Toes of Socks - I

I have just discovered a new favorite toe.

I finished a pair of green Lorna's in a 4x1 rib. And when it came time to do the toe, I decided that it would be interesting to see if I could modify the pointy toes from Knitting Vintage Socks, so that I would not have toes that pointy, but could still just thread the yarn through 8 stitches at the end of the toe.

So I did a standard decreasing 4 stitches every other row toe until I had 8 stitches remaining on each needle. Then I decreased every row until I had 8 stitches total.

I love them. No kitchnering, and no pointy toe. This is my new default toe.

(Pictures to be added later when I find where the kitty hid my cable. He's decided that cords are fun to play with.. I'm trying to break him of that, and hopefully it takes soon!)

Knit Mitt Kit Swap Questionaire

What are your favorite colors? Green, Blue, Purple, Red.

Are you a new mitt knitter? I suppose so, but I don't consider it intimidating at all. The first mitts I knit were my own re-write of an IK pattern made for my little sister a number of years ago ('02, '03, Kat?)

Do you prefer solid or multicolored yarn? Yes. I love pretty colored yarn. I'm trending towards varegated solids rather than true multicolors right now, but I really like them all!

What fibers do you prefer in mitten yarn? I prefer at least some wool content because it has the spring that helps them keep their shape. And I'm a natural fiber junky, so the synthetics don't do that much for me.

Where do you usually knit mittens? Everywhere I knit... which is to say, everywhere.

How do you usually carry/store small projects? In my purse.

What are your favorite mitten patterns? Any and all, I don't have any favorites that I've made. Fetching was fun and I've been meaning to do a traditional(ish) stranded pair at some point, but haven't gotten around to it.

What are your favorite mitten knitting techniques? I don't know that I have any. I don't like open thumb-holes on my mitts, I like to have at least a short thumb on open top mitts.

What new techniques would you like to try? Stranding is relatively new to me. The single stitch cables like on Eunny's recent socks, look interesting. Intarsia is not something I want to do, aside from that, I'm pretty easy, I think..

What are your favorite needles for knitting mittens? I use whatever's on hand. I prefer double points to magic loop and magic loop to two circulars, but I'm perfectly happy re-writing patterns to whatever needles I happen to be using.

What are some of your favorite yarns? Koigu, SundaraYarns, STR, my own handspun, any good basics, smooth spun, plied, natural fiber yarn.

What yarn do you totally covet? hmmm... I've been lusting after Beaverslide's for a while now. And Brooks Farm as well.

Any pattern you would love to make if money and time were no object? Ooh, something from Poetry in Stitches, probably this jacket and the red ruffled muff. Or Hanne Falkenberg's Mermaid jacket.

Favorite kind of needles (brand, materials, straights or circs, etc)? DPs and circs. Generally wood or bamboo, but I use metal with cotton and cotton blends, or if it's the only thing handy.

If you were a specific kind of yarn, which brand and kind of yarn would you be? ooh, I don't know on that one... there are too many good choices

Do you have a favorite candy or mail-able snack? Chocolate! (dark, please, I've gone vegan), ginger candies.

What’s your favorite animal? My puppy, my kitty...

Would you prefer super warm mittens or something more like fingerless mitts? Either would make me perfectly happy. I have uses for both and don't really have either planned into my project list.

If you were a color what color would you be? Maroon, just barely between purple and red.

What is your most inspiring image, flower, or object in nature? The patterns that water makes when it flows in thin sheets over rocks. The waterfalls were my favorite part of the summer I spent working in Yosemite.

Do you have a wishlist? That I do, drop me an email and I'll get it to you.

Anything else you’d like to share with the group today? My kitty's a spazzbucket. Bouncing off the walls, furniture and puppy. It's hilarious, I'm so glad the puppy doesn't seem to mind.

Dishcloth Shuffle

I put this up on the exchange's blog a over the weekend and forgot to put it up here! Oops!
The camera's still nowhere to be found. Or, and probably more likely, it's right in front of me and I'm just not actually seeing it!

I had a wonderful mail day a couple days ago. There were a couple packages of stuff I'd ordered for myself and there was a package for me from Jussi.
Yay...
(no picture at the moment, my camera's nowhere to be found, perhaps the cat ate it)
There was a lovely paper covered box with green leaves and pink flowers, a pink and white dishcloth that I will adore using, a pink round cloth that will be set in a drawer somewhere and fondled when noticed, a bar of green and black's chocolate (it's already gone..),
a needlecase in pink and brown flowers and stripes, and a ball of taupe cotton that I'm looking forward to knitting with.
A fabulous package, thank you so much Jussi!

In other related amusements, I took a bar of the same chocolate (Maya Gold by Green and Black) to a study group on Monday night, and offered it around. The consensus was that it's nasty. For the rest of the evening there was neverending, "this is nasty, you try it" going on between the ones who had and the ones who had not yet. It was terribly cute. Especially the one who ran to the bathroom to rinse out her mouth. More for me, it's one of my favorites!

Socktoberfest Yarn Accounting and Contest Winners!

Skeins of yarn:
136! That's right, I have over one hundred thirty skeins of sock yarn!
No one actually guessed how many skeins were in the stash, so both prizes go to people who guessed based on potential socks. There is one winner that guessed before the "end date" of Friday 10/27, and one who guessed after it passed.

Potential socks:
86...
I think I have some knitting to do...
This means that Kim (who guessed 66 pair, before the deadline) and Janell (who guessed 76, after it) will be getting some sock yarn from me.
(Ladies, you should have an email asking you some questions about what you look for in a sock yarn. Let me know what you like.)

I'm going to save the breakdown of these staggering numbers into type of yarn for another post. And, obviously, my sock yarn inventory is going to carry me out into November. But since I have no intention of ceasing to knit socks, that seems perfectly fine with me. For that matter, I'm thinking to start using Squirl to start keeping track of my stash. I do need to go check if it will output my collection or not, and, if not, then perhaps I'll set up something else. Checked, it will output as a comma delimited list, which is perfectly fine with me.