FibreBound Knitting Podcast | Episode 17 | socks galore, blankets and more!

[Music] welcome to episode 17 of the fiberbound podcast my name is alexandra and i am coming to you today from adelaide australia where i live with my family this is predominantly a knitting podcast and i do sometimes show a little bit of crochet a very small amount of sewing although i really would like to increase that content and thank you so much for joining me today if you're new here welcome i hope you do enjoy what i share and if you're a returning viewer welcome back thanks for coming back and spending some time with me i have a coffee today in my mug that i picked up from vistaprint last year that i actually semi-designed i guess just got my logo there and if you join me over vlogmas you might recall that i got a little bit obsessed with oat milk in my coffee and that has continued i'm finding if i make a coffee with cow's milk now it just doesn't taste quite right so i'm going through a lot of oat milk i hope you have a beverage of your choosing today and you're ready to sit down relax maybe knit a little on your projects or maybe even crochet and let's get into what's been happening for the last two or so months my last full episode was recorded back in november and at that time i was in the thick of a very busy work period but i was determined to do vlogmas so i did record every day throughout the 1st to the 25th of december and i uploaded those vlogs onto this channel so i'll link that playlist down below for you if you missed it um or if you would like to check it out i know vlogmas isn't for everyone but i personally love watching other people's vlogmas it is really nice to see the behind the scenes of the making that people produce in their day-to-day lives for me making is my calm time it's my relaxed time it's my escape from the worries of life [Laughter] over recent years that's been very much related to work worries and when i say worries it's just there's a lot of work pressure and i do really like to be able to escape into a project and feel like i'm accomplishing something really substantial and concrete in my day and making beautiful things is just making me very very happy i'm feeling very out of practice at the moment because it has been so long since i've sat and spoke to my camera and i have so much to tell you about but it actually did become a little bit overwhelming in planning for today i just sort of felt like as the days had gone on as the weeks and even actually months had gone on um i was just accumulating all of these projects and acquisitions but in reality i have been very monogamous in what i've been doing in recent times so there maybe isn't that much of a variety of things to show you but i do have some finished objects i have some work in progresses progresses work in progress objects i don't even remember how to say these things anymore and i have a couple of small acquisitions i've been careful not to go crazy this year hopefully i can maintain that so today is saturday the 19th of february and it is a beautiful sunny day out there it's very mild today so uh we've had a beautiful summer this year quite often in adelaide we reach highs of 40 degrees celsius which i think is around 100 fahrenheit 101 maybe um i'll pop it on the screen because my conversion isn't great we've had a beautiful summer so far we haven't had those exhaustingly hot days it's just been quite lovely it has felt almost like a tropical summer which is amazing it's so nice to not be uncomfortable and yet have beautiful sunny days to enjoy which is the other reason why i haven't recorded for a long time as well the weekends and the time off seem to just disappear so quickly i feel like every weekend since i saw you in vlogmas i've thought about okay i need to set up and record and every weekend has just disappeared in reality this is the first time that i feel like i've got the house pretty much to myself one of my sons is here but he's happily in his bedroom right now whereas my husband and son older son are at work at the moment so yes it's finally come together the stars have aligned and i am here to chat with you about all the things i've been making so let's start with my finished objects if you've been following me on instagram you've probably seen all of these already but i thought i'd just share with you the pile of socks i finished after vlogmas finished last year or actually one of these pairs two of these pairs were during vlogmas so i did talk a little bit about well quite a lot about them during that so i won't go into great detail but these are the socks that i have finished and this was all before january 1st so i'll just run through these rather quickly apart from one pair they're all vanilla so my usual stock recipe is a 56 stitch sock i do a two by two rib for 15 to 20 rounds depending how into the rib i'm feeling then i do around a 50 to 60 row round leg wow okay it has been a while since i've talked about my knitting out loud and then my foot is depending on which heel i use will depend whether it's between 60 and 65 rounds for the foot itself so i did show these during vlogmas but these were my oh goodness it's been so long now i forgot what they were called these are my spooky socks and i did share them in my vlogmas episode when i finished them or i finished them just before vlogmas perhaps and these were using moon glow yarn koyan it was a beautiful sock set and it was part of the spooky sock smell that was held in october in 2021 between moon guayanko the crazy suck lady and nitinati so this was a really fun knit and i do have project pages that i will link down below to provide you with all the details that you need about these projects but in this one because it wasn't self striping young they were all little minis i did use a heel flap and gusset which i do really like the fit of but in reality i am finding that either either heel whether it's a heel flap and gusset or afterthought heel seems to be working well for me so that is pretty good i'm pretty happy with that now the next pair is something i worked on throughout all of december well the first to the 24th i guess i think i finished them on the 24th maybe the 23rd these are my cozy knitter advent socks and i started at the cuff and worked my way down to do 24 stripes of the color repeat and then i cut my heel in with some bare yarn that i used and i used nunder woolen mills bare yarn for the heels toes and cuff for this pair and that these were these are a really great project so i really do enjoy knitting on advent socks during the lead up to christmas it's a lovely mindless achievable project during a busy time of year so i always feel like i've been able to achieve some good knitting over that time being able to knit a pair of socks in just over three weeks is pretty good so these were done and again more information in my project page or if you'd like to check out vlogmas there is a lot of detail there as well as um i knit through those every day my next pair of socks that i completed in december were my desert vista die work socks now i don't have these on