Socks: November 2003 Archives

One Bearfoot Pheasant Sock

It was a lovely weekend for me. Weather wasn't so lovely (lots and lots of rain) but at least it was warm. The best part of the weekend was Saturday. The friend who taught me how to knit was in town. This year, for her birthday, I decided to put my knitting skills in gear and knit her a pair of socks. They weren't completed for her visit, but I did get to make sure that the first one was shaped correctly. She seemed pretty excited about having her first pair of handknit socks, so, of course, I got psyched to at least finish the first one.I completed the sock late Saturday night and cast the next one on this morning. I'm betting that her October birthday present will make it to her by Christmas. Much better than my usual record.

What was really fun was letting her do a little stash diving in my stash. Judy, mistress of the worlds most complicated Fair Isle and Intarsia sweaters had never knit herself a simple scarf! So I loaned her a pair of my straight needles and gave her some Kitty railroad yarn in jewel blues, greens and pinks. It was fun to share something with the person who got me into the whole knitting experience. Casting on a second time, dealing with dropped stitches, she knows these things are part of knitting. It's a lot of fun to knit with someone who's not afraid of mistakes. And by the time she gets back to Cincinnati I'm betting she's going to have a brand new very pretty scarf.

Meanwhile, I'm pretty smitten with the Bearfoot. It's a little more expensive than your average sock yarn, but it's a soft and wonderful yarn. If you know someone special who needs a pair of socks, this is the stuff to do them in.

I was busy with a few other things this weekend, and made a firm resolution to get back to Mom's sweater. Amazing how an impending visit can get me inspired about a project.

Nifty Stripes

I was a little bit project promiscuous over the weekend. I flitted from the sweater, to a scarf, to these socks, thought about a headband for my husband, browsed some of my knitting books, and then came back to the sweater. When I needed some thinking time for the sweater, the sock popped back in my hand.

Normally I wouldn't bother putting up pictures of the front and back of a sock, but I thought the way these were striping was pretty neat. I was expecting some pooling from this yarn, but I didn't expect the lovely stripes that gently spiraled down the sock. Anyone else have this experience with the Mountain Colors Bearfoot? I'm knitting about 7.5 stitches/inch and have 64 sitches around.

Because I was doing the same 'ol same 'ol with the body of the sock, I wanted to try something new with the heel flap: the eye of partridge stitch. I found help with this online at Mare's site. I did the second variation exactly as Mare described with the two knit stitches at the end. The resulting fabric can be seen in the left-hand picture. Nifty, eh? I think it's a little more showy looking than the standard stitch.

The someday owner of these socks will be in Chicago this weekend, so now I have a little more motivation to get finished. I'd at least like to get one sock done so I can be sure my measurements are good.

I think I've decided to rip on the BullsEye. I like the suggestion of repeating it on smaller needles. I think that will probably do the trick. Not looking forward to ripping out that mohair. I wish now I'd put in a lifeline at the base, just in case. Ah well. I can still do it after the fact -- it'll just take me a little longer.

Just a Little Croc'ing

Cue up "Crocodile Rock". Friday night saw the completion of my Crocs. Here they are in their finished glory. They're fraternal, but its not something you notice too much given the randomness of the pattern.

Reptile Feet

The only place these socks Croc'd in was the inch or so after the heel gusset. I suspect if I'd done the socks a little wider or a little narrower I'd have seen Croc'ing all the way. I cast on 64 stitches and got about 8 stitches/inch and was using US 1s.

Croc'd A Little

Here's a close up of the area that Croc'd. I thought about trying some more of this yarn, but there's a lot of sock yarn out there and life's too short to knit too many pairs of socks that don't leave me excited. I've got enough left for a child-sized pair of socks so maybe someday I'll go back and try again.

On Saturday I got together with Julie. I got to see her new Lily bag up close. Both the one on her website and another that will be revealed later. It's a lovely pattern.

