November Stats

In November, I used up 5 balls of yarn/ 1,356 yards of yarn. I finished one pair of socks and one shawl. Overall a pretty good knitting month. December will be busy with the holidays and taking care of end of the year stuff, so I don't anticipate a big knitting month.

Fellowship! The Shawl

Pattern: Fellowship! The Shawl

Yarn: Neeley's Knits Gradient set in The Golden Compass

Needles: US Size 6

Started on: Nov. 18th

Finished on: Nov. 24th

Comments: This is my "F" for my Lace A-Z challenge. The shawl was inspired by the LOTR Fellowship story. The shawl is broken up into 9 sections, each section is designed/named after one of the 9 characters in the Fellowship. I knit on this monogamously. I absolutely loved knitting this project. Knitting each different section and changing yarn color every few sections really helped to keep my interest. I am really pleased with the finished results. It's even more beautiful then I imagined it would be. This is my favorite piece I've knitted in a very long time. Neeley's Knits yarn was a dream to work with. It was so soft and the colors were amazing, it was hard for me to put this shawl down at all.

WIP Wednesday on a Thursday

Somehow Wednesday eluded me, so today I bring you WIP Wednesday on a Thursday.

Fellowship! the shawl - I absolutely love knitting on this shawl. I think this is just what I needed. I've been wanting to get back into shawl knitting again after my brief hiatus. I love the whole concept of this shawl. It  is designed with the inspiration of LOTR. There are nine sections each named/designed after each of the nine characters in the Fellowship of the Rings. I'm also using Neeley's Knits Gradient Yarn The Golden Compass. The shawl doesn't repeat and because I'm using gradient yarns the color changes so I'm not likely to get bored knitting this. I've already finished two sections: Boromir and Legolas. I'm currently working on Gimli.

Gilmore Girls socks - I'm still plugging away on my Gilmore Girls socks. These are coming along slowly, but surely. At least I'm working on the second sock now! K3, P1 is my favorite kind of ribbing.

Garter Rib socks - I just started these socks. This is the first time I've knit socks where I will be using a different yarn for the cuff, heel and toes then the rest of the sock. I really like how sparkly this yarn is.

Cozies

 It's rare, but I have TWO finished projects to share! It was very satisfying to knit a couple of quick projects.

I know conventional wisdom would say that you should knit your primary project out of a new ball of yarn and use the leftover scraps for any small projects. However, I really wanted to knit a phone cozy, so I broke into a brand new skein of yarn to do it. I love the colors of the Neeley's Knits Wicked inspired Galinda yarn. I particularly love the little sparkly bits in this yarn. I think I will definitely cast on for my next pair of socks with this yarn soon.

I was in desperate need of a camera cozy, since I somehow lost/misplaced the cloth baggy thing that I usually keep my camera in. So I grabbed my leftover Neeley's Knits OUAT inspired Evil Queen yarn to knit this up.

Both the phone and camera cozy were knit the same way. I made up my own pattern.

1) Cast on 48 stitches with size 1 DPNs
2) knit in 2 x 2 ribbing until it measured approx 2 - 3 inches
3) One round of *K2, Yo, P2, repeat * to end of round.
4) Knit in stockinette stitch until slightly longer than desired length.
5) Divide stitches in half and kitchener stitch them together.
Weave in ends and you're all done!

I added the one round of *K2, Yo, P2, to increase the stitches of the body, so that the top is tighter and the cell phone or camera won't fall out of the cozy easily. I also did this because I was thinking about making an icord. Then I could use the YO holes to put the icod in that to ensure that the camera or phone wouldn't fall out. Technically you could just cast on 60 stitches to start and eliminate step 3 and have pretty much the same results.

I'm pretty pleased with how the cozies turned out. I love that I can knit up a cozy in one night.It's very rewarding. Now I have to get back to knitting on some socks.

Corded Rib socks

Pattern: Corded Rib from Sensational Knitted Socks

Yarn: Neeley's Knits Once Upon A Time inspired Fairy Tale

Needles: US Size 1 DPNs

Started on: Oct. 31st

Finished on: Nov. 11th

Comments: I really enjoyed knitting these socks. I love my SKS book. Many of the stitch patterns in it are fun and really speak to me. These socks really seemed to fly off of my needles. The yarn and pattern seemed to be the perfect match.

WIP Wednesday

I started my Gilmore Girls socks, since these colors scream Fall. This is more self striping yarn from Neeley's Knits. (I told you I'm addicted now.) I learned my lesson from last time. I started this first sock by pulling out the yarn to the next color in the yarn and then cutting it. So I know I'm starting at the beginning of a new color. I didn't do this last time with my evil queen socks. I just started knitting at the beginning. So when it came time to start sock # 2, I had to guestimate where I should start in the color. I got it pretty close, but it wasn't exact. Fall is probably my least favorite season, so I'm hoping knitting these socks will get me into better spirits about the season.

The second sock I'm working on is also yarn from Neeley's Knits. This is Once Upon A Time inspired yarn in the Fairy Tale colorway. I can't decide if these are too girly or just the right amount of girly for me. Either way, I think this Corded Rib pattern from my SKS book seems to fit it quite well.