sock blockers because there are just too many of them to try to move on and off sock blockers but these were knit in the milk and cookies colorway by desert vista die works and these are on the vizzo sock base which is a 75 merino 25 nylon and these were knit as part of the 2021 um desert vista make along or knit along which was called the seventh annual desert vista die works monthly soccer club and i was able to knit 12 socks last year 12 pairs of socks last year one per month in desert vista die works yarns so this was the final entry for that make along which was really lovely and this was this was a beautiful yarn to work with i really do like this yarn base it's um i don't know it just flies off the needles for me it's very fun to knit now i didn't talk about the method that i knit these all on because they were all a little bit different some won it on nine inch circulars some won it on magic loop and i'm pretty sure my cozy knitter advent socks were on magic loop these ones i knit on my higher higher flyers so that was fun um what i'm noticing is i'm looking at them these haven't been blocked yet it's been rather warm here in adelaide so i haven't worn them either but i know i wanted i also wanted to show them to you but i am noticing i've got a little bit of a um a bit of a jog is that what it's called a bit of a line there where my needle where i switched needles which is interesting because i don't get that with magic loop but it doesn't bother me i know that once i wear these once they get a wash um that will go away or it won't even be noticeable but yes so these were my next ones and i feel like the second sock just completely flew off of my needles i had written myself a plan to knit them between christmas and new year i was worried that i might not get them done in time and i ended up just blowing that out and doing it much faster i think i gave myself five days and i think i did it in about two and a half to three days in total which i was very happy about another finished object from december that i don't have with me anymore because it has been gifted were the rainbow and sprinkles advent 24 stripe advent socks from 2021 i finished this pair on the 29th of december and i put it aside to give to my niece as a big sister present she loves rainbows absolutely adores them and i felt like the these socks were just perfect for her so i gifted them to her and she loved them now i knit these in um online in circulars throughout advent and finished them obviously once advent had finished and i did a 56 stitch sock on this pair but they just felt very tight i think my gauge was a little bit tight on that pair which i find interesting because it never has been before but for that pair it was really tight so i thought they'd be perfect for her i cut in the heel using a bit of a chart with children's sizes and if i can find the link i'll link that down below for you as well so you can check that out i found that quite nice to be able to gauge how big to make that sock for her i think she's about a children's size one australian which um i used as the guide there so that was another one that i don't have with me but at least um i'll pop some images or footage i don't think i have any footage of them i definitely have images of that project and them on her feet which she was very happy that they fit her so well she put them straight on when i gave them to her and it was a very hot sticky day so i don't know how she wore them for as long as she did but it's really lovely when you gift something to someone and they show that they really do love and appreciate your hard work and my final sock finish for 2021 are the camp picnic socks by k of the crazy sock lady and this is a beautiful little textured pattern the pattern was given to the vip sock club members in 2021 and it is now available on sale via ravelry and i believe she also has her patterns on sale on etsy so if ravelry is not accessible to you there is an option to buy the pattern by etsy instead now i love the way they turned out i do really really like this texture and did find that the pattern repeat whilst it was quite a few rows long ended up being quite easy to remember especially by the time i started the second sock i didn't need to refer to it that often which was great and i followed the pattern almost exactly except i did reduce one repeat on the leg one two three four yeah so i did four repeats on the leg but i'm pretty sure the pattern says to do five i was using some leftover yarn from my slip extravaganza and i was a little bit worried that i would run out if i did the extra bit and i was lucky i mean i probably could have i think i've got about five grams of that yarn left i probably could have gotten away with that but i felt like it was safer not to risk it so yep so this is all in lovebird lanyard this is the colorway flushed and this is oh goodness it's been such a long time since i've looked at this name i'll pop it on the screen i don't actually remember but it is on my ravelry project page biscotti i think it's biscotti maybe it isn't we'll see so that is the final finish of 2021 which meant meant that november december was just very sock heavy and at the end of the month i felt very accomplished with my sock knitting having a look at how much i had knit and it's interesting actually i um did keep a journal last year to sort of keep track of my project or i started it very strong but then kind of waned on it in about may but between the between christmas and new year i actually went through all of my projects and did update my journal just to sort of see just have a record on paper rather than just everything being on ravelry and so this was my journal last year i meant to decorate it more and that just never happened but what i did do very quite well was track my projects how many of each i i knit in each month so how many socks shawls hats garments and other and by other i had a blanket in there and um a pumpkin decoration as well and i also was very good for the first four months at tracking how much yarn i had purchased versus how much i had used but unfortunately i fell off of that practice by may so and i know i know that my yarn buying went a little bit out of control uh towards the second half of the year i'm pretty sure i bought quite a lot but i didn't do a very good job of keeping notes about it um but i did record after having updated all of my projects in here how much yarn i used and when i say how much young i used i'm referring to how many full skeins of yarn i used out of my stash that doesn't mean that i used the full skein but it means that the full skein is no longer in my stash and is now in my leftovers so in 2021 i used 66 different skeins of yarn i had 39 finished objects in total which i was pretty impressed about and my yardage or meterage for the year um i calculated that as well at the end of the year and i knit 14 908 meters over 2021 the majority of that knitting were socks so that that was an interesting thing to see i had aimed to knit one pair of socks a month in 2021 by doing the monthly sock club with desert vista die