To all of you who left your kind comments on John's new socks or congratulated John on his new job, both John and I would like to extend our thanks. We are very excited and relieved that he was able to find something new so quickly. To those of you out there with spouses and partners who are looking for something, you are in our thoughts. We understand completely what it feels like and we are both really hoping that things will start to get back on track for many people soon.
I've been thinking about small projects lately. In part because small projects have that rapid gratification aspect that the product knitter that I am really loves, but also in part because I have a small person running around and it's such a treat to see her eyes light up when she's presented with a new toy or a new pair of socks. I know she doesn't really understand what it means to me to make her things by hand, but when I watch her get excited about a new hand made gift, I like to think that she can sense the love that went into the project, even if it was only a little project.
I like to think of these socks as my "Reverse Claudia" pattern -- they are modeled on Claudia's default sock design. The "reverse" part comes from the fact that they are knit toe up instead of top down. But they are a fundamentally similar sock* with a short row heel and picot cuff. They make a sweet baby sock. The socks themselves are knit on 2.25 mm dpns using Trekking XXL colorway 108. As with the last pair of socks I made for Z, just above the ankle there is a decreased area to help give her better fit and help the socks stay on. I started with 16 stitches and increased up to 40, which makes for a good fit for her right now.
It was hard to get her to slow down for very long once I put the socks on, but John was able to get her it sit for a few seconds so that I could get a model shot. They fit like a glove -- or a sock -- but there's still plenty of stretch in them so I suspect that we will make it through the winter.* Those of you who are familiar with Claudia's pattern will know that both her heels and toes are knit with shortrows. I will admit that i've never switched to a short row toe because the standard 4 point increase toe works just fine for me and because the discovery of the magic cast on for toe up socks pretty much eliminated my desire to experiment with short row toes and grafting.
Those socks are really perfect, and a great idea to decrease at ankles and then increase for fat baby legs. My daughter, now 40, remembers me working on a doll for her when she was about the age of Z. She says it is one of her happy memories, and she still has the doll which now has only one arm. Joanna
A belated congrats to your hubby for the acquired job. And a hooray for baby socks and knitting for a happy toddler. That's a cute picture, although Z looks puzzled on why she had to sit still and what's with flaunting her gams! (hee hee)
For my second birthday, my mom made me a Raggedy Ann and Andy. She put her initials on each one, and I used to pull off the clothes to look at the initials. I am 39 and still have them. Trust me, Z knows.
the socks are especially sweet on miss Z! and congrats to john on the new job.
That reverse engineering is very cool.