Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Sockstandard

09gewurzsocks

I posted my Quick sock formula on the web ages ago and I still use the same principle to make a sock pattern if I have non-standard sock yarn.

However, for most socks in standard 4ply sock yarn I have standard pattern scribbled on to a tiny note in my knitting bag that recently disintegrated. To not loose that precious pattern and also share it with the world, I decided to post it here.

Yarn: any standard 4-ply superwash sock yarn, I quite like Regia 4-ply
Gauge: should be 30sts x 42r for 10x10cm / 4x4inch
Needles: either 2.0mm (if you knit loosely like me) or 2.5mm DPNs
Size: 5.5UK / 38-39 EUR (works for 36-41 I would say, you just need to make the foot bit longer)

Cast on 60sts. (I work with 4 needles, so 20sts on each needle)
K1 p1 for 20 rows.
Knit until piece measures 17cm from beginning (or longer if you want longer socks).

Now it is time for the heel.
Redistribute the stitches so that you have: 15/30/15sts on the needle.
The first needle (with 15sts) is needle 1, the needle with 30sts is needle 2 and the last needle (with 15sts again) is needle 3. See chart.

socks

Knit all stitches on needle 1.
The heel will be worked over the stitches on needle 2. To shape the heel we will use short rows, if you are not familiar with working short rows you can watch this video:
http://www.knittinghelp.com/videos/advanced-techniques
watch: short row with wrap. They explain it better than I can.

socks2

To make the heel knit the stitches on needle 2 until there is only one stitch left on the needle. Turn the knitting and wrap the last stitch as learnt from the video or the way you have always done it. Up to you.
Now purl the stitches on the needle until you reach the last one. Turn and wrap this stitch.
Now knit back, but this time stop 2 stitches before the end and wrap the one before the last one (the last one has already been wrapped, so you can just ignore it for now).
Purl your way back and wrap the stitch before the last one on the other side.
Now knit all but the last 3 stitches, wrap the unwrapped one of the three.
And so on, until you have 8 stitches wrapped on either side (with 14 unwrapped stitches inbetween), ending with a purl row.

Now knit until you reach the first wrapped stitch (not the first one you wrapped but the first one of the wrapped stitches on the left side that you reach knitting). Hide the wrap by knitting it together with the stitch as shown in the video. Now turn the knitting and slip the stitch without purling it (the stitch that you just created by knitting together wrap and stitch). Now purl until you reach a wrapped stitch on the other side. Hide the wrap as explained in the video (by purling it together with the stitch), turn work and slip the stitch. Now knit until you reach a wrapped stitch and so on.

When all wraps have been hidden you should be at the beginning of needle 2. Now knit all the stitches on needle 2 and 3 and then continue knitting round, knitting all stitches on all needles.

Knit until the foot measures 17.5cm, measured from the heel (see very small photo). This length is for 5.5UK, adjust for smaller or larger sizes by knitting less or more.

measure

Now start the decreases.
A decrease row works as follows:
Needle 1: knit until there are only 3 stitches left. K2tog, k1.
Needle 2: K1, SSK, knit until 3 left, k2tog, k1.
Needle 3: k1, SSK, knit to end of needle.
See chart for a visualisation.

socks3

Now that you know how to do a decrease row, here is how the decreases will go:
1 decrease row
3 rows without decreases
1 decrease row
2 rows without decreases
1 decrease row
1 row without decreases
1 decrease row
1 row without decreases
1 decrease row
1 row without decreases
5 decrease rows

There should be 5 stitches left each on needles 1 and 3 and 10 on needle 2.
Knit needle 1.
Now combine the stitches from needle 3 and 1 on to one needle. Now you should have only two needles, with 10 stitches each.

To finish the sock, join the two sides using kitchener stitch, a great tutorial can be found here.

Be good and weave in your ends immediately.
That's it. Socks done! :-)

World map pillow

Thinking about this years Christmas presents, I found photos of one of last years presents. It is a world map/UK map stitched on a pillow cover. Then little colourful dots will mark the placer where the owner has been!

world1

world2

Thursday, November 3, 2011

Beetroot cake

I don't like beetroot. For all of you who know me that might not be a surprise, since I'm a fussy eater. However, the lovely vegbox company Abel&Cole only allows you to ban up to 20 fruits/vegetables (or categories, like cabbage) which they then will not put in the box.
I have been told that you can call them and request more items to be banned, but I'm a bit embarrassed about how many things I don't like so I'd rather not do that.

So, that's how some beetroot came into my possession. With it came a recipe that claimed to convert everyone to like beetroot (at least in the form of that particular cake).
It is a chioggia beetroot that's why at has the lovely stripes and isn't very red.
Pretty, isn't it?

beetroot

And it resulted in this cake:
beetroot cake

And I have to say it DID convert me. I still only like beetroot in the cake, but this cake is absolutely amazing. Just don't tell people it contains beetroot, otherwise they will refuse to eat it.


I just got more beetroot in my vegbox this morning (the dark red variety), so I'll post a picture of a red beetroot cake if I get round to making one.

Wednesday, November 2, 2011

Frankfurter Kranz

Another cake:

frankfurter

This is called "Frankfurter Kranz" and is a typical regional speciality in Germany.

Thursday, October 20, 2011

Stencil cake

And another cake photo. I found this in my cake photo folder and I quite like it (I made this cake loooong ago).
It is a hazelnut cake a chocolate stencil of Connor Oberst, the singer of the band Bright Eyes.
For the stencil I printed the image, transferred it to baking paper and then used a scalpel to cut a stencil out of the baking paper. As far as I remember, I used a few drops of water to loosely stick it to the iced cake and then painted the cutouts with dark chocolate.

09gebcorny01

Sunday, October 16, 2011

Tetris cake

And another birthday cake for a housemate:
Tetris cake!

tetris

The tape strips mark the arena, our housemate had to play it before the cake was eaten!

Monday, October 10, 2011

Nyan cat cake

Right, I really need to catch up. I have made so many cakes since the last post and I even managed to get them from the camera to the computer (generally photos stay on my camera for a while until they make it into the computer). So why are there no photos of cakes then you might ask?
Well. I actually have prepared some cakey posts (by uploading the pictures and adding them), but they are lacking witty descriptions. Since no witty descriptions have magically appeared since the last post (which was in August...), I have now decided to just post them. I am sure most of you are here for the pictures anyway. You are probably not even reading this but instead drooling over the finally posted cake pictures.

One of my housemates loves internet-cat-memes. A particularly nice one is nyancat.
So for his birthday I made a nyancat cake with help of another housemate.

nyancat

The body is made out of normal cake mixture and filled with custard buttercream and then coated with marzipan. The legs and head are chocolate cake with chocolate custard buttercream iced with dark chocolate. The tail is made of A LOT of biscuit.

Tuesday, August 16, 2011

Lehmus lace scarf

Remember this yarn?

I DID knit a lace scarf with it in the end:
lacescarf

I actually finished it last year, but forgot to blog about it. The pattern is called "Lehmus"

It is a nice knit and well written. With the yarn I used it was a fairly quick knit.

Saturday, July 30, 2011

Garden produce

It has been a while since I posted anything and while I'm digging through my photos to see which projects I forgot to upload, I'll show you a picture of what our garden produced this week.

garden

Courgettes, purple beans and runner beans. I chopped them, fried them and made a salad but forgot to take a picture of it.

Monday, January 10, 2011

Harvey


I made this rabbit based on a character from the German computer game "Edna bricht aus". He is called Harvey.