works and i actually ended up knitting 23 pairs of socks summersock camp really did push me forward there that's when i started knitting a lot more socks and december um finishing those old older whips with the summer sock camp actually that was just the one whip really um the summer sock camp pattern but i admit 23 pairs of socks in 2021 i knit and or crocheted there was one crochet item in there six shawls and cows or cows i need three hats five garments which included one todd one child size garment otherwise everything else was adult-sized and two other things which was a big bulky blanket and a pumpkin which i talked about in my episodes in 2021 if you'd like me to go through my journal a little bit in more detail then please let me know in the comments below but i was aiming to do page spreads like this where there would be photos as well as the description for some of them i was good and i put in the labels the tags and the yarn there are a lot of memories in these projects and i do wish i had been better at keeping up with it last year because i pretty much filled up the whole book i have this much left of the book and that was my 2021 making journal i have started a 2022 one but i might talk to you about that at the end of the episode um because i feel like this is going to get very very long today so bear with me i have three more finished objects to show you from january and early february i've finished four things yes i have finished four things but i only have three here with me so my first finished object is not here it has been gifted to my sister because my newest niece was born at the start of january on the first of january i cast on the six day superstar blanket by betty mcnitt i was very inspired to join the cozy blanket winter make along mal make along with um ollie and bella lovely cherie from that podcast and ali from the little drops of wonderful podcast who are currently hosting a blanket make along and cherie has been uh crocheting the six day kid blanket by betty mcnet for a little while and i've been intrigued by that pattern for ages but then i saw my niece's nursery before she was born and my sister had focused on some of the decoration being very star-based and when i found out that betty mcknit had a star version of this blanket i had to knit that so i started it on the 1st of january and i finished it on the 8th of january it ended up being 32 inches across in diameter which is a perfect bassinet size i guess my sister is using it with my niece every day for that project i used some acrylic yarn to make it easier for my sister to look after so she can just pop it in the washing machine and not be concerned about felting things or having to hand wash things especially with a brand new baby so i used make a baby soft eight ply and i which is a dk weight essentially and i used three colors i used candy white and silver it was a really fun project and given that i'm a sometimes crocheter i'm i don't pick it up every day i certainly only recently have felt comfortable to try to follow patterns but really do prefer video tutorials still i am really happy with how it turned out it just really makes me so happy with how it looks it was such a pleasure to make um i feel like i made it in record time it took me one week to make it started on the 1st of january finished on the 8th of january which ended up being the day that she came home from hospital after she was born and that was really lovely to be able to give that to her and yeah i've done a little little um collage there of making it as well as the baby with the blanket so that was a lovely first project for the year now my second project for the year was or were my january desert vista die work socks so i decided after having so much fun last year with knitting a monthly sock for the seventh annual desert vista die works monthly sock club i decided that i would join the eighth annual desert vista die works monthly sock club for 2022 and these are the first socks that i finished and these are my january socks i used the 2021 summer sock camp colorway to knit these i did use the same colorway for a pair in june last year but we were provided with a mini skein for heels toes and cuffs when we purchased that kit it was um an exclusive colorway for the summer sock camp that k of the crazy sock lady hosts and for my first pair i used the contrasting color for cuffs heels and toes which meant that i had over 50 grams left of the main skein because i have tiny feet and i usually use around 55 grain grams or 56 up to 60 grams in total of yarn so with the mini skein it meant i had quite a lot of the main skein left and i decided to knit a pair in january because it was summertime here in australia it is summer time here in australia and i really liked the idea of casting on a colourway that is called summersock camp when it was actually summertime for me so that was really lovely i actually knit these as a 62 stitch sock i still did the two by two rib on the cuff and i did that for the three colored stripes which i think ended up being around 12 rounds and then i just knit a tube and cut in the heel now these are the plan for these is that they will be a gift knit and i'm popping them away for to be able to gift them later i haven't actually blocked them yet so i still need to wash and block them i don't normally do that for my own socks but being a gift i think that would be nicer if they've been if they're refreshed a little bit i guess and um the stitches get a chance to relax after the blocking process so i will block these and give these when it is time to and i'm not going to say who they're for right now just because they might be watching so these were my first pair of socks for the year and i really am very happy with how they turned out they were a joy to knit now my second finished object is another pair of socks that i cast on in january and i decided to knit my youngest son a pair of birthday socks his birthday is on the 1st of february and in australia it is summertime as i have already said so he's not going to wear these for a few months so i gifted them to him on the day and then i took them back so i could show them to you on this podcast and here they are so these are dk weight vanilla socks i use k of the crazy sock lady pattern to knit these i use the heavy made dk sock yarn and it is a 75 superwash merino 25 nylon blend and i absolutely love this colorway i love how the um stripes are kind of uneven i love the fact that there's speckles through there it was just such a fun knit i decided for this pair to add in a contrast heel and toe and a tiny bit on the cuff so you'll see there's about two rows a cast on and two rows of the grey at the cuff and then we have the grey hill flap and gusset and the gray toe the main reason why i wanted to do that was because i didn't want to break up the stripe sequence by making the heel in the main yarn so that was really good now the gray yarn is knit picks nitpicks stroll fingering in the dove heather colorway and i held it double so that it would also be at a dk weight gauge and absolutely amazing knit