When I’m not knitting along happily on my Cheshire cat stole, I’m attempting to make a dent in the list of Hogswatch knitting. Last year, my mother got a pair of hand knit socks but my dad had to wait till this year as he failed to give me his foot measurements in a reasonable time.

But now I have them and I’m busy knitting away (mostly on my commute, the bus to work is ideal knitting time, providing I get a seat) on a pair of Rocking Strat’ socks [Ravelry] in The Knittery’s Merino Cashmere sock yarn (which is delightful to knit with!).

The only problem is the size of his feet! I’ve just turned the heel on the first sock [see picture, where it is modelling next to a cup of the nicest hot chocolate I’ve had in awhile! Thick enough to be eaten with a spoon. OM NOM NOM.) but until I did, people kept asking if I was knitting a sweater sleeve! I still have another 9 or so inches to go on the foot and then I must work through the post-sock haze and cast on for the second one, else Dad’ll be getting one sock and an IOU for Hogwatch this year.

Things that I discovered:
Mum and I pick up stitches differently.
It’s easy to get turned around when something is garter stitch.
Any time you start making something as a present, between the time it takes you to buy the wall and knit juuuuust enough that you’ve really started, someone else will have bought them the same thing in the mean time.
Blankets never end up being the same size as you intended.

This last one was actually a conscious decision. Mum and I decided that instead of being about 5×5 squares, it should be 5×7.5. Ack! Especially since it needs to be pretty much done by tomorrow, since mum and dad are flying over to visit the grandparents. We’re aiming for something that can go around her shoulders, rather than a lap blanket (and that, as a lovingly hand-crafted -just look at all the mistakes! Those really make it unique- it will be be appreciated even though she got given a (fleece) one just recently).

What you can’t really see in these pictures is that the light hits it pretty directionally, so it looks pretty cool from an angle. What you can see are the missing spots in the middle and on the side — those empty triangles on the edges that I need to fill in before they fly off. I’ve done four of eight since Sunday, so it should be possible as long as my wrists don’t give out.

So my current projects are herringbone socks (which look like a pretty good ayof using up the odds and ends of sock wool) and a blanket my mum and I are doing for my grandmother.

Since we don’t live together, we needed a pattern that could be put together easily enough and would be convenient to do on the go and we opted for a domino knit blanket. Step one: explaining what domino knitting was to my mum, how the squares go together and so on.

Domino knitting is pretty basic. You cast on X number of stitches, doing a double decrease (slip 1, k2tog, psso) in the middle of every other row. This pulls the knitting together in the middle, making a square witha spin running diagonally up the middle.

We’re doing garter stitch since it’s forgiving, marginally quicker and is nicely bouncy.

To save on sewing ends in, the diamonds are pretty big.

N= total number of stitches)

Odd rows: slip 1, knit across, purl the last stitch.
Even rows: slip1, knit to (n/2)-5, sl1-k2tog-psso, knit to -1, purl last stitch

We cast on 49 since it’s a nice, easy number to remember (7 squared!), which means
R1: sl1, k47,p1
R2: sl1, k22, sl1-k2tog-psso, k22, p1
R3: sl1, k45, p1
R4: sl1, k21, sl1-k2tog-psso, k21, p1
etc.

To join squares, the easiest way is to put two of them together like diamonds, pick up along the edge of one, and then up the edge of another, and start a new square.

Hopefully, difference in tension should be minimal (they were on the practise squares) and we’ll be able the bits we worked apart together without any problems.

Fingers crossed!