Everything In The Garden's...

... boozy.

It's been a while since I opened up the drinks cabinet of my imagination. I am glad to report that it hasn't been emptied by teenage thoughts in the interim, although I'm still not sure how that bottle of Advocaat came into being...  Mind you, doesn't the Snowball cocktail use that...?  And the Bombardino?  Hey, there's also the Fluffy Duck... 

(My mind: a dangerous place in which to get lost.)

But I digress.  Slightly.   What I'm really here to bring you is the 'Summer Vegetable Most-Unhealthy Use' prize of 2014:  Peapod Wine.

peapod wine socks by yours truly
bbknits superwash sock in 'seagrass'

Yes indeed, this fruity little number... erm vegetally little number... has been grown from the seed of home-made wine memories of my youth. My Dad's home-made wines, that is.  The fruit or vegetable mash in the big tub which would slowly make its way to demijohns with their blip-blooping airlocks and finally to their final (temporary) destination in corked bottles under the floor where it was dark and cool.  It must be pointed out that Dad never actually made peapod wine, and although his raspberry, his rhubarb, and above all his parsnip wine shall forever live in our slightly hazy memories, there's not really anything sock-worthy about tipsy root vegetables.

  

So for inspiration I went instead to the rest of his garden, where the potatoes (great for chips, crap for socks), lettuce (can you even have boozy salad?), and carrots (pff, if you're not having them with dinner, then the only other decent and proper use is in cake) were passed over for the tendrilly fragrant vines that would climb up the old bamboo frames and present us with pods full of pea-popping sweetness. Perfect!

So I started the socks just how the pea plant starts - at the bottom with tendrils of vine, dividing up into stalks, ready to climb...

I have to admit I'm fond of this peapod pattern...  I wasn't sure whether I should make the pods in a cabled fashion, but in the end some natty, and slightly modified, skps did the trick!

But you know?  I think I'm most fond of the calyx cuff.  It's amazing what some twist cables and a little contrasting purling can do!

But really, this is a raised glass to my Dad, in sock form!!

The Peapod Wine Sock is worked from a pea-shoot toe up, with a peapod pattern foot and leg, short-row heel, and a calyx cuff, and you can find the pattern page on Ravelry HERE.  (You don't need to be a member to view the page!)

Or, should you be so inclined, you can just jump straight to buying this little gem by clicking on the button below!  At only €3 ($3.94, £2.37, or ¥410) it's a tipsy garden delight without the weeds, or the hangover!

There Will Be Blood In The Water...

And The Sharks Will Come!

Oh yes, Iron Man aficionados, Whiplash is HERE!

dun dun duuuuuuuuuuuun

Jennifer at Holiday Yarns approached me a few months ago to create a pattern for her 'Heroes and Villains' sock club, telling me that the villain for May was in sad need of a designer.  Whiplash was mentioned and I had to say yes!

I started without knowing the colour of the yarn, but I knew that I wanted flashes of electricity to feature strongly in the design, as the Whiplash's Energy Whips were an enormous part of his sinister appeal and, let's face it, his ultimate evilness.

:: bzzzzzzzzzzz crackle :: © itgirl

But really, Whiplash isn't Whiplash without the stolen Iron Man Arc Reactor technology.  I decided to place this just at the intersection of the leg to the foot, surrounded by Energy Whip strikes!

as you can see, i can't work a decent yarn-over for toffee
thank goodness for my other testers who make this look AMAZING!

Jennifer worked up one test herself in the Whiplash colourway - an evil concoction of armour and electricity. I suspect it cackles in an evil manner when it's being knit up.  Evil and AWESOME!

© gwynivar

You have 2 options with this pattern - the first, and more importantly the reason for its existence, can be found HERE on the Holiday Yarns Sock Kit page.  Sock and yarn together in one deliciously heinous package.  (I feel a 'MWAHAHAHAHAHAH' needs to be inserted here...)

You can also buy the pattern by itself for only €3.50 from my pattern page on Ravelry (of which you need not be a member to partake) or, if you want an even quicker fix, you can click on the link below!  Simple in its villainousness!  (Totally a word.  That red wavy line only shows that spell-check is scared.)

© itgirl

Ovens and Banners and Sales, Oh My!

So, my trusty tabletop oven, a little thing of only 20 litres capacity and bought ten years ago in France, has given up the ghost.  Grilled its last tuna melt.  Roasted its last red pepper.  The lamp inside illuminated its final casserole when there were still two zeros in the year, and the glass stopped being completely see-through after The Great Baking Disaster of '11.  But it was loved. And now it is missed.  (Well, I say it's missed, but it's still sitting in the kitchen because I can't bring myself to throw it away.  Yet.  But once it has its replacement, then I will have a teary and fond farewell.)

And so we come to this:

Rather self-explanatory, really.  A third off everything, including the free stuff!  Oh yes!

But not everyone is enticed into partaking of a wonderful sale opportunity by mentioning ovens in the title, so I thought this could be better:

But given the dates for the sale, starting on Valentine's Day, it was perhaps a little too on the innuendo-ey side.  (Which, of course, was fully intended, but still...  Not everyone appreciates a little euphemism with their sales banner.)

A reference to the 'Say It With Flowers' slogan that originated with the UK flower delivery company 'Interflora', but may have been considered too obscure., even though Interflora were taken over by an American company.  (Sobs.)   But better safe than sorry when it comes to intelligible sales banners...

And lastly, a cute banner that suddenly made me think of margarine just as I was setting the final type.

I think I need to get out more...

p.s. click on any banner to take you to the pattern page!!

Lovely Bubbly!

Champagne - the most decadent of alcoholic beverages, and usually so expensive to prohibit it's consumption except in the most celebratory of circumstances.

So until you can get your neck around a glass (or indeed a bowl) of the good stuff, help yourself to some free bubbly socks instead!

champagne tower socks by yours truly

Champagne!  And what's more decadent than a glass of champagne, but many glasses of champagne, of course!

My Champagne Tower Socks are made from the top down, with a short-row heel, and were inspired by watching a 'how do they do that' TV programme that included the proper (or at least a successful) method of pouring champagne down a pyramid of champagne bowls!  I love the idea of champagne and froth carrying on down the sock in luxurious stripes - a gentle froth topping some over-the-top twisted rib - the epitome of luxurious ribbing in my eyes!

I did two versions, one a straight champagne and froth, the second a slightly more frivolous kir royale (crème de cassis, or blackcurrant liqueur and champagne),  

kir royale tower socks
araucania ranco solid in 'PT485'
kartopu kristal in 'white'

but the options are not few - there are a good many cocktails that include champagne that could inspire you to any number of colour combinations!

I think my ultimate favourite champagne cocktail is the Black Velvet - champagne and Guinness.  Delicious!

And how often do you get offered free champagne?  They're just one click away...  Either HERE, which goes straight to the Ravelry pattern page, or...

(It says buy now, but the button just takes you to the paypal download page, but you pay nothing!)