i started these on the 17th of january finished them on the 1st of february which was his actual birthday gifted to him that gifted them to him that day and yeah it was a lovely project my son is growing up way too fast and it makes me very sad that he's 14 already so he turned 14 on the 1st of february but at the same time it's all very bittersweet isn't it it's good to see your children grow so i took a few photos and popped them in my journal as well of when i gifted them to him so that was my third finished object for this year and i have one more really big finished object to share with you if you follow me on instagram you would have already seen this and i'm not quite sure how i'm going to show you i probably should take some footage separately of it because it is rather large but my final finished object is my cozy comfort throw this is a pattern by molly clatt of a homespun house it is designed to be used with an advent calendar and you hold your mini skeins with one other yarn throughout the project i decided to hold mine with bare sock yarn and i purchased this from nandu woolen mills last year sometime and i did talk about this last year and i had actually planned to cast on a different advent calendar with for this project when i purchased this but when i saw these colors i just felt like this was the right advent calendar for this project and i used one full cone of this yarn and then another 80 or so grams from the second cone so there's my empty cone full cone i used a five millimeter needle by chao goo and i actually ended up buying a fixed needle fixed circular needle for this project just because of the weight of it i was a little bit concerned that it may the interchangeable set might unscrew or some disaster might happen so this is a us8 three 5 millimeter needle on a 32 inch cord so it's 80 centimeters long and it was like the per it was the perfect length for this project you could use a longer needle if you wish but i probably wouldn't recommend using a shorter one and it ended up being the best project to start the year off so i started this one on the 10th of january and i was feeling that was the that was the day i went back to work for the year and i was feeling a bit deflated to be honest that the holidays had were over and that real life was back again and the stresses of work were back so i decided i was casting this on and i could not put this project down so i'll actually show you from the cast on edge where i started so i started up here and i worked my way through the minis and all 24 minis are in here so that's the 24th mini there and i knit this in a month which was amazing and a very obsessive knit for me when it came to the border there is there are instructions on the border in the pattern to do an i-cord bind off and then border around so i did that as well and the pattern assumes you have 25 minis i only had 24 minis so i used them for the whole blanket and decided to pick something out of my leftovers my scraps to do for the border and i ended up choosing this yarn here which i picked up from webs in 2020 to knit my niece address so that was a really fun project but i still had around 50 grams of this leftover and even though the pattern said a 20 gram mini would be enough i was a little bit worried that my gauge might have been a little bit off and i might need more and didn't want to risk running out if i used a mini so i wanted to make sure i used at least a i would recommend probably you're safe to go about 30 grams and even though i use exactly 20 grams of this but there's always i guess a risk depending on how thin or thick your four ply is how much meter would you get out of 20 grams so i held that double with the bay yarn as well and did the i-cord bind off and the i-cord border all around there it is and i think it just finished it off really nicely and i am really happy with that now i haven't blocked this yet so the tail's still there i'd usually cut my tails after i've blocked i haven't blocked this yet um just basically haven't felt the need to and also i don't know that i have the floor plate floor space available at the moment to let it dry because it is quite large it is at the moment uh 48 by 54 inches so 48 wide 54 long but i am expecting it to grow with the blocking process and i will update my project page on ravelry once i know exactly how big that is but yeah supermind mindless project super satisfying getting from one mini to the next was just such a joy oh and to let you know as well the pattern does recommend using it gives you the option of using a portion of your minis to make sure you have a consistent stripe each time or it tells you that you can do a magic knot ball so i did start this off with a magic knot ball of six colors so one two three four five six they were my first six colors there in a magic knot ball and then the next one i actually used nine and i did a magic knot ball of nine of these colorways so one two three four five six seven eight so up like this all of this was in the magic knot ball which was quite fun and then the rest of the yarns i didn't put in the magic knot ball because i actually had to frog another project that i had started during vlogmas um that i decided wasn't quite right for me the project itself was super fun to knit but i just felt the colors weren't quite right to be worn around my neck i really did prefer the idea of having this as a blanket because i really find these colors very joyful and very fun but probably a bit too vibrant for my day-to-day wearing but yeah super fun project and i highly recommend a squishy guard a stitch blanket if you are looking at using up your minis and not quite sure what to do with them uh so one of these cones just to let you know how much of this i used i did say i used a full cone plus about 80 grams one of these cones is about 400 grams of yarn someone's walking past hopefully you can't hear that 400 grams of yarn so i if you have five skeins of a bare yarn if they're 100 grams canes that will be more than enough for you unless of course you decide to add more than 24 minis into your blanket which is also an option you could make it longer you could make it wider i know some people are making it wider so um i've been following lisa from the knit or the yarn podcast or 72 stitches on instagram and she's been knitting one for a little while with leftovers and she's made hers quite a bit wider and i think longer as well so you can really modify it to however you like but i did follow the pattern as it was written and um yeah it was good i really really really enjoyed it uh yeah so my final finished object for the year so far and that really did take up a lot of knitting time now i became so obsessed with it that i ended up writing myself out a bit of a to-do list so this is my little page my photo page for this project and this was my planning so i really wanted to do one mini a day and then gave myself four days to do the i-cord one side per day i ended up taking a little bit longer so i had initially thought i'd be done by the 6th of february i was actually done on the 10th of february so