Socks: September 2006 Archives
Well, y'all knew it would be impossible for me not to start another pair of socks. It was more a question of "which yarn?" and "what pattern?" than anything else. Corrine and Karen and ks all suggested that they would like to see some of my Sock Hop yarn on the needles. And as I got to thinking about it, it did seem like a good idea.
But that left me with a decision to make about a pattern. Sock Hop (which you can find at Crown Mountain Farms website) is a 100% superwash merino handspun sock yarn. It has lovely marled stripes that result from the barberpoling that happens when the yarn is plied. Whatever I decided to do had to be compatible with stripes. And this yarn is handspun. Somehow, it didn't seem right just to knit my standard sock with handspun -- even if it wasn't my handspun. So I pulled out my Barbara Walker pattern books and began to survey them for patterns which create a bias in one direction or the other that might create an interesting effect with the striping.
With the help of some lovely afternoon sun and a good latte I found a pattern that I liked, that I thought fit the scale of a sock. It combines alternating bias directions with a little bit of lace. Something I like because sometimes the techniques used to create the bias lead to a stiff fabric, and socks, in my book, aren't meant to be too stiff. I selected the Traveling Vine pattern from the first Treasury, converted it to chart form and knit a big ol' swatch out of Cascade 220 just to make sure that I'd interpreted the pattern instructions correctly. Then it was time to cast on my Sock Hop. So far I've completed the cuff and 1 full pattern interval. I'm hoping the texture will become more apparent when I've gotten farther, but I can already see the nice biasing effect in the stripes. The first repeat got me almost exactly an inch, so I've got at least 5 more of these to go.
I know that those of you hoping I would knit with my Sock Hop yarn were probably hoping that I would knit with my lovely orange "Hang on Sloopy". I guess I am not yet ready to experiment with that yarn yet. Since I love it so much, I'd like to play with a few of these biasing patterns to see if I can find just the perfect thing. I will say that I do like knitting with the Sock Hop yarn I bought a great deal. It is soft and smooth and has a nice cushiony feel. It is not spun completely consistently throughout, and there is no mistaking it for millspun yarn. But I think that is part of the charm of it. Not only does the color change, but there are subtle changes in texture as well. It adds an extra dimension to the yarn. And I find this particular colorway very soothing. Like a memory of spring. A nice thing to have in my hands as the leaves fall from the trees and I am confronted with the fact that cold weather will soon be here.
One of the nice things about having a "work from home" day is that I can do this:
Yep, I can put on my just completed new pair of socks and snap a picture with my feet up on my own desk. Lest you worry that I am on my way towards slacker-hood, this interlude didn't last long because I had plenty of other things to do. Aside from taking a break to make myself a latte, working from home isn't that much different than working at work, except that I don't have to dress up quite as much and there are fewer distractions so that I can do some programming.
These socks are just about as simple as they get. The yarn is Blue Moon Fiber Arts Socks that Rock, medium weight in "Crazy Lace Agate" (you can find out some encyclopaedic information about the stone here and some good pictures of the stones here -- I like the symbolism of the stone, which, apparently is a symbol of the love of good and it helps to banish fear, which I like to think are also qualities that handknit socks can embody). I cast on 52 stitches and made a picot edge (which I rather like, but may be too lazy to make on every sock) for the cuff. I switched from size 0 needles to size 2 needles on the row in the picot where the K2Tog YO is done. Then I knit about 7 inches down the leg, put in a short row heel using half the stitches and worked my way down to the toe. A pretty standard sock for me, and they knit up in no time because of the diameter of the yarn. I could really get to like this medium weight STR.
Not surprisingly, these guys are fraternal. The sock tops are at least fairly close in terms of the general striping pattern, but something changed a little bit on the instep of the second sock. No matter, they still make me happy. They kept my feet nice and warm on Friday and they had no problems staying up all day long. I had a lot of yarn left over. I could easily have added an extra inch to the top of each sock or to the instep. So I suspect one skein would be enough to cover moderate-sized man feet if simple stockinette was used.
Now I have this great moment of indecision where I am not quite sure what socks to do next. Maybe my handspun Sloopy? Maybe another pair for John? So many options!
