Socks: October 2005 Archives
There you go -- the best proof that I had made good headway on this sock before the weekend started is that it was complete by 8 PM on Sunday night! Not only that, but in an attempt to stay focused, I even got the second of the pair cast on. Civ IV got a reasonable portion of my time this weekend (would have gotten more, but I'm experiencing a bit of bugginess and now figure I may have to wait until the first patch to play all the way through a game without crashing -- nonetheless, what I can play is quite good!), but the sock got a fair amount of attention, too. It even went with us on Saturday night to check out an awesome rib place -- Fat Willy's. It's no problem to wait an hour for a table when you've got a sock to work on -- and it provided a little amusement for the friendly waitstaff and other waiting patrons. Did the food turn out to be worth the wait? Most definitely.
When I first introduced this sock, AmyP asked what the color number information for this was. The sock yarn I am using is Regia Mini Ringel Color, Color # 5217 -- also known as "rio". If you want to take a look at the whole collection of Mini Ringels, you can click here. (That said, I've never ordered from the site, they just had nice pictures -- I'm not trying to endorse this online shop for your purchases -- if you've ordered from them successfully, let me know. I'm easily lured in by the phrase "free shipping").
Happy Hallowe'en Y'all!
I guess socks are like potato chips -- you can't eat/knit just one. At least for me these days. I seem to have a lot of lovely fall colored sock yarn and a somewhat chilly house. When combined with my personal difficulties with working two of exactly the same socks in a row, this means another pair of socks is going to come into the world. Even on US
1's, these are going to go fast. Almost 3 inches of sock top and I only spent a few hours on it this evening.
The colors make me think of fall leaves and mulled wine. Pumpkinsand the rich colors of Christmas ornaments. Bright but comforting and happy.
This has got to be a personal best for me. I started this sock last Thursday morning and I had all but the toe grafting finished Sunday night.
I guess I must like this sock yarn (Blue Moon Socks that Rock in Tiger's Eye), because I clearly didn't put this sock down very often over the weekend. I started with the Twisted German Cast On*, knit in 2 inches of K2P2 ribbing and then knit 5-3/4" straight stockinette before turning the heel. I used Lucy Neatby's dutch heel (from her Simply Splended pattern in Cool Socks, Warm Feet), which is a nice variation on the heel because the slipped stitches are on the inside, leaving a stockinette look heel. It's also a bit longer heel than I ususally do, but the outcome was still good. I knit 7" or so of instep before the toe decreases. Here I reverted back to my usual toe. And I still had a little bit of yarn left over.
I was going to cast on the second one tonight, and then realized I have a few other things that need to take precedence right now. Once those are done, I'll be right back to this. Can you believe that my husband actually told me that he might wear this sock... that he could see how it could go with a nice orange shirt? Clearly my plot to convert him to the brighter colored sock side is working.
* A couple of people pointed out that if my stitch mounts on this cast on turned out twisted, I am probably doing something not quite right. This could very well be true, but, you know, it works for me and gives me a result I'm happy with. I appreciate the heads' up, but I probably won't change my ways... I'd have to re-wire some basic finger motions and that's never something I do well. But for anyone else trying it, you probably should ignore my advice, other than to realize that it is a great cast on for socks!
I seem to have developed a mild case of startitis in the past week. Maybe it's just the cool weather in Chicago and watching the leaves fall from the trees and knowing that the real chill will be coming soon. I just can't help myself. I had to start another pair of socks for my winder wardrobe. Do you remember this yarn
? I've been petting it on a regular basis since I got it well over a year ago. I finally got tired of petting and decided that it was time to skein it up and move those socks from yarn stash to my sock drawer.
This picture marks the sum total of my sock-ly accomplishments yesterday. I'm knitting these socks on size 1 needles, and I'm getting 8 stitches/inch in the stockinette portion of the sock. This yarn is a nice, thick, soft merino yarn, so I chose to go down one needle size from where I might have been tempted to start to help maximize durability, even though it means that the overall fabric is a little denser. For this sock, I'm going back to my old sock knitting ways -- 64 stitches cast on using the Twisted German Cast On, followed by 2 inches of K2P2 ribbing and then 6" of leg, a Dutch heel, and straight ol' stockinette down to the toe. Since the pattern the yarn makes is so lovely, I don't think it requires any special knitting to dress it up.
And just a little pointer for those of you who haven't experimented with the Twisted German Cast On -- my recommendation is that you do the first round of stitches after the cast-on in all knit stitches. The "twisted" part refers to the fact that the stitches end up twisted on the needle after you cast them on. It's a real pain to deal with purl stitches on that first row, and you can't tell the difference anyway, so you can save yourself a little pain and suffering just by knitting that first row all the way around.
Happy fall socks to everyone!
P.S link to Twisted German Cast On is fixed now.
I've been waiting to use that terrible pun my entire vacation. In fact, I finished my Opal Rodeo socks just in time to go up to the top of Haleakala (where it gets quite chilly, since it is over 10,000 ft elevation) and then left them in our bungalow. How sad. At least I brought the pair I was working on for John, so I had something to knit on on our way down the mou ntain (it was dark and there wasn't much to see). It was going to be my only shot of actual knitted garment in the wilds of Maui, complete with bad pun. Instead, you get the bad pun and the table on my back porch. And a picture or two of Haleakala later in the week.
They did get worn before the shoot (on the airplane ride home... now that I make my own socks, I can't get on an airplane without wearing a pair of nice wool socks... airplanes are always so chilly) but they're not too much the worse for wear. They are based on the Timberline Toes socks from Lucy Neatby's Cool Socks Warm Feet (you should feel sorry for this poor book -- I've taken it with me everywhere and have not been gentle with it -- that just tells you how wonderful a sock knitting reference it is). They have a tubular cast-on top and garter stitch short-row heels. The toes are just in garter stitch. They are identical twins except for the heels, which are different because I just started from the opposite end of the ball from the main yarn and didn't want to waste any yarn -- the pattern repeat is pretty long in these socks and I wanted to make sure that the main body of the socks matched. So fraternal heels it was.
So I did better on this trip than I thought I would. On pair of socks finished and the first of a second pair almost finished. I did just a little bit of knitting on my handspun scarf, and none on the other lace scarf... just too much brain activity required for lace knitting. And Maui is one of those places where you don't want to miss the scenery while you're knitting on something complicated.
This sock did make me realize one thing. I love trying new things with socks, but I also don't have the patience for sock knitting that I can't do from memory. I have a feeling it's going to be back to my old standard twisted German cast-on, dutch or afterthought heel and regular stockinette toe from here on out...
