Time for Sorrento again

I've been running around getting ready for the 13th Annual Okanagan Knitting Retreat in Sorrento. The theme this year is Knock Your Socks Off, and I'm teaching the beginners, which I love. My workshop is called Socks for Knitters with Cold Feet. Get it? :-)

Here is a picture of the mini sample socks my participants will be working on:

Aren't they cute?

Random Wednesday

It's starting to feel like maybe, just maybe, spring is here to stay on the west coast. The situation is getting rather dire for local farmers, many of whom have rain-flooded fields still unplanted. Hopefully the weather will dry up and they'll be able to get crops into the ground soon.

I haven't had a lot of time to knit this past week. Here is a close-up view of the red sock I'm working on, with the bit of progress I've managed to make since the last photo.

You can see the Channel Islands cast-on and garter stitch cuff in this picture. The cuff looks a bit funny unstretched, but I really like it once it's on a leg. The ribbing on the rest of the leg will hold the sock up, and the cuff can just look pretty!

Here is a picture of a cute project bag I picked up at The Websters in Ashland, Oregon at spring break.

I'm planning to make some more like this one out of some of the fabrics I bought in Ashland. Like this one, they are quite thick, kind of like canvas, and should work really nicely, without needing to be lined.

And finally, there is a very sweet knitting story that's worth reading - Kate, one of my favourite knit bloggers, linked to it from her site, and the full story is here. If you don't follow Kate's blog, I strongly recommend it. I find her to be a very inspiring knitter, designer, blogger, and person. This story is about one of her patterns and the power of ravelry and I think it's very cool.

Rainy Wednesday

Here are some socks completed...

 

The colour is a bit more accurate in this close-up:

 

I tried to register for one of Franklin Habit's classes on photographing yarn at the Sock Summit this summer, but I didn't get in. Maybe next year at Madrona - and until then I'm stuck with less than perfect colours in my knitting photos!

Here is a sock begun...

Thibault got himself into this picture, so it was only fair that I take a picture of Mookie as well:



The new socks are being knit from Knitpicks Stroll Tonal in Gypsy. I'm making up the pattern - it's basically k2 p2 ribbing, but I did a Channel Islands cast-on and a garter stitch cuff. It looks a bit funny off the leg, but quite nice when it's on a leg!

Little Sprout

I'm calling this baby hat Little Sprout. It came out so very spring-like!

 

 

I found the pattern on ravelry and made a few minor changes. I was able to knit it from cotton yarn I had in the stash, which is always nice. It's for my friend at work's new grandchild - her second one this spring.

I've also been working on a sock, and Dave and I have gotten into making blanket squares for our Barn-Raising Quilt. They're made from our sock yarn remnants and they're not very photogenic in their pre-blocked state so I won't post photos just yet, although you can see a few of them here.