only 4 days out and that was just a little goal for myself i just always get worried that when i start big projects like this if i don't keep consistently working on them they will never get done and then progress feels very slow so being very monogamous on that apart from a sock project worked really well for me so i guess i'll just quickly mention this is my new notebook for 2022. i've been a little bit better at starting this one and i have a little title page there in this notebook i'm hoping to record my knitting my crochet and any sewing that i might get done this year maybe even cross stitch or embroidery these are all things that i would really like to do and i've recorded some of my incoming whips into the year so there were five incoming whips that may or may not get finished i have started working on one of them and i'll talk to you about that in a minute and i've also still got some lingering whips and these are the same lingering whips i had in last year's notebook which is making me think that i either need to make a decision about frogging some of these if they're not bringing me joy or just finish them some of them are probably pretty close to being done if you'd like to know more about that please let me know in the comments below and again i've done my stash and project tracker um so i can track month by month how much yarn comes in how much goes out and what kind of projects i finish each month so there's january and then just some little family photos of january some things that i wanted to remember and then it gets into the yarny stuff and each of the project pages has a spread and i only record the things that i finish here and it's been really lovely to keep on top of it actually so obviously i've only finished four projects so far but already this is bringing me so much joy so highly recommend this if you like to keep notes i'm trying to keep it as simple as possible in terms of printing the photos out and i make a little collage in canva to do that so like my sun there i just create that in canva and print it out on my home printer onto photo paper um one day i would like to get one of those little printers that sticks has little sticky papers on them because it might just be easier to print one at a time that are smaller and then make make up my own collage but this is working quite well it doesn't take me long to do and i write a little bit of detail on the project any sort of pertinent things one thing that i've noticed with this year's notebook is that i don't have quite enough space to write as much as i would have last year the lines are much further apart i had a dot grid notebook last year and this one's just lined so it is a little less um there is a lot less space it feels like on there because the lines are further apart so yes that is very fun now i don't have very many works in progress to show you because like i said i've been very monogamous but i did start my february sock at the start of february it is february isn't it yes so for my february socks i am knitting the i'll just date myself colorway by desert vista die works again it's the 75 25 base which is a merino nylon base and it's called vizzo i really like this base i haven't actually ordered others well i have put an order in for a dk weight one but that hasn't arrived yet but i so this this is the colorway that i'm using it is very valentine's day inspired because that makes me happy i like to theme my projects when i can my first sock tube is finished and this is a 56 stitch sock tube again two by two rib with i think around 15 rounds for the rib i just went the first three colors and then started the stockinette after that and then a rounded toe at the bottom and i've marked where my heel will go here so this is where my heel placement will be but i didn't want to do that um between the socks because i would have wasted too much of the yarn in the middle there so i have started the second sock not very far into it actually i started this at least yeah it was last weekend sometime i think sunday today saturday so a week ago and that's how much i've done so far and i'm knitting these on nine inch circulars by chow goo and i have days when i love my nine inch circulars and days when i don't which is really interesting it really does depend i don't know because i'm used to knitting with them i love using them if i go to the cinemas so the january socks i did knit at the cinemas for a bit um [Music] when i don't when i know i don't have the opportunity to look down i really love using the nine inch circulars but sometimes they feel really funny in my hands and other times like right now they're feeling great so when i knit with them i just do that basically so yes i just need to finish the tube for this one and then cut in the two heels and they will be done by the end of the month without a problem um but i do need to spend a little bit more time on them i don't think i've picked them up since monday or tuesday so yes need to uh get a wriggle on with those and i am keeping these in my project bag by the knitting dentists or the from the knitting den shop and it's a little bit misshapen at the moment because i have my progress keepers in here so these are progress keepers that i met or i i like preparing i try to have one of these in each of my sock project bags and sometimes in other project bags that require a lot of stitch markers as well i was going to tell you why i use those as well so on this first sock i mark every 10th round so that i can keep track of how long i am knitting it i find if i don't count the rounds i tend to think i'm done way before i am if i count how many rounds i've done it i know that i can basically start the toe and i usually aim for 50 to 60 like i said before for my leg and around 60 for my foot ish but then i measure for where i put the cut in here and for my size 6 or 37 european size i go about six and a half to six point seven five inches from the toe is where i cut my heel and that fits me really well so it would depend obviously on your foot as to where you cut that in um [Music] yeah i will link my favorite tutorial that i learnt to cut heels in down below for you in case you have any other questions or feel free to ask me in the comments and i'll try to help you out as best as i can but yes this project is living in this knitting den shop bag my friend krista makes these and has an etsy store and i love this one so pretty actually i love them all now my second work in progress is one of my linger not lingering but one of the whips that i brought in from 2021 and i've made a little bit of progress on this since i showed it in november but to be honest i only picked it up again once my cozy comfort throw was finished this is my love note by tin can knits i have almost finished the body i think i've got another couple of inches of the body left to do and since i saw you last so this progress keeper is showing you where i was when i saw you last i've only added about an inch and a half to the body there but what did take me one evening was to pick up around the neckline and to do the neck now i ended up