Invited!!! And some cool new socks!

I get to join the party!! I'm JeninChicago, for those of you who are looking for new buddies on the Playground.


Also, I finished my first pair of grown up socks from Cat Bordhi's AMAZING new book.


These are the toe-up Coriolis Socks.

Time to complete: 3 weeks with a break of a week in between.

Yarn: Jojo Land Melody in the purple and green colorway. 2 balls.

Needles: US 0 / 2 mm AddiTurbos

A note about the yarn: Let me first say it is beautiful and delightful to knit with (if not microscopic 9.5 sts to the inch, 12 rpi). These socks are both made from the same color from the same dye lot. the difference is in the plying. There are three singles and each single has blue, green, pink and purple at varying times. When picking the two balls be sure that the colors are plying in a similar way. As you can see, I didn't think to check for this when I bought the yarn. One ball has the plies coming together in one color all together, making that really neat geen toe, purple arch effect. In the other ball, the other the color is more evenly distributed, making a more muted transition. I like them both, but they don't look like they came from the same yarn.

I'm sure some would say, knit with alternating balls and it will make a more homogenous pair, but 1.) that's too much work for a pair of socks. 2.) It would muddy the transitions even more.

Now a note about the heels: These are W&T (wrap and turn short rows). Clearly my purl gauge is different than my knit gauge, hence the bubble heels. On the second to last page of Cat's book, there is an explanation for how to snug up your purl sts when doing the W&T heels. Frankly, I think I prefer the short row heels from Charlene Schurch.

Finally, a Note about the Master Coriolis Pattern itself: there is a side note (one of the little yellow boxes that appear so helpfully through out the book) that explains how to make the Coriolis stripe wider.
It tells you to place marker A n number of sts from the first decrease after you've completed the arch increase. THIS IS WRONG. Place marker A n number of sts from the first k2tog when you are setting up for the arch increase. Otherwise, you'll have a swirl that's two different sizes on the foot vs. the leg.

That being said, I love these socks and the pattern is ingenious. So, I'm already on to another amazing pair from Cat. These are the Dove Socks from the same book New Pathways for Sock Knitters: Book One.

The yarn is BMFA - STR in Yosemite. I LOVE LOVE LOVE the colorway!! It's so cheery!! (Even more so in real life!) I gotta tell ya, after that JojoLand, the STR Lightweight seems positively heavyweight!! I'm loving how fast these socks are going!

I like the way the color is evenly distributed around the toe due to the short color runs and then the way it flashes across the top of the foot. If I were to give you a pic of the flip side, you'd see nothing but yellow and green on the sole where the increases begin. Yes, that V shape is the Arch increase. Soooo cool!

By the way, the dimensions in Cat's book allow you to make the most amazing fitting socks. Best I've found yet! I'm in LOVE with this new book.

Have I mentioned I'm a Nerd?

Yeah, so I heard about this Ravelry thing back in May-ish (?) possibly June. And I said to myself; "Self, you can't even BLOG properly, what the heck do you need to do this Ravelry thing for??!"

And so I didn't sign up. Shame on me.

And then I did sign up. In. July. Shame on me.

I've been waiting breathlesly ever since as all my Knitterly Friends and my fav bloggers jump on to the Ravelry play ground.

Now, I don't check every day. I check more like once a week. At one point there were 7,000 some folks ahead of me in line. Last week when I checked, there were still 2,000 Fiber Enthusiasts ahead of me. Today... I logged in and here's what I saw:

I got all EXCITED and Gasp-y and whatnot!! Dude, if you look up Nerd on Wikipedia, you just might find my picture.
Also, I've been finishing some stuff lately.

This was a really fun knit, except for the splitty yarn problem and the really tiny sleeves for the really big armhole problem (must count rows per inch).

I figured out that the super-low neck line, while not represented in the design photos in the booklet, is a direct function of having to make super large arm holes for the bigger size, which consequently makes the bodice part longer and the ... neck line lower. Yep, put it on the first time, before I'd sewn in the sleeves and I was so upset. But now that it's all finished I love it.

Yarn: Ecologie Cotton from Nashua Knits Color: Chestnut (should've picked a different color as this makes me look all one color with my hair, I knew this and ignored my good sense.)
Pattern: Surplice Lace Top from Nashua Knits North American Designer Collection No. 4
Size: Largest and I should have done short rows in the boob department.
Total finishing time: about 2 months (just cause I didn't want to sew in the second sleeve and seam the sides. Otherwise, 1 month to knit.