Hail to One Victor

I'm incredibly late getting to the Family Sock Challenge update this week -- and there's been a lot of activity and I haven't had time this week to update my lists completely. So I'm going to hold off until Monday.

I will, however, not end the week without posting a sock project that I am working on -- socks and spinning are about all I've gotten to this week.

The First of Two Victors: One Sock in Lorna's Laces UMich

This sock is partly to blame for my not being able to get up-to-date on Sock Challenge goings on. I actually knit a short row toe, thought it was just about the most dreadful (not in a good way this time) thing I'd knit in a long time and ripped it out and finished the sock with my regular toe. I'm not sure why the heel looks more or less okay while the toe looked so awful, but it did. I gave it a while to sit while I thought about it, but the more I looked at it, the uglier it got. I was so proud of myself that I didn't get at all distraught about ripping out 36 stitches worth of grafting the toe to the bottom of the sock.

I'm beginning to think that short row heels and toes work best when your sock fabric density is quite tight or you're working with a yarn that's squooshy and likes to fill in the gaps. I'm knitting these socks on US 1's and I could probably go down a needle size and still get a nice result. Also, while I think Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock is soft and foot-friendly, I don't consider it to be all that thick and squooshy. Of course, it could also just be something about my technique with those yarn over wraps or how tight I pull my yarn or some wierd artifact of the fact that I knit continental style.

Normally, I wouldn't draw attention to a ball of yarn (although I do want to mention that immediately after sewing in the ends of the first sock I cast on for the second one), but tonight I did a little experiment with the one you see here. You see, I've been reading Alden Amos Big Book of Handspinning">Big Book of Handspinning (something I'll be reviewing soon) and he talks about making a center pull ball twice when winding a ball from swift to ball winder. The first time you wind the ball, the natural resistance of the swift means that you get a very tight compressed ball on your ball winder. If you take that center thread after you've made the first ball and re-wind a second time you get a much looser ball that's easier to knit with (because the fiber isn't compressed so tightly) and is a little more yarn friendly since the yarn is under a lot less tension (which is generally a good idea... it's better for yarn to be as relaxed as it can when you're storing it , which is why I don't take my yarn out of the skein configuration until I know I'm going to use it). The ball in the picture was subjected to the double winding procedure. And, the advice is good advice. I have a nice loose center pull ball, which allows the yarn to flow more easily as I work on the second sock.