Yard colours match pretty well with my riding team, Team Credit Agricole, in fact I could not have requested a better colour scheme, although the yarn shows up more bluey in the pictures!






My decision is now made and I am going to knit the Canal du Midi socks from Knitting On The Road by Nancy Bush. This will be my fourth pair of socks and they have a relatively fiddly lace detail on them, a different heel to the ones I have knit before and some shaping around the ankle which are all new techniques I have not tried before making them perfect for the Polka-Dot jersey category.

Cast-on is complete and I have learnt a new technique already, that of the Double Start Cast-On and thanks to the wonder of the internet found a great video to help me. This particular method gives a nice elastic and very neat edge making it perfect for sock cuffs.


Doesn't the yarn look great! I have named this one Asphalt as it has a lovely gravel appearance.

Bonne Nuit!

Socks Are Friends

Last week was about finishing off a pair of socks I have had lurking in the bottom of my knitting bag for far too long and now they are done all I can think of is knitting more and more socks...just as well with the Tour de France KAL coming up!

I only learnt the art of sock knitting in February when I decided it was time to face my fear and attend a short course at I Knit being taught by Jane. It is true that you do catch the 'sock bug'. This pair are the outcome of Jane's gentle and patient teaching and I am so proud of them!



Before I had even finished the first pair I had chosen the yarn to knit up a pair for my beloved...



And then before before I knew it I was casting on a pair of Go With The Flow socks in lovely Yarn Yard Bonny Buxom just for me!





Socks are friends. You can take them anywhere. They don't take up a lot of room in your handbag. They are easy to squish if you need to jump off the bus in a hurry. But, what I have found most intriguing is that socks in progress encourage conversations with total strangers! It's great! I have chatted to a lady who was just curious, another lady about her cousin's generator and a man about his mother who at 90 could still knit on four needles and she was blind!