FO: Strawberry stócaí

I finally finished the socks I started a few weeks ago. I'm happy with how they turned out, but that is a long time to be using 4-ply yarn on 2mm needles. I tend to show affection through gestures rather than by being verbally or physically affectionate - I'm sorry you didn't get that job, here's some chocolate! Congratulations on your exam results, I made you a thing! - so if I ever make you a pair of socks, you can take it as a sign that I harbour a great deal of affection for you.

The pattern for these is Mock Cable Socks from Toe-Up Socks In A Box. I used Wendy Happy 4-Ply, which I've not seen since getting it. I think using heavily variegated yarn for cables is against The Rules of knitting, but I think they turned out well in spite.

A photo for This Is Knit's photo competition: a wip or fo in a 'uniquely Irish' setting, though some of this is Irish by context. Here are my socks with my copy of Harry Potter agus an Órchloch, along with my foclóir (because having school-leavers not be fluent in a language they've been learning since age five is an entrenched part of Irish culture), and a bar of Butlers (the most Irish of chocolate) which I bought in celebration of getting an interview for a PhD in Edinburgh (emigration being a proud Irish tradition). Bonus Irishness: The socks are a birthday present for my mother, and there's nothing and no-one more Irish than the Irish mammy.*

The foclóir (a gift, not my school one) even has beautiful old Irish font. Would you ever look how lovely it is :)

 *Dear Americans, the Irish mammy is completely different to the Jim Crow mammy stereotype.

A week (and a bit) of firsts and new things

I started in a new lab this week. I had to scramble a bit for a placement after Christmas, when the position I was meant to have fell through. For some reason I opted to learn Western Blot, about which I've heard nothing but bad things, over carrying out PCR, which I can already do and quite like. The appeal of doing something new was just too great, even if it makes me want to stab myself in the face.

As well as wet lab work, I'll be learning a bit of programming and helping out on a bioinformatics project. I've not done any of either before, so I'm looking forward to getting started on that!

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So far I have a lot of time at my desk reading papers and playing with Linux. I don't like being without something to do with my hands, so I've been getting some knitting done.

I finished my first pair of full-fingered gloves that I've been happy with. I've made one pair before, when I was starting off knitting, but they were a quite a poor fit, the gauge was wrong, and I wasn't happy with them. Worst, they were a present, and I'd told the person that part of their present would be late, so when they were finished it would have been awkward to opt not to give them. I suspect they have lived at the back of a shelf somewhere. I've avoided full-fingered gloves since then, but these ones turned out quite well, I think!

They are slightly too large for me, but they are for someone with larger hands than mine, so it should work out.  I used the Lace and Twist Gloves pattern (which is free if you click through the links and set up a Knitting Daily account), which is very straight-forward and gave me some new thoughts on thumb construction.  I used Debbie Bliss Rialto 4-Ply, which is quite perfect for this level of detail.

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Since finishing the gloves, I've been working on my first pair of toe-up socks, from a... book? book-box? a friend gave me last Christmas. I can be pretty lazy about fudging awkward techniques, so I'm proud of myself for actually taking the time to learn the magic cast-on. Most awkward thing in the world on DPNs, though.

Cables on variegated yarn - I am just a terrible person. I even have the temerity to quite like how it looks. These are going to be a birthday present for my mother. Her birthday is in April, but this is going to be my year of being disgustingly organised with my knitting.

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I started a climbing course this week, and really enjoyed it. It's quite different in terms of pay-off to everything else I do. If I want to be further along on a run, or on a piece of knitting, or while studying a topic, reaching that point requires sustained effort, passing through a number of other points on the way. If I want to be higher up on the wall, I put in a burst of effort, and then I'm higher up. I'm going again tomorrow, and really looking forward to it.

I'm also two weeks into a first aid course. The first week we learned to make normal and elevated slings, last week we learned CPR (which is some work, it must be said) and this week will be baby CPR and the Heimlich maneuvre. I'm doing it through St. John's ambulance, so I might look into volunteering with them afterwards, because free time is for losers and commies.

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This evening I started my first crochet project which isn't a rectangle - a teeny Cthulhu. I've finished the body, but the light was gone by that stage.

I'm using too small a crochet hook because Hickeys didn't have the one I needed, and I wanted to get started in case learning a slightly new technique took two weeks. The head is a little more finicky, and I ripped out my first one, but were I more adept I would have had it finished in a few hours.

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I'm only flying through my project list! I will think of new things and add to it soon.

Stócaí

Ravelry tells me I started these on the fourth of January.  Bit embarrassing, that.  In my defense, I did go to London (can't take knitting needles on planes these days, boring) and knit a squirrel and have quite important tests (only have the results from one back, but I got a First - not so smart now, are you, chordates?) and a few assignments each week for the last month.  Excuses, excuses.

But! they're finished now.  And  they've been nearly finished for quite some time, so it's very satisfying on that front, and they're my first ever real socks so I have a nice sense of accomplishment, and I quite rarely make anything inedible for myself, so it's a nice indulgence.  Even if the cold weather has passed.  They're a little big and one is slightly longer than the other, but I made socks!

See how happy and rainbowy they are?  Very happy and rainbowy.

Photographing things on my laptop case instead of my bed, shaking things up!  And they are quite wide and chunky, as you can see, but the best cosy socks are, so that works out alright.

The pattern can be found here.  One day I will post a pattern of my own here and be very proud of myself.  Perhaps people will even use it!

I used to use this for crafts I think.

First of my OpWall Crafting projects: a squirrel on wheels.

One of these days I will have to start taking proper photos of things I make, or at least take them somewhere other than my bed.

The pattern is from Knitting Mochimochi by Anna Hrachovec.  Amigurimi can be knit these days. Who knew?  The wool is some Brown Sheep Lamb's Pride that I have left over for another project.

I've doing quite well with OpWall crafting orders, and really should try and make headway into the list, but after a rather stressful week I'm being decadent and finishing off the socks I started for myself over the Christmas holidays.  First proper socks!  (These were knit flat and then sewn up, so they don't feel like 'real' socks.  Is that snobbish?)  Very exciting times.  One of these days I will have me some free time.  It will be a very good day.

Slipper-socks.

Every year when our heating breaks, my dad expresses his envy of my big cosy socks. they don't seem to make men's socks in a cosy form other than.. socks, but thicker, so I knitted these for him.

I ran out of wool, but not by nearly enough for it to be worth buying another ball. So there's a blue stripe on the bottom of one. Shows it's made with love.

I have stubby little feet, they'll be snugger on my dad.