Hi lovely blogging (and reading) people! I know I have been a little quiet lately - especially as it's a new month, and I usually come along with an onslaught of new posts around this time - but I've been feeling a little out of it lately. Not really bad, just tired a lot (might be the weather, might be the increased amount of socializing over the warm summer months), so everything has been a little slower, and my energy has gone more into crafting than into blogging. I'll probably get caught up with posts over the next week or so (although you might have noticed I already missed my Crafting Pie post in July...just not feeling that right now I'm afraid, but I'm still keeping time and they will resume eventually I am sure!).
So, now with all of the excuses for what I didn't do out of the way, let's get on with what I *did* do. This project is long overdue an introductory post as I started it in April and worked on it a little here and there, but I think I finally figured out how to slot it into my rotation properly, and make some real progress!
A little backstory first, a friend of mine from the Stitchy Quest group on facebook is a huge Harry Potter and especially Hufflepuff fan. "Getting the house crest as a tattoo" kind of huge. When she realized I could knit socks, she asked me to make her a pair of Hufflepuff socks, and despite my busy crafting schedule, of course I said yes - you know me, I can never pass up a chance to have a new start! I'm sure when we first talked about it, all we had in mind was a nice pair of warm, yellow and black striped socks, but then I found this pattern on Ravelry...and I think we both fell in love at that point. These are way over the level of socks I have knitted so far, but I do love a good challenge, so there I went!
It took me a while to figure out the pattern (it's not bad, but not neccessarily intuitive if you've never done colourwork before) and even more time to figure out a colourwork technique that works for me (both colours in my right hand, in case you are interested), and then I slowly crawled along. The first couple rows (after the cuffs, vertical stripes are easy, after all) went painfully slowly, but recently I picked up momentum and hope I'll gain even more speed as I get used to the technique.
So after my first ten hours, I'm a total of 59 rows into this pattern! At that speed I'd need about 30-40 hours PER SOCK...oh boy.
5 comments:
Those socks are amazing. We've got a couple of Hufflepuffs in our house...and we love fun socks. Sorry you've been feeling a little out of it lately. Hopefully, you get some of your energy back soon. Happy stitching! -Andrea
Wow! I'm not a knitter so I have no idea what is involved in this, but it looks very difficult. Amazing socks!
You are a great friend - the socks look very nice!
She IS a keen fan! Those socks are awesome though. I wouldn't want to wear them, I'd just hang them up and admire them!
Although I'm not a Hufflepuff, more of a Ravenclaw.
Good on you for trying something new. You're making great progress and they look really good. I've got one colorwork piece in my queue now - a hat but haven't quite gotten up the nerve. And your using dpns! I'm doing a pair of socks using dpns now (baby socks) and am having such a time. I usually use a 9" circular and am having trouble getting used to the dpns.
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