I did a lot of swatching while we were together. The results will be revealed as the week progresses, but since the Crocs were finished, the first thing I tried out was the Mountain Colors Bearfoot yarn I bought last weekend. Here's a better shot of the skein. The colorway is "Pheasant".

Mountain Colors Bearfoot Pheasant

My folks have the occasional pheasant wandering through their backyard. This yarn is a little darker than in the picture, and very evocative of the bird and its colors. Bearfoot is a superwash wool, mohair, nylong blend and is just about the softest sock yarn that has ever run through my fingers. These socks are for the dear friend who taught me how to knit. She's a pediatrician and a dancer and a researcher and a knitter (amongst other things) and spends a lot of time on her feet. I figured soft warm socks would work out as a nice birthday gift. Of course, she won't get them until Christmas... but she understands that it's hard to put deadlines on knitting projects.

While I was sitting their swatching and watching Julie work on her second Lily, I started to think about a felted design that I've had floating around in my brain and on paper for a while. Initially I'd wanted to do it for Knitty, but then I decided that I'd have more fun doing the project and documenting it on my blog. I had the yarn skeined up. I had my pattern mostly written out and I'd figured out how I was going to deal with a few design elements.

Why haven't I knitted it then? Not sure. Lately I don't feel like I can be monogamous with any one project. There's so much that I want to do and try that it's distracting me from accomplishing much. That's an ongoing theme in my life: an embarrassment of riches that leads to an inability to progress. Just ask my PhD advisor...

So when I got home from being inspired by Julie, I wandered into my stash room. Of course, all my unfinished projects had something to say... Mom's sweater looked at me forlornly, Dad's Lo Tech begged for some acknowledgement, the little cabled sock that I started for John reminded me that it's only cold for a little while, and half a dozen skeins that haven't even been cast on reminded me how neglected they were feeling. And then there were these two skeins:

Charcoal and Grey Beginnings

These two skeins represented my own creativity and somehow, at that moment, it seemed pretty terrible that I was shoving my own ideas aside for other peoples. Why was I afraid of bringing my idea into being?

I don't have an answer for that question, but combined with watching Julie's Lily, it got me motivated. This week I am going to work on my own design. Here's the start of the project I'm calling "Chicago":

Invisible Cast On

I know.. not much to see yet. This is just the invisible cast on for the bottom. More and better to come.

It's a slow knitting week for me. I forgot to show my Croc sock completion from the weekend, so here it is now.

Apparently Croc'ing is very stitch number dependent. Around the toe and heel the yarn Croc'd, everywhere else, nada. At least the second sock is turning out the same way. Some recent posts on the OpalChatters list suggest that where you start in the ball has something to do with Croc'ing or not Croc'ing. I tend to believe it has more to do with gauge and number of stitches around. Could be both. Which end of the skein you start from is also believed to have an effect. Some knitters get a Croc'd sock and an un-Croc'd sock from the same skein.

I just wish they'd Croc'd because they would have been more interesting to knit. But once they're both knit up, I'll enjoy them either way. And I've got more Opal to play with. Should my next socks be Brasil? Or Southwest? Or that fabulous Bearfoot? Hmm...

I got two lovely books in the mail today: The Twisted Sisters Sock Workbook and Viking Patterns for Knitting, both from KnitPicks, both on sale. I'm looking forward to actually reading the Lavold book since there is so much interesting information in it.

My first copy of Interweave Knits showed up in the mail today, too. I'm intrigued by the Priscilla Gibson-Roberts Eastern European Footlets and the article on making gloves. Unusually enough for me, I do not like the Cable-Chic sweater in Silk Garden at all (I'm a Silk Garden junkie) -- I think it would look terrible except on the skinniest of people and at least in the pictures, that colorway is not very attractive. But that's just my opinion. Certainly I would have left out this sweater in preference to Annie Modesitt's lovely Morris Fern cardigan. It's not something I could wear colorwise but I still think it's gorgeous and wearable.