A lovely evening with wine well matched to dinner courses leaves me a bit tipsy and not so good at the writing (who would ever think that a vegetarian restaurant could be so luscious and upscale? If you come to Chicago and enjoy your vegetables, Green Zebra is a must. Definitely try their tasting menu). But I thought I would show you an idea that I think is progressing well.
How progresses the socks? Slowly but surely. I haven't had a lot of long car trips lately, so my socks are languishing a bit. But with a trip to Kauai coming up soon, I'm anticipating a lot of travel time to be filled with knitting. Not just on the flight there, but as we drive around the island. I'm getting mighty darn good at knitting without looking at what I am knitting when it comes to kntting socks in the round. A good part of the top of the second sock was knit in the dark on the way back from Michigan. I thought I was going to get two fairly evenly striped socks out of this skein, but as I work my way down the foot of the second sock, I see the stripes beginning to widen. Ah well, STR is nothing if not unpredictable. I have no doubt that I will enjoy them no matter how the striping works out.
The nifty thing here is the sock blockers. I ordered a set of these from Chappy's Fiber Arts and Crafts on Ebay. I found out about them from Wendy. Wendy always finds the best stuff and she started talking about these sock blockers just about the time that I started being interested in having a better way to show off my hand knit socks. These took a little while to get to me (I suspect that they are made after the order is placed), but I think they were worth the wait. This pair is meant to block a woman's medium sized sock, but I suspect that I will eventually be investing in the smaller and larger size as well.
These socks are for me. I know I said I wouldn't start any more socks for myself until I finished the socks for the people in my family, but, I decided that it was a lot easier to try out a new technique and determine gauge on a simple sock than on the more complicated sock I was planning for my aunt. Besides, I needed a plain stockinette sock that could travel with me in my purse for those moments when I needed to keep my hands busy.
First off, I love this colorway. The sock yarn is Blue Moon Socks that Rock (medium weight) in a color way called "Crazy Lace Agate". It's an incredible collection of blues, greys, oranges and yellows. The striping that occured was not really planned. It's just what works out with this particular skein when you cast on 52 stitches and knit in the round. For the record, I'm getting abotu 6.75 stitches and 10 rows to the inch on US size 2 needles (2.75 mm). So these socks are also a pretty fast knit.
What's the new technique? How about that picot edge? Pretty nifty, eh? Like most good ideas, I stole this one from another blogger whose sock instincts I respect a great deal. I'd never tried it before because I thought it would be hard and/or fussy. And, in truth, this edging is a bit more fussy than my usual twisted German cast-on. But the polished look it creates is more than worth it. If you want a description of how a picot edge is done, you can click here. I did mine slightly differently (I used a provisional cast on to start with, and after "turning the edge" I picked out the provisional cast on, transferred the stitches to a second set of double pointed needles, and then knit one stitch from each needle as I went around the circle).
Not only is all the extra effort worth it, but this experiment proved to me that it was going to be the perfect sock top for my aunt's socks, which are also now very much in progress and which I am very happy with. Sometimes I just can't start a new design unless I know exactly what elements I want to put together. For my aunt's socks, I knew exactly what I wanted for the body of the sock, but couldn't come up with the right top. Now that I have the top, the first of my aunt's socks is well on it's way to completion.
On a completely different note, I've finally gone and gotten myself involved in a swap! I have to be completely honest, I am not very good at swaps that involve creating something. My schedule is unpredictable, and I would hate to let someone else down because I couldn't get something knitted on time. But this swap is really perfect. The Spinning Roving Swap has two categories. The Rebel Rover category (the one I signed up for) involves swapping at least 4 ounces of roving and a pattern that can be worked in handspun yarn. If you don't spin yet (but want to) the second category is just for you: Virgin Spindlers will be trading a couple ounces of roving, a drop spindle and a pattern. I think they are taking sign ups until midnight tomorrow night (September 1st) so there is still time to get in on the action if you are so inclined. ! A big thanks to Christina and CJ for putting this project together. We're supposed to get our swap partners early next week. I'd have a blast picking out fiber for someone who reads my blog!