doing a tubular bind off on the ribbing and i feel like surprisingly it might be a little bit tight i can get it over my head i tried it on and it does sit quite nicely around my neck but i was a little bit worried the day that i finished it that it might be a little bit tight actually that's the front by the looks of it and uh yeah i'm not sure if you've knit the love note did you feel like your neck got a little bit tight when you finished it feel free to let me know i'm wondering whether to increase my needle size there maybe for the final bind off because i think that is what the pattern says but it does say to bind off in a different method and i can't remember what that is but i modified it so the tubular bind off and like the look of it i really like the look of a tubular bind off not that i think it's as visible on the mohair blend but it is a very tidy bind off now for this project i am using a knitcrate yarn that i picked up maybe last year maybe the year before it's the lebrebus light alpaca it is 100 baby alpaca a fingering weight which has 400 yards or 365 meters per hundred grams that's that's probably a better representation of the tag so i'm holding this alpaca yarn with isaiah mo silkmo hair in the color 69 so these two here and i am so in love with this color it's just making me so happy and i really like the way they play together to make a bit of a movie fabric there so that has gotten a little bit of love i would like to spend a bit more time on it realistically this was part of a make along that i started in november i think i cast this on as my birthday cast on in november and um we cast i cast it on with my friend krista actually and we were knitting it together and i think she's way ahead of me at the moment uh because i keep getting distracted by other things like blankets so yeah i hope to finish the body over the next week or so and get a start on the sleeves my hope is to make the sleeves long but i don't know that i'll have enough yarn i know i definitely have enough of this i have a whole nother skein that i haven't even caked up yet but i might run out of the mohair because yeah i'm not far i have 100 grams left with the mohair i might be okay we'll see uh yeah so that's one that i would like to get off my needles because there are other garments that i really want to get a start on um lots of other wishlist items that i would like to knit and i'm holding this in my patio knits bag which was gifted to me for my birthday last year which i love it is so pretty and it's got little pockets on the inside which is really handy it's holding my swatches which i was very good and swatched for this project and the yarn tags which is good that they don't get in the way um yeah and it's drawstring it's really pretty so i just have one more active work in progress to share with you today and this is something that i was inspired to start as soon as i finished my cozy comfort throw i was craving i guess another scrappy project so last sunday i pulled out my scraps let me show you my scraps some of my scraps so i have been collecting the majority of my left over four ply fingering weight yarn in this bag which is getting very full to the point that i can barely zip it up anymore now this is a grocery girls bag from a set that they did in i think christmas 2019 that i picked up so there was young there was this bag and there was a recipe that came in that kit and this bag's just been great for storing my leftovers as you can see it is bulging and there are a lot of leftovers that aren't actually in here because they don't fit so these are just the ones that fit in here and dk weight goes somewhere else so leftovers are a problem so i decided that i really wanted to start a granny stripe blanket and this was very much inspired by a couple of my podcasting friends maddie from mad about you has a really beautiful one that she started that's just got this beautiful color tone to it i was watching the knitting and labradors podcast which is a relatively new podcast to me um and she was sharing her scrappy projects and i wanted to start everything that she's knitting her color palette is just so pretty it is so pretty so uh she's doing a granny's granny stripe blanket she's also working on a cozy memories blanket and her colors are just so phenomenal i really really do love the the way that the colors play together in her projects so i started a granny stripe blanket and i'm not quite sure how to show you this because it's very long and skinny at the moment so i might just fold it in half but there's the start of it so i started down here and it's going to be quite wide which isn't a lot wider actually i'd measured it against my cozy comfort throw it won't be much wider than my cozy comfort throw but i'm expecting that it will end up being longer but i feel like this is going to take me years to complete so i started this on sunday and so i've popped my scrappy sundae progress keeper on there from the crazy sock lady and it'll be really interesting to see if i keep getting motivated to work on this on sundays this has been my main project all week all this week i actually have not felt like picking anything else up after work it's been a very busy work week and i've really enjoyed this but i find the granny stripes so soothing that i often fall asleep halfway through them maybe that's just the sign of this past week but this has been so fun to start and i have i'm at the moment keeping this in my little basket and i have some of the mini some of the leftovers that i've already used and one that i'm planning to add or two that i'm planning to add in here plus what's in that bag and i tend to have quite a lot of leftovers from my sock projects like i said before i only use around 50 to 60 grams for a pair of socks so my leftovers are quite sizeable which realistically i've always thought i could just knit some shorties or another pair of socks with them but i don't they just sit in that bag so i figured i may as well get some use out of these pretty yarns that i really do love and start a granny stripe blanket which is something that i never thought i'd want to make and now i can't get enough of this so that's been really fun i also have this little box of little tiny minis or leftovers that i've been collecting as i have it too little like there's just not a lot there there's maybe less than 10 grams usually around four to five grams left and i'm wondering whether to start a cozy memories with these that'll be two blankets that will go for months and months and months but that's okay i don't think that's a problem is it uh so yes that's that's that's my new obsession at the moment but i'm trying to restrict it to a sunday and the only other and i think i said that was my last whip but actually i've just looked over and remembered i have one more for you that i have put some work into and i would really like to finish and i've talked about this one so much last year but let's just bring it up again and keep myself accountable to actually get it done so this is living in my project bag that i sewed a couple of years ago again