Finishing things

I continue to be on a tear (relatively speaking) to finish projects.


These are socks made for (and modeled by) the Italian.
Cherry Tree Hill Supersock is the yarn. The pattern is Wendy's toe up sock pattern with a stitch pattern from Sensational Knitted Socks. The pattern was a slip stitch pattern so it contracted both lengthwise and crosswise. The socks required extra rows in the foot, are shorter in length and snug around, but the Italian says the fit is great and he loves them.

And here is the main reason that I love toe-up socks


This is all that remains of the skein of yarn. Very little waste, no?

I have started another pair of socks (of course):


This is another pair for my mother. Socks that Rock lightweight is the yarn, Jewel of the Nile is the colorway. I haven't worked with this yarn before and have always kind of wondered what all the fuss was about. It's a very nice yarn. It's very firm, almost cord like. The colors are just great - there's a lot of different colors which eliminates a lot of the pooling and flashing you sometimes get with hand dyed yarn, but the end result somehow avoids being muddy. I've actually knit a lot more since I took this photo - one sock is almost done and I've done the toe on the second sock already.

My Wrapped in Tradition is basically done, after some amount of futzing with it.
The first time I finished it I didn't like the way it flared up at the neck:


I ripped back about two inches and switched from size 6 needles to 5s, then after an inch switched to 4s. When I tried it on after binding off again it was too tight at the neck, so I picked out the bind off and used 5s to bind off. Then it took some fiddling to get the crochet picot edging right. The first time I picked out the bind off it was slow, the second time it was fussy, and picking out some of the picot trim required a pin to separate stitches. If you're going to knit with lace weight mohair, you'd better get it right the first time!

At this point it's pretty much done, although I don't have any finished photos. The only thing left to do is to mark the back. There is a very slight amount of front neck shaping, although it's hard to tell. I was thinking out loud about how to mark the back (sewing on a label?) and the Italian suggested sewing a bead at the back of the neck - brilliant! So that's all that is left to do on that. Photos when I can (good weather, decent hair, no kids underfoot and a husband who is available to take my picture? I leave you to figure out how often those elements come together.)

I've picked up Serrano again, but am having issues. More on that once I decide what to do.