Yesterday, I finished my first pair of regulation socks for Socks for Soldiers, including weaving in the ends.
These are very long socks! I now have them washed and they are currently drying in the dryer. I need to run to the store and pick up a few extra “goodies” to put in the package and write my letter to the soldier who will receive the socks. Then, I should be ready to package everything up and send it off to Sarge at SFS.
Here’s a picture of the finished socks:
I recently visited two new yarn shops that opened in my area. They are both lovely shops and filled with some lovely yarns – some of which aren’t carried by the local yarn shop that has been the only shop in the city for a number of years. Each shop offers a different variety of yarns than the other, so I am hoping that both of them can be successful. We certainly have a growing number of knitters in our community, so having new yarn shops is quite appealing.
ImagiKnit Yarn Shop is located in the Bel-Air Plaza at 120th and West Center Road, Suite 602, Omaha, NE. This shop does not have a website, but does have a Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/ImagiKnit-Yarn-Shop/263171999129. The owner of this shop moved her business to Omaha from Hastings, NE.
Wooly Mammoth Yarn Shop is located in Rockbrook Shopping Center at 108th and West Center Rd, Omaha, NE. This shop also does not have a website, but does have a Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Wooly-Mammoth-Yarn-Shop/150211221662670. The owners of this shop recently moved from Kearney, NE.
I’m sure the knitters in Hastings and Kearney miss having the shops in their towns, because they are both wonderful yarn shops and we are very lucky to have them here in Omaha.
Appealing, as well, are the yarns I purchased from both shops. (I couldn’t resist).
From Imagiknit, I purchased a skein of Smooshy fingering weight yarn from Dream in Color. The colorway is 2014 September and it just spoke to me of autumn. It has this delightful mix of fall colors: reds, purples, golds, greens in various shades. See the swatch below
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I also bought a skein of Fabjous Fibers Cheshire Cat in the colorway Off with Her Red – which blends perfectly with the Smooshy colors. I am using these yarns to knit a shawl using the Merlot pattern, which I purchased at Ravelry. This will be the topic of another post.
From Wooly Mammouth, I purchased 4 skeins of Addiction yarn by Claudia Hand Painted Yarns – also fingering weight yarn. I bought 2 skeins in the colorway Teal and 2 skeins in the colorway Prussian Soldiers. I plan to knit another two color shawl using these yarns, but I haven’t decided on a pattern yet. I like the Merlot pattern, so I may choose to do that again – but there are so, so many lovely shawl patterns in my queue…
If you are in Omaha: check out our new local yarn shops. 🙂
I have finished the legs on my SFS regulation socks and knitted the heel flap.
Then I did the heel turn – which required some juggling. I slipped one sock heel onto a another circular needle while I knit the heel turn and then repeated the process for the second sock. This seemed easier than trying to knit the two heel turns with the same circular needle at the same time.
The real challenge was to pick up the gusset stitches and at one point I had 4 circular needles in use. But I was successful in picking up the gusset stitches on both sides of the heel.
Now on to knitting the gusset and switching back to larger needles about halfway through.
