...or how to have a good excuse for playing around with balloons as an adult!

I just finished my new hat yesterday and thought I'd try out this trick I remember reading about somewhere. It allows you to block out stitch patterns on a hat, without getting folding lines at the sides (something that usually happens when laying it on a flat surface to dry after washing). 
Entrance.... 
The balloon!

And now the real fun begins! Wet the hat up until it's completely soaked in water!!!

After the wool is completely dry, fluff the badly treated pom-pom up a little bit with your fingers before taking the air out of the balloon.... And then admire your hard work: Bloomed stitches and a neatly blocked out hat without folding lines!!!!

The hat is worked in Shibui yarn (Maai) and will probably become a pattern soon...
The pom-pom was made by following my latest tutorial crush in this youtube video.
The balloon on the other hand has been thrown away quite unceremoniously...

Since I have knitted my first pair of socks one and a half years ago I never have been without a sock-project in my knitting bag. There is something utterly soothing and nice when knitting a small project like this.

It is portable: which means that I can throw it in a smallish (for my standards at least) handbag and take it out quickly at any time without having to cope with too much bulk (at a train station for example) and put it away equally quick (when said train is rolling in). 
It's perfect for traveling and can be very easy and repetitive if a simple pattern is chosen, so that I don't even bother taking a pattern with me most of the time.

There is always a sock WIP in my bag and when it's finished I immediately cast on another sock, to have it ready when needed.

When traveling by plane I tend to use bamboo DPNs (most companies don't allow metal needles on board), but I quickly remove them when I get off, since I find it annoying to knit with them. At least in the 2mm size they tend to be too flexible, don't let the yarn slide off as smoothly and my knitting tends to look much more irregular! 
So I quickly get quite irritated by them...

I have tried the carbon DPNs in the same size and found them great - but after some use the metal tips loosened up a little (at least it got like that on my pair) and the yarn snags at the connection of the tip to the carbon body, which is no fun at all. So I got back to my old, bended, cheap aluminium version and I am happily knitting my socks again.

My preferred construction is the toe-up version I am describing in this free recipe here. I find the fit of the gusseted heel perfect for my feet: so I play around with the texture or colouring of each project but keep the main construction the same. In my last 2 pairs I have purled the gusset stitches which not only looks nice but also has the added bonus of making stitch markers for the gusset stitches redundant, since one can see immediately how many of them have been worked already!

The last one and a half year I am exclusively wearing home-knitted socks and I really hate store bought ones with a vengeance! It is such a difference to wear a sock that just fits you perfectly (without having it slide into the shoe when walking and producing a huge wedge underneath one's foot) and they are so much warmer and dryer and just pure bliss and perfection when worn!!!!

So, after all this sock-talk I wan't to know: 
What do you think of knitted socks? 
And do you have a preferred method or pattern?

Hm? By looking at my latest 4 pairs I seem to notice a preference for grey toes (and heels)!?!

I finished the hat!!! You remember, my first project using my brand new gorgeous indy-yarn?

I really like how it came out, even with its slightly unconventional shape… the fabric is quite dense because of the weave-pattern (which makes it very warm thankfully) and this allows the hat to take on different forms: so it can be worn either as a béret style hat (when pushed down at the back)….

….or - my personal favorite - in a more hipster style (when just crunched a little bit at the top)! 
Pardon my slightly crazy eye in this pic… I don’t know what was *that* shocking… :)

I did the ribbing with a slipped stitch detail and with diagonal shaping to keep it less bulky at the neck (since I always look like an idiot with either bulky & scrunched ribbing in my neck area or the wider part of the hat starting too high up)!
I think that the biased shape gives also a nice “turbanesque” touch to the whole hat (and keeps the top of the hat slightly lower & near the nape… a good thing when you wear a tall hat and you don’t really dig the smurf-look).

The weave stitch seems to be a little complicated at first, but one gets into the rhythm soon enough…
…but the best thing is: it perfectly hides the jog when knitting in the round!!!!