building blocks | Lilacs and Wool

I have been busy this last week, …making things for myself! It’s kind of a nice change since what felt like a forever of Xmas gift knits. I tried to make socks – three times. Since I knit my laptop sleeve, I turned two heels on it for the detail at the end. It was way easier than I thought it’d be. I’ve tried knitting socks before, and as much as I theoretically understood the concept of how heels should be turned, what I had in my brain never really lined up with what my yarn was doing. Since the directions came from my One Skein Wonders book, I thought following a sock pattern from the book would be equally easy. And it was. I turned heels with no problem! Then immediately lost steam on the rest of the sock. Was not interested in finishing it, and did not want to knit a second one. So I tried another pattern. Same thing. Then I thought maybe one of the ‘sideways‘ sock patterns would be nice, since they’re knit lengthwise, and you don’t have to turn a heel. But there was way more calculating involved than I wanted to do, especially if I would have to repeat the whole process for a second sock. So maybe sometime I’ll try the two socks at once deal, but until then, I just whipped up a cowl.

So this yarn, is Knit Picks Felici in Building Blocks. I’ve wanted some self-striping yarn for forever. But once I got it, I immediately got knitter’s block about what to use it for. I tried it for mittens, but I didn’t like the regular-ness of the stripes. It looked more like I had just used stripes of different colored yarn, which wasn’t the effect I was going for. I didn’t really want a striped hat, so that was out. Then the sock thing failed. Next I learned that the Felici line is apparently discontinued by knitpicks, so I can’t order more of it. So I decided to just whip up a cowl to use up the 2 skeins I have.