SockTart

SockTart Episode Seven: 100% Pure Juice (from Concentrate)
Change is in the air with back to school for some, workplace changes for others. We’re gearing up for the holiday season, whatever your seasons might be!
The Triad (Maire, Lhiabelle and Sukuti) all got yarn from Blue Moon this week. We’re making the postal worker earn her pay!
Lhia has some sock challenges when it comes to knitting toes.
Maire goes on a rant about practice making perfect that spans 3 generations and two families. Seriously.
On/Off the needles:

- Nanners are off the needles.
- Sweetpea socks have been abandoned.

News you can use:

Super Sock Scarefest starts Monday. Kudos to those who signed up for Fabulous Gifts and Prizes! The rest of us will just play the home-game with less stress, thanks!

Plurkswap is happening! Come on over to the Ravelry Group board to wing around some ideas to send to plurkswap pals.

Maire apologizes for being a bad secret pal and promises to get that last package sent. Bad Maire!

Monkeymen pattern going to Public Beta. I’m inherently lazy and tracking down email addresses drives me nuts…so…yeah. Just let me know if there’s anything wrong with the pattern & provide me some pictures when you’re done. The final pattern will be a much prettier PDF available for download on Ravelry, but the test-knit will be available here soon.

Lesser Known Sock:

Y’all have another month to get your knit on! You can roll it into one of the many KALs going on this autumn: Super Sock Scarefest, SKA, Socktopia, Sockamania…the mind boggles. Just share the lesser-known-sock love! To win a skein of yummy Cherry Tree Hill Merino sockyarn in Winterberry, you have to post up what you intend to knit, then post up pictures when you’re done. The group as a whole will vote on the winning sock.

New Socks on the Block

We find & comment on a small handful of recently released/published sock patterns on Ravelry. Yum!!

Bluet Sock & Garden Sock by Nicole Masson: Two ankle socks, one with a delicate lace pattern, the other with a relief-etched garden. Very pretty!

The Wasp Woman by Heatherly Walker (YarnYenta): a pre-knit from the SuperScarefest. Settle down with some old-school suspense & get your knit on.

Osnabruecker Muster by Kristin Benecken: Another lacy design, this time in the style of some of Cookie A’s more elaborate work. Available in both English and German.

Credits:
- Intro clip from “8 BIT Junkie” by George Wood
- Outro clip: “Sheep Marketing Ploy / The Ballad of Fenton” By Worm Quartet

SockTart Episode Six: Keeps on Tickin’

This week we talk about our irresponsible, lazy, neighbourhood postal worker. Also, the sock blockers arrive, and yarn is ordered!

Oh…and the Professor gets hit by a car….

On/Off the needles:

- The Monkeymen are done. Done like dinner. Booyeah. We are looking for a couple of test knitters to volunteer themselves for interpreting my pattern directions.

- Still working on the Nanners and the Sweetpea socks. Sweetpeas are my current focus for end-of-month.

Lesser Known Sock:

Forgot to mention it, but there’s only about a week to go before voting starts. Pictures of finished works would be lovely

New Socks on the Block

We find & comment on a small handful of recently released/published sock patterns on Ravelry. Yum!!

Simply Devine Socks by Melly A. Matthews:
Lesum-Pattern by Kristin Benecken
Ruth’s Harvest Socks by Susan Sharpe
Shur’tagal by Alice Yu.

Pattern Source!:

We take a look at The Inside Loop, an online Fibre Arts magazine based out of the UK. Go take a gander at the patterns and articles available here! Not only do they have consistently lovely sock designs, but designs to cover all the other parts of your body…

Yarn Review:

Discussion about The Professor’s Brimstone Jaywalkers leads to a review (and recap) of Mama E’s C*EYE*BER Fibre.
Announcements:

New Sock Club! Cables & Lace are putting together a sock club that will include skeins and patterns. I’m hoping to make an order of sock yarn soon. If Knitting Dragon ever comes out with a powder pink & black colourway, I am so there…

Race for the Cure: Manda (Hello Lovely) of Knitting Psychos (listen to her podcast!) is participating in the Susan G. Komen 3-Day Event in San Francisco. She’s been training hard and is trying to reach a goal of $2200 in donations. Please head over to her site and help her reach (or surpass) the goals she has set. She’s also holding a draw for fabulous gifts & prizes, so donate often for more chances to win! If you have breastesses, you can’t afford to not donate (that includes you boys too…male breast cancer is rarer, but it happens!)

Little Pink Sock Project: Knit a little pink sock. Send it away. Make a donation to the Oregon Humane Society. Get a little pink sock with a gift certificate. Make a puppy’s day.

