Sock Knitting

When you browse through Ravelry it seems sock knitting is not only alive and well but extremely popular. If you haven't checked out Ravelry yet, and you're interested in knitting or crochet, you absolutely must - be prepared to loose a few hours or days though!

I've made baby size socks in the past, and always muddled my way through picking up the heel stitches, never quite getting it exactly right to the pattern, but fudging it to work and look right. Picking up those stitches though had always put me off attempting adult sized socks, too stressful.

Through Ravelry though I learned sock knitting has come a long way, and although my first pair are far from perfect, the pattern I used was brilliant - as it really taught the 'recipe' of how to make your sock as you go. So the first pair look a bit like Goofy's rejects when they are off my feet, but over a few pairs I'm hoping to improve on that.

hmm, they do not look like a good shape? 

I used 'Simple toe up socks' by Denise Bell, learning the magic loop method - which was mind blowing. For the life of me I couldn't work out how you could knit two socks, in the round, on one circular needle? I thought about it till my brain hurt, and then just decided to cast on and go for it, and then there it was, it's actually really simple. That Sarah Hauschka is one clever knitter to come up with that one.

I also learned Judy Beckers magic cast on (again, reading it was nonsensical, but give it a try, it's easier than it looks). This means you can start the socks at the toes with no cast on seam, so super comfy as well as less of that old fashioned chunky home made look.

The real brilliance of Denise's pattern is that you start from the toe up, and insert the heel after finishing the sock, so you can knit the two socks identical and to the very last bit of yarn. It's appropriately called an afterthought heel. You place a marker row with scrap yarn where the heel will go, and then, a little tricky, you go back and pull this out, put all the stitches back on the circular and knit your heels using decreases - no picking up stitches! This makes it brilliant for a knitting project on the go, as 80% of the sock is just mindless knitting, no pattern checking, and you can put them down at any point and pick them straight back up.

The socks do fit quite well when they're on, much less Goofy. A few changes needed in the next pair though, the foot section should be a little firmer (as home made socks stretch during the day, so they should be quite snug to start with or they'll end up bunched in your shoes). The calf section I'm still confused on. I added some extra stitches to cope with my fat calves, which means they fit, but I'm not sure they will stay up all day. I didn't weave the ends in, and have decided to wash and wear them a couple of times first and see how they go. I was relieved to learn that crispy rough sock wool in the store is much softer after washing.

They fit! well kinda, mostly, near enough

Brimming with confidence, I came home with a nice ball of Italian cotton, thinking I would try and perfect short socks for wearing in my sneakers for the summer, and get back to the longer ones when the weather cools down. This was a rookie error of massive overconfidence. Cotton has no stretch, so I had to keep adjusting the stitch count when I started, thought I was doing okay though and just squeezed out the two stocks from the one ball. I really came unstuck though when I tried to unpick the scrap yarn and insert the heel, one went fine, the other was a total mess, I think the poor hotel lighting I was working under sent me astray, and then my impatience really ruined it! I decided to continue with the one good one and get the heel in and see how it fitted - only to discover due to the lack of cotton stretch, the sock won't stretch around the heel to get it on. So that pair is a bust! 

It was all going so well until it wasn't! 

Then my new found sock knitting addiction hit a hurdle, I blew a shoulder. A month of sleeping in a far too soft hotel bed and I arrived home with my back out, a stiff neck, and problem with my rotator cuff - which meant no knitting, no drawing, no lap top.....what else is there to do in Birmingham? Watching TV without doing something else is so boring!

Stockholm Natural History Museum

As glorious as the Summer weather was being in Stockholm, there were inevitably a couple of cloudy days in there, so I headed out to the Stockholm Natural History Museum for a visit. There was an exhibition on about the human body, aimed at kids, but some great displays. I would have liked to have drawn a display which included various animal and human skeletons posed in and around a tree structure. Unfortunately there was no where to quietly place myself and do it as there were kids running everywhere, so I sought the quieter corners of the museum for a sketch. 

Haren

I've sketched all these guys before, but still enjoy drawing them again.

Elk

Elk

I've been drawing Elk quite a bit at Skansen lately, and think I'm finally getting their faces down, but the ears are still hit and miss, I think it's because they are just much bigger than you expect proportionally. Go a little wrong on an Elk sketch and you have a horse, or a cow!

Skansen Drawing

I've been doing too much travelling to stop and write a post of late, which is a very lucky state to be in, but not the best way to keep a blog moving! And I foolishly uploaded photos for a couple of posts at home, and then found myself away, with drafts in Blogger I couldn't finish because it doesn't work on the ipad. Seriously, why haven't they fixed that, the ipad's been around for a while now. So I have a few posts to do to catch up on my activities in Stockholm for three weeks. 

I'll start with a sketchbook catch up. I bought a new sketchbook on my last Helsinki visit at a great art store I've visited a few times, they have a fantastic range of stuff and good prices, but never terribly friendly. Not sure if its because I'm an English speaker and they don't get many, perhaps it's less rudeness and more their nervousness of dealing in English, or perhaps they're just art store snobs like the lady at my favourite art store in Adelaide, who would constantly judge my purchases - snooty tone 'you don't need to buy this quality, learners should just use this'. Sorry, rant over, anyway they had a sale on, so I went in for a few pencils and left with this book, some pastels, and more than a few pencils! 

I already have one of these Fabriano journals, but in A5, this one is closer to 25cm square. The paper has a lovely texture to it, and I like the tone. I do wish the coloured pages were more interspersed though. 

I made quite a few trips to Skansen, the weather being excellent, and there being baby Bears, Elk and Reindeer to draw. I purchased a yearly pass, after discovering the price is equivalent to only just over three visits, I must have made at least six visits this year alone before discovering this. I was so excited to hold my little membership card, such a strange nomadic unattached life we are leading, to be suddenly overwhelmed with a sense of belonging to something. 

Elk and foal, the foal was either asleep or running in circles, no posing for me

The Bear cubs and mother were delightful to watch, although somewhat tricky to see. After a couple of visits though I found the best chance was after 5.30pm. The days were quite warm, and I guess more so if you're wearing a big fur coat, so they must have a nice cool spot to sleep away the day, sometimes in the afternoon they would wander out and snooze in a pile under the tree.

Once the temperature went down a bit though, it was playtime, and that was entertaining to watch. Lots of rough and tumble, play fighting and investigating. I so wanted to catch some of it in sketches, it's hard though as you don't get a second glance at the pose because they've moved on.

Mamma Bear, on the lookout

Elk, she really wasn't enjoying the warm summer day

Study of Elk ear positions - watercolour pencil sketches

On another afternoon the Bears had lots of enrichment activities in their enclosure. The little ones trying to get to the bottom of the bucket were hilarious, upside down head first in, falling off the log, again so fun to watch but difficult to sketch the action well.

snoozing in the shade on a summer afternoon

Cuddles with Mum

So cute the way they all sleep intertwined, one would wake up or just wriggle, kicking the next one and the whole pile would squirm around and settle back to sleep.

Seals lazing in the afternoon sun