bunny mask

My DS2 completed his first knitting project -- a bunny mask -- a couple of weeks ago. I'm really proud of how well he did.

He's going to wear the mask during a charity online video-game-playing marathon just after the first of next year. As I understand it, for the game he's going to be playing, the main character pretends to be a rabbit for a while. He's going to don the mask for that section of the game.

edited to add link: Speed Demos Charity Marathon, January 6 - 11, 2011

The hat is a combination of two different patterns: a panda ski mask pattern for the main part of the hat -- with changes to the nose and mouth to make it more bunny like -- and a bunny ears pattern for the ears. (I scouted the patterns for him.)

I didn't tell him how difficult the pattern was until he was finished. ;)

Diamond Spiral Socks

The August 2010 voluntary challenge in Ravelry's Sock Knitters Anonymous group is to finish the second sock of a pair. I had knitted one of each of the socks at the right. Both are based on the Diamond Spiral pattern from Stanfield and Griffiths’s Encyclopedia of Knitting. But, I couldn't figure out which of the two uses of the pattern I liked better. Then, it finally dawned on me that I could make both.

While reading another thread in the same Ravelry group, I came across a new (to me) heel, the yo-yo (German Jo-Jo heel). There is a nice description of the heel at tessknits.com and also with Silke Pieper's Farnkrautsocken. I've grown to love the heel!

So, I frogged half of the sock with the zig-zag front and reworked it with a yo-yo heel. The pattern is now in Ravelry under the name Twin Diamond Spiral Socks.

Now, another thing about me is that I often run out of yarn. This was the case here. I had only 2 skeins of Stroll Inca Gold Tweed -- which just wouldn't make it for 4 socks -- even with my narrow feet.

So, the cuffs for both socks are now Stroll Navy Tweed (which I had less than a skein left of). I still didn't have enough Inca Gold to work 2 more socks. So, the toe for the second pair of socks is also Stroll Navy Tweed. This pattern is in Ravelry under the name Diamond Twin Spiral Socks. Its cuff has 2 rows of eyelets instead of just the 1. To keep the cuff from flaring out, there are decreases in the middle of the cuff.

The pdfs can be downloaded directly from these links:
Diamond Twin Spiral Socks
and
Twin Diamond Spiral Socks.