Credits:
- Intro clip from “8 BIT Junkie” by George Wood
- Outro music: “All You Said” by Everyday Jones

SockTart Episode Five: Blame it on The Man

In which we talk about seeing Spamalot and baseball (the Yuma Scorpions at Calgary Vipers), knit night, and a variety of other things. We also find out that the Monkeymen are being….difficult…to cast off.

We also blatantly and unabashedly promote our Yarn Crack Dealer of Choice, Make1 Yarn Studios in Bridgeland, Calgary. If you want a great place to knit, hang out, be subtly coerced into buying yarn that you were convinced you didn’t need? Go see the Stashionistas at M1. Get lost in the Comfy Couches of Doom. Don’t say I didn’t warn ya (did I mention they now offer online ordering and are gearing up for the 2009 Year of Lace? Go. Now.).

Off the needles:

- Plain old socks in Opal Petticoat Cotton #1
On the Needles:

- Sweet Pea Socks in Cherry Tree Hill, “Lottery” colourway
- Nanners #2
- Monkeymen. This time toe-up, damnit!
(you do realize this means that we may actually have a pattern that allows you a choice for your knitting pleasure. Just sayin’.)

Lesser Known Sock:

- some folks have posted their intended sock patterns on Ravelry, but no actual photos yet. Me want!

New Socks on the Block

We find & comment on a small handful of recently released/published sock patterns on Ravelry. Yum!!

Farfalle by Orinda5
Olympian Socks by Sheryl Giles
Love story socks by Sirkku Siiskonen
Fascine Braid Socks by Tiennie.

On the To Do List:

- Maire will be joining in on all the Sockknitter’s Anonymous (and hopefully Socktopia) madness for 2008/09. Committing to knitting at least one pair of socks per month for the next year.
- Yuletide knitting! Start work NOW if you haven’t already!
- Ordering Yarn. Because one just doesn’t have enough Orange Yarn (actually, aside from the yarn currently being used for the possibly abortive Monkeymen, I have no orange. This is a surprisingly orange-free zone. This can, and should, be rectified. Possibly with a perky tangerine.)

Credits:
- Intro clip from “8 BIT Junkie” by George Wood
- Outro music:”And to Think” by Hop on Pop (download their album at Spade Kitty Records

SockTart Episode Four: Much Better IKEA

Maire gives the lowdown on what everyone’s up to & talks a lot about sock patterns & stuff.

Off the needles:

- Nanner #1
- Monkeymen #1

We are considering throwing up the Monkeymen pattern for testknitting…we provide the pattern, you provide the yarn…it’s a win-win

On the Needles:

- Plain old socks in Opal Petticoat Cotton
- Sweet Pea Socks in Cherry Tree Hill, “Lottery” colourway

Lesser Known Sock:

- as we are not above bribing rewarding our listeners, we will be voting on the best lesser-known, unappreciated sock to be knit over the course of the month. You could walk away with a lovely skein of Cherry Tree Hill fingering weight yarn in the Winterberry colourway. Delicious!
-Enter by posting your intended victim sock pattern & then the finished project on the Ravelry board. Much voting will occur. Oh yes. Much voting indeed.

Recent socks on Ravelry!

We find & comment on a small handful of recently released/published sock patterns on Ravelry. Yum!!

Embellishing Hilda Socks by Heli Heikkila
Window Pane Socks by Lisa Stichweh
Summer Pick ‘n’ Mix by Jane Lithgow
Flippant by Sivia Harding.

Reviews:
Twist Collective!
We explore & discuss the new patterns presented in Twist Collective.
- Livia by Stephanie Van der Linden
- Lissajous and Maelstrom by Cookie A.
- Empoissonee by Yarnissima
- Houdini socks by Cat Bordhi
- Oolong Socks by Mona Schmidt

Credits:
- Intro clip from “8 BIT Junkie” by George Wood
- Outro music: 24 by Etherdust

Sometime in November/December, I designed a sock for my dearest darling. I also mentioned at the time that I might put the pattern up for grabs when I got around to it. Well, I finally got around to it. Hence, the pattern for “Medivh”. I guess you have to be a World of Warcraft addict to understand the name.

Hopefully I can get better pictures at some other time. If anyone else decides to give the pattern a try, why not photograph it for me so I can link it?

I managed to get some more appropriate yarn for the Monekymen variation. It’s knitting up amazingly quickly so far, mainly due to the lovely texture of the yarn. Yowr

Here we have a preview of the sock-in-progress. Yay, Monkeymen!