Knitalong Summer

This summer I'm participating in 3 knitalongs.  One of them - Tour de Sock - is stretching my knitting talents to the max.  For stage 1, my goal was to try and finish in the top 25 - and I made it - I came in 12th out of 250 and finished in about 19 hours + sleeping time.

If you look carefully, you'll see there's some beads on the back of one of the socks - size 8/0 beads no less.  The ones that require a teeny weeny crochet hook to get them on the yarn.

So for stage 2, I tried again to get finished within 36 hours.  This time I came in 11th out of about 180 and again finished in about 19 hours + sleeping time, but it was full of travelling twisted stitches in a pattern you had to look at every row, so it almost did me in.

So for sock 3 I decided to take it easy and just try to finish within the week.  But then I saw the pattern and decided to go for it...  This time it was the intarsia and weaving in the ends that drove me crazy, but other than that I enjoyed knitting these socks and this time I finished 7th.

We'll see what my game plan is for stage 4 that starts on Sunday.  This pair of socks has 500 size 8/0 beads and I'm planning on using a dark color, so it could be a nightmare.

 

In the pleasure knitting category, we have my Camp Loopy, project 1.  The objective is to knit yarn that you've never knit with, so I chose Sweet Georgia yarn and it's gorgeous and a dream to knit with.  I'm using my regular plan sock pattern (thank goodness) and have just added some butterflies to the leg.  One sock down and just the foot left to go on the other one before Sunday.

 

My other knitalong is a Mystery Shawl with the Fiber Gallery in Seattle.  When I was there in June, I picked up the first installment of the pattern and some beautiful hazel knits entice yarn, in a colorway appropriately called Pacific Northwest.  Here's the shawl with the first 2 installments of the pattern.

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