it's a little bit misshapen it's had stuff in it and this is my lightweight hipster shawl and i'm halfway through a row of course i am because it's a terrible row that i'm not enjoying ah this is my lightweight hipster shawl when i shared it with you last i was down here so i've put in a little bit of work i've done one lot of the crosses i've done the lace and now i'm working i think this is the second to last or maybe the last row of the crosses for this pattern so i'm really very close and i really don't have much yarn left so we'll see if i have enough to do the tassels i'm not too fussed if i don't have enough to do the tassels um but yeah i worked on this one a lot just before new year's actually before new year's eve i got stuck on that section and i really need to pick it up again because it is very satisfying once that row is done and then i think it's a lot of garter moving forward so i'm actually not far away from being at a mindless section of that so that is another one this one i'm knitting on the recommended needle size which is the 4.5 millimeter i think i forgot to tell you what my other needle sizes were so i'll pop them on the screen bad podcaster after two months break um i've forgotten all the things that i need to actually tell you and finally i'll just talk about a couple of acquisitions that i've got um the main ones being actually the only ones really because i'm not ordering yarn at the moment i'm being very very self-disciplined so i subscribed at the end of last year to the honorable subscription box which is run by hypnotic yarns and i actually have three of those skeins to show you because i don't remember if i showed them at all on vlogmas and two of them actually arrived after vlogmas so this was the november colorway and it is really pretty it is called apple crisp this is on the plush sock base which is an 85 merino 15 nylon and there are 437 yards for a per 100 grams so it's a very generous yardage so that was november december we had grape crush same base again a very pretty colorway and then january's arrived really quickly i feel like januaries came in record time and this is bougie new year same base again but these are the three colorways i have so far and i'm waiting for februaries to arrive which is a very valentine's day inspired one i believe and i have subscribed to the march one um so this is this these have been really fun to come oh to get they come with some lovely goodies and i have a box full of the goodies that have come with these three i've sort of combined them all into one because i didn't i got them so late and i thought i'd be recording so late that i didn't think it was worth showing you all of that because there are a lot of unboxing videos on youtube so i might link to some of the ones that i watch i know k of the crazy sock lady does an unboxing video for this subscription box and i love hers i really do enjoy watching those each month and uh jen from down seller studios also does an unboxing video each month and perhaps if they arrived to me a lot quicker i might do the same uh but i haven't seen the february one yet and today is the 19th so i feel like it's much later than the january one arrived this one felt like it arrived very quickly yeah so those are my only real acquisitions i have not been ordering yarn specifically except for this subscription box and i i'm pretty proud of myself for that because i love to buy yarn but i am running out of room i am drowning in it at the moment feeling a little bit overwhelmed by my stash and wanting to use more up i feel like i just keep accumulating more and i don't have the time to knit with the things that i want to knit with and i want to knit with all of them but if i start everything then i'll finish nothing and that will be frustrating too oh deary me so that's a good tangent to tell you about one of the knit alongs that i'm participating in this year i am i am joining bernadette makes and she has a podcast called something different which is great when i don't remember these things okay so bernadette makes on instagram has a podcast on youtube called the coffee and craft podcast so she is currently hosting a stash down 2022 knit along or make along and this has been really fun to participate in uh i will link all of the details below for you but essentially we're looking at using up as much stash as possible and that it can include scrappy projects and anything else knitting crochet any project that you're using yarn that you didn't buy this year counts so as long as it was before before january 1st 2022 it can count so that means you can bring your whips into this knit along or you can cast on new projects and she provides a tracking spreadsheet so that you can keep track of your stash i'm keeping track of the meter ridge in my notebook so for example in january i knit a total of with and this is counting finished objects in january i knit 1038 meters of yarn so that was quite a good bit of um stash removal so i bought the yarn for my niece's blanket back in december um the dvd summer socks were obviously from yarn back in june july so i was able to reduce some of that stash and actually turn it into something usable so i'm really happy that i was able to do that and it's really inspiring me to keep on making things when i finished this beast of a project i used over 4 000 meters to knit that so that really does in increase my knitting stash significantly if i just knit socks i'm usually using around two to three hundred yards or meters for that so to have a finished object in the month of 4000 meters is pretty impressive uh and she will um i recommend you check out her podcast or her um oh yeah i actually needed to go back i think to an episode in december or january to find the details about it but i'll link that episode for you down below because i found it a little bit challenging to find the information but that's been a great incentive for me to keep knitting my stash now i was also watching kristen from the do so knitspot kirsten kristen every time from the do so knits podcast yesterday and she does a monthly uh review of yarns in and out and her theory is actually just really lovely and really unrestrictive so her aim is to use up more than she buys and i think that's a great concept too so i'm not sad about these yarnables coming in not sad about them at all they are beautiful yard and i can't wait to knit with them but i've had three skeins come in so far this year but i've used three four i've used a lot more than that i've used at least six gains of yarn this year so that is pretty i'm pretty happy with that um and if i sort of work with that concept in mind so i'm not feeling like i'm on a yarn diet or a yarn ban and then you feel like you see these beautiful things that you really could use now and you can't um or you don't want to buy them because you're breaking a ban or a diet i just feel like the concept of using more than you buy is is a positive one that will make me feel like i'm progressing through this stash as well so yes that's what i'm participating in and finally i'll just go into some life