Today's the Day!

 

When my boys were little, one of their favorite television shows was Blues Clues.  There was a movie about Blue putting on a musical production with all her little friends and one of the songs started "Today's the Day!"....I have that song running through my head now having typed that in the subject line!

But...that isn't what I wanted to tell you about.

What I wanted to tell you was...  Today's the Day!

The Day that...

Ain't She Sweet Footie Socks are officially available in my Ravelry Store!

To put another earworm in your ear...
 

“Ain’t she sweet?  See her walking down the street…” 

I love hand knit socks, no matter what time of the year; both knitting and wearing them. What better to wear during the warm weather than flirty little footies? These cuff down socks start with a larger cast on to allow the cuff to turn and skim the tops of your shoes, and continue with a slipped stitch heel and gusset with ribbing on the top of the foot for the perfect fit. “Now I ask you very confidentially, ain’t she sweet?” (Ain’t She Sweet, is a song composed by Milton Ager with lyrics by Jack Yellen circa 1927, and has been rerecorded by many artists including the Beatles.)

These socks are presented in not only two different sizes, but with two (related but) different cuffs.

 

The striped version shows the shorter, skimmer cuff and the hot pink version shows the longer, flirtier version. 

Both use fingering weight yarn and US size 1 needles (that is 2.25mm for my metric friends) and depending on your foot size it might be possible to get both socks from a single 218 yard (199 meter) skein of sock yarn.  (Buy a second though, you don't want to be half a toe short of a pair of socks and there might be another pattern coming very soon that could use that stray skein of yarn!  Just saying!)

No charts for this pattern, it is all line by line written instructions.

  
 

Coming Soon!

Along with quietly working along on my latest ColourMart Lover's Group Fall Contest entry (a gorgeous burgundy 2/30 extra fine merino shawl with about eleventy billion nupps) I have also been quietly setting up the pattern page for some ever so cute (if I do say so myself) ankle socks that will be published on Thursday.

Want to peak at them?

Why do I ask silly questions like that?

There are two versions of the cuff on these, a shorter, tighter "skimmer" style perfect for with old school sneakers...you remember those, no support, not designed for running and every year the discount stores have them in all kinds of colors for next to nothing! Like this:

The other has a longer, wider and flirtier cuff, just enough to skim over the tops of either those old school sneakers or real running shoes.

You can even, if you have small enough feet, (US 7 or smaller judging by my yarn usage) get an entire pair out of one ball of Felici Sock Yarn and if you hurry it is even on sale at 30% off! But buy two to be safe, you can always offload the second one if you don't need it...or hold onto it there might be another pattern coming up that uses just a single ball of Felici!

If you don't already, subscribe to the newsletter up there on the right...this year I didn't do any new release sales but instead give my subscribers a hefty (it is hefty believe me!) discount on new release patterns, as my way of saying thank you for letting me into your email box once a month!

Lots more knitting and designing going on in my little corner of the world, but...we'll talk about that another time!

~M

Wool Gathering!

Every year, the highlight of my September is getting to go to Wool Gathering.

This year was no exception and Saturday morning the kids and I rushed through our usual Saturday chores and took a drive to Yellow Springs.  This year we met up with one of my friends (who had a rare outing without her children) and of course the first thing we saw was something that her kids would have been entranced by!

Now if you have been reading this blog for a while, and I know many of you have - or at least the monthly recaps in the newsletter, then you will know that the pack mules (my children) always tag along and get paid to carry my purchases with hand dipped ice cream at the dairy and that no trip would be complete without deep fried cheese curds and extra cheese to come home with us.

I always have fun getting to chit chat with some of the indie dyers who have been so generous with their yarn support...like Natasha and her husband from Unplanned Peacock Studios.

This time around I bought two skeins of yarn from her...both were TDQ picks, and as I remembered to text Natasha before she packed up to come to the event, I was even able to finally get some Goth Chick for a hat!  (That was one of two planned purchases while we were there.)

We visited with Earth in Arts, and each got a bar of our favorite soaps. (Mine is Earth Spice, but as usual we joked that the Poison Ivy Soap actually has poison ivy in it, you have to buy the Poison Ivy Cure Soap to get rid of that itch and how that is such an interesting marketing ploy....everyone knew we were joking!)

We saw the sheep sheering, like we do every year and while the process of sheering a sheep hasn't changed, it is always fun to watch just how sedate those creatures are during the sheering. (Not at all like the alpaca's we were dealing with last spring!)

We did, however, miss each show of the dog herding ducks around an obstacle course.

I found some new to me indie dyers this trip, Brenda and Heather Yarns, where I might have purchases a Shawl Ball in Lilac Shades with Gray.

Then there was this yarn...

It made a fitting final purchase!

Stay tuned next week for a new pattern release, if you haven't yet, sign up for the newsletter,  over there on the right, to get a generous discount when the pattern is published!

~M

An Entire Week of Silence

Rabbit Holes

We interrupt this week to bring you rabbit holes...

No, not the kind you trip over or twist your ankle on in your garden...the Ravelry kind!

I fell down this one.....

and this one...

Along with a few others...

What did you "waste" time on this week?

~M

Non-Vocal Sunday

More Love for Twined Vines!

I have to admit that my morning had a bit of a rocky start, but the day improved immensely around lunch time...first the good!


Twined Vines is one of the patterns featured on Knitting Patterns Galore and they tweeted about it! (Although I have to say...I think the pattern is easier than it looks, most of it is just knit, yarn over and central double decreases...there is one fancy stitch but there is a tutorial for that too!)

Seeing that people actually like the things I create really does a lot for my self esteem!  Thank you to everyone who gave the pattern little hearts on Ravelry, or visited its page in Knotions!

But now for the rocky start to the day....


One of the knitters who is working on my Twined Vines Shawl found a mistake in a chart...actually it was worse than that...I had given the editor of the online magazine the completely wrong chart. 

Luckily the knitter is taking part in the Knit Along that Knotions is holding in their group for anyone knitting any of the August issues patterns and asked for help and I check Ravelry every morning while I drink my coffee.  Before I had finished that cuppa, a new chart was sent to the editor, who uploaded it immediately and the knitter doesn't even have to tink back or frog any stitches because the first row was the same on both charts!  (Pheww, so glad the editor is up early in the morning...all this happened before 7 am her time!)

But this does bring up a point....what should you do if you ever find an error in my patterns?  I can tell you what I would like you to do....

Tell me about it!  You can contact me through the email address that is in each of my self published patterns, through Ravelry, even through the publication itself in cases like Knotions.  While I cannot guarantee a two hour turn around every time (that is how long it took from when the knitter posted this morning to my getting up, seeing it and correcting it) rest assured I will respond to you!

~M