Striped socks

More socks. Brighter than my usual choice, but I really love how these came out.   The yarn is self striping and the pattern is Vanilla Latte by Virginia Rose-Jeanes.  I believe it was free on Ravelry.  These took about three weeks to knit, but only because I was knitting other things in between.  The pattern is very quick to knit and super easy to memorise.  It has various toes/heels you can use and I chose a plain stocking stitch heel and a star toe.  The latter being easier to knit under the influence of Chardonnay.  I am slightly disappointed that my two socks are not totally alike.  But they are close enough I think as the legs and upper feet are quite close, and the toes should mostly be in my shoes and not seen.

 I realised today that most of my christmas knitting never made it to the blog.   I keep hoping my work will calm down enough to leave time to blog  and indeed read blogs, but its been superbusy for months  and the blog has suffered.  However, my time off over Christmas has provided time to muse on potential projects; so much so that I now have way more ideas than I can comfortably accomplish. 

Of course I have the SWAP, which I have started in earnest today, making a Marfy skirt, but its not quite finished as I haven't a hook and bar for the waistband and need to go buy some.  Or I need to put a buttonhole in denim.  Not totally sure which I will do, but in any event, its not quite ready for a public outing.
  
Also for the new year; a new knitting challenge.  More on that later.

A sewing friend sent me a fabulous book on Shetland lace knitting for Christmas which coincided with my desire to add to my lace shawl collection.  I find them so practical and warm and love wearing them, but only have a very few, though I have a fair number of patterns awaiting my attention.   So, although  I need to read a bit more of it before I can start something, the book tells you how to design your own shawl pattern, and  I hope to attempt my own design sometime in 2014 as well as knitting up a few of the pattern stash too.  I have amassed a reasonable stash of laceweight yarn in a variety of colours and I have still more "naked" awaiting my attention with the dye pots, so won't have a shortage of potential candidates for the yarn side of things.   

And finally,  I want to complete my blanket in 2014 too. 

So, plenty to keep me out of mischief... if only work will allow me to do some of the things I plan.