stuff so if you um don't want to hear about life stuff i thank you so much for joining me i feel like this is already a very long episode yeah we're over an hour um but i will probably cut out some bits where i'm arming and ring at you so i just wanted to i guess touch base with life um one of the main reasons why i haven't recorded in so long is just because life has felt a little bit overwhelming since the start of january i went back to work on the 10th of jan and it just feels like everything's just happening all at once we are undergoing a big restructure we're trying to figure out how that will work as well as maintaining the work load that we currently need to get through and that's feeling a little bit like a lot right now um it probably didn't help that we started the year off working from home for the first month and my younger son also learning from home couldn't go into the school because of the omicron playing havoc with our community constantly and yeah i think that was a little bit challenging to feel like i was in the house the whole time but working so much of that time and it just i found it very hard to motivate myself to set up to get organized to sit down to to not feel rushed and anxious as i spoke to you because i want this podcast to be a happy place for you to visit and for you not to see me stressed out even though there is there are days when that definitely is a thing for me as i'm sure it is for a lot of you balancing full-time work hobbies family cooking cleaning it's a lot and i feel like as we're in 2022 life just the pace of life has just increased so much in recent years which is very odd and i don't know if that's just me or if you're feeling that too but i can't believe it's the 19th of february where have january and the most of february gone it is mind-boggling to think that it's gone so fast so yes the boy started back at school which is another thing that's happened my oldest is in his final year of high school so in australia we call that year 12. i know that in in the united states i think you call that senior i don't know i've never gone to school in the states but yeah he's in year 12 he's doing his um we call that space in this state a south australian certificate of education uh in each state of australia we call it something slightly different which again i think is odd for one country to have a different education system too and well different names for the same thing um but yeah he's doing quite well in the start of year 12 where i'm working hard with him to make sure he stays motivated and looks after himself and doesn't burn out there's obviously a lot of pressure in this final year as they get through that and he's not the most academic kid but he is striving to do well this year and that is really good to see and my youngest son is in year nine so that is um [Music] pretty good for him he's he's pretty chill he just goes with the flow uh he did do school from home for the first two weeks of the school year and felt a little bit demotivated by that uh i think he was very happy to go back in face to face on monday just gone so he's been back face to face for a week what we're seeing though is we're getting a lot of emails from the school about um being the kids being exposed to people that have tested positive but unlike last year where they would have closed the whole school down we're just asked to keep sending them to school my boys are double vaccinated they're actually due for their boosters about now so i need to organize that my husband and i are boosted i had my booster shot on the 10th of january and i suffered so badly on the 11th i had absolutely no symptoms after my first and second shots but that boost knocked me about a little bit i was very tired and very out of it slight fever but it was over within 24 hours so by the the next day i was fine so yeah that's where we're at there um what else can i tell you there's always so much that i think i need to tell you but i don't write these things down and then it comes to sitting down and recording for you and i've forgotten i'd like to thank you i guess for being here if you've come this far if you've stayed around till the end i congratulate you for sticking with me i feel like this has been a little bit rambly and i've forgotten a lot of the detail that i would normally tell you but it has been a little while since i've sat down to talk to you i'm hoping that i can maintain at least one episode a month i would like to go back to fortnightly but i don't know how realistic that is with this restructure at work happening my work hours may be changing a little bit and my work days may be changing um so i'm thinking if i can at least get on here once a month that is better than nothing and i love talking to you i love sharing these things with you and interacting with you in the comments i do want to also thank you for the new subscribers who have joined me recently um i think in november i was under 2 000 subscribers when i last recorded i am over 2 000 now so that means that we need to do a giveaway to celebrate that because that is a great milestone to reach and i thank each and every one of you who like comment subscribed um it just means the world to me to be growing this community of like-minded individuals who cannot get enough of knitting and making in their lives and i love sharing these things with you as well so i will put a bit of a gift gift packed together i do have some yarn that was um donated at the end of last year i've got a couple of project bags there and some notions i will put a gift pack together for you and i guess if we use the word i really need to think about these things before i start recording don't i if we use the word obsessed in the comments below i will draw a winner from those comments in the next episode and i can't wait to read about what you're obsessed about my obsession this past month was that cozy comfort throw and it has now turned to my granny stripe blanket that i've started and i know that i am an obsessive knitter in general so obsessed is the key word for this giveaway i can't wait to see what you're obsessed about if you don't want to tell me that if you just want to ask me a question or share anything else with me feel free to leave that in the comments below please like and subscribe if you've stayed around and if you've enjoyed this content today that really does help me and the channel to grow and to be seen by other crafters around the world and thank you so much for joining me i will let you go i hope that your day is full of crafting goodness and you get a chance to sit down and relax with the craft of your choice and i look forward to seeing you in the next episode take care bye and my final pair no not my final and my next pair is uh lisa from the knit or the unpop knit or the yarn pot my next pair is uh my next pair of crying out loud [Music] you

Channel: FibreBound

Views: 6,419

Keywords: knitting, knittingaddict, knitter, craft, family, lifestyle, knittingpodcasts

Id: GrbPtG1cfIo

Length: 73min 39sec (4419 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 25 2022