State Fair Results

The Kentucky State Fair concluded today, so I thought I should head back out there and get a some photos of my entries in situ before I bring them home tomorrow. I had gone to the Fair on the day it opened, but I forgot my camera, so all I had were crappy cell phone pics.

While everything I entered earned a ribbon, none of them were blue (or red, for that matter), so I have to admit that I am disappointed with how I did. Overall, I think that each of the blue ribbon winners deserved their award, but I have a few quibbles with some of the other rankings. It's not major stuff, mostly technical issues with a few things. Oh, well. There's always next year.

My Cypri shawl earned a third place ribbon, which was a pleasant surprise, as I didn't really have any expectations on how it might do. My Rafters cardigan and Hanami stole both earned fourth place ribbons, which I'm alright with. The cardigan has been worn and washed often, and was a little felted as a result. The stole was entered in the always-competitive lace category and was up against a lot of really good stuff. All the ribbon winners in this category were beaded and knit from laceweight yarns. What ended up being the biggest surprise and disappointment was that my socks only earned an honorable mention (there were two honorable mentions in socks!). There was a lot of variety in the category this year, and the level of competition was definitely higher than past years. My favorite socks (aside from my own, I mean) were the second place ones (traditional stranded knitting). The first and third place socks were nice, and I thought that the fourth place socks had some technical errors, but did have a pleasing color combination. I'll just have to do better next year.

Aside from the knitting, there were plenty of other things to see in the exhibition hall. I always look at the needlepoint and quilts, and this year I discovered some fantastic baskets and leather work. The wood turning folks entered a lot of beautiful objects. Here are photos of some of my favorites:

That's it for tonight, Friends. Until next time.

Darn that sock!

Now that the weather has finally become more autumn-like, I've been wearing my hand knit socks. It's so nice to have soft, warm socks to wear in the cooler temperatures, especially when I'm waiting for a bus in the early morning chill. Anyway, with all that sock wearing comes sock washing, and so the other day I gathered something like 7 pairs of socks to hand wash and hang to dry. I didn't hand wash the superwash socks - just the ones that I'm pretty sure are Not Superwash (note to self: knit more superwash socks for yourself). As I was putting the Koigu pair into the soak, I noticed a small hole on the heel, but it was half submerged when I noticed it, so I went ahead and put it all the way in. I'd rather darn a clean sock rather than a dirty one.

So once the sock had dried, I grabbed my darning egg and took a good look at the hole, which was a little bigger after washing than when it went in. There were a couple things going on: along the bottom of the hole, it appeared that one stitch had been dropped about three rows. Then I noticed that the yarn had broken above the dropped stitch in two rows. And lastly, the row above that had pulled itself out of two stitches. After looking at a few videos from the kind folks at Knit Picks, I decided that I would treat the hole in a similar way to their "accidental hole."

First thing first: I took care of the dropped stitch. In the photo, I have a size 000 double-pointed needle in the stitch and the yarn from where it was dropped above. I got it back up the three rows it had dropped and secured it with a locking stitch marker. I then used one of my tiny little dpns to secure the two stitches above the hole that had lost their buddies below. It's difficult to tell from the photo below, but those two fuzzy bits in the middle are the broken rows.

Next I threaded a finer tapestry needle with some of the yarn I had leftover from when I knit these socks (nearly two years ago!). Well to the right and below the hole, I began duplicate stitching to give myself a base for the new stitches I would have to make for the broken yarn. When I got to the part of the hole where I had to create new stitches, I used a dpn, rather than the Knit Picks method of having a thread to catch the new stitches on, because I thought I might be better able to see how to add the new stitches if it looked more like knitting than sewing. (I think if I do this again, I'll probably use the thread method, because it will curve around the darning egg.) Once I had the two new rows, I joined the new stitches to their friends up top and closed the hole. Then I duplicate stitched a couple more rows, just to make sure there was plenty of new yarn to secure the darning.

It doesn't look like the original heel, in fact it looks a little clumsy, but it's not bad for a first try at darning. It feels pretty good on my foot, and I think that as the sock is worn more and washed more, it will begin to feel less like a patch and more like a reinforcement. After all the duplicate stitching, I turned the sock inside-out to hide the ends and used one of my mom's tiny, tiny crochet hooks to pull the broken ends of the old yarn back to the wrong side of the fabric. I think it's ready to wear. I expect I'll soon have to more socks to darn as winter comes along, but I'm not scared! I've done this once now and I'm ready to do it again when I have to.

That's all for now, I think. Next time I'll show the finished FrankenScylla socks and maybe a new owl or two. Until then, Friends!

2011 Was Alright.

It was a pretty good year, for the most part. I got to go to Sock Summit. I won two blue ribbons at the State Fair. I passed my NCIDQ exam. Those are the highlights, I think. I started this blog, too. I think I did alright with the posting, even if I didn't quite get here twice a week.

Looking over last year's projects, it looks like I completed 32 projects. It seems like a huge amount of knitting and, quite frankly, I'm not sure how I did it. I appear to have knit 11 pairs of socks, 5 baby sweaters, two pairs of booties, 3 sweaters, one vest, two shawlettes and 8 mice. There were a few hats & scarves in there too.

Amongst all those projects, I think that my Vesper sweater is my favorite. It's easily the best fitting garment I made for myself, I love the color and I love the softness of the yarn. It was certainly a challenge as well, with its seemingly endless rounds of stockinette in DK-weight yarn and my early mistake of putting a full twist in the round. The effort was worth it though: it's the garment I wear most.

My least favorite project of the year was probably the Kusha Kusha scarf, just because it was miles and miles of stockinette. The yarn was interesting, but the knitting was boring. Boring, boring, boring. I still haven't gotten around to felting the crazy thing. I still have a cone of the silk/stainless steel yarn, but I think it will wait in my stash until I feel some inspiration to use it. Maybe in some kind of accessory or gift for someone.

In the coming year, I expect to do plenty of knitting, but I might also be augmenting it with some sewing and needlepoint, too. I've got a few ideas for some home decorating projects, so it will be fun to flex my creative muscles on some other crafts as well.

Anyway, I have plenty of things to look forward to this year, and I hope you'll stick with me. Until next time, Friends.