Dragon Socks: March 2006 Archives
Thank goodness for better weather in Chicago this weekend! As a result, I got some really nice pictures of the first finished "down-scaled" dragon scale sock. While I might be willing to suffer for my handknits, my male sock model isn't willing to head outdoors when it's cold.
This is the completed sock. It, like the previous dragon scale sock, has a short-row heel and a grafted toe. The leg of the sock is about 6" tall, and has a garter stitch cuff. The cuff helps to stabilize the top (otherwise they would probably roll too much for a guy) and to keep the opening stretchier. I think this picture with the sock being worn really shows off the pattern the way it is supposed to be (the picture of the heel below is even better) -- the bars aren't nearly as prominent when the sock is stretched across an actual foot. The sock is a bit less snug than I had intended for it to be, but, as it turns out, it fits John exactly the way he wants it to, and he commented that the textured pattern gave it a more airy feeling that thought it would. So you don't need to worry that wearing this sock is going to be like wearing scale mail.
Just about the only bad part about this sock is the amount of yarn it takes. For a US 10.5 man's sock, I'm definitely going to need more yarn than is in the one skein of Socks that Rock (I got out my scale, did some weighing and did some math and got the result that I expected by didn't really want). This pattern does eat up some yarn. Good thing that there's another skein waiting for me at the Fold for me to pick up this weekend. Hopefully there will be enough left over after I finish up John's sock for me to get another pair of unpatterned socks for myself...
I was a bit worried about how the toe was going to turn out, but after seeing it on a real foot, I'm happy with the results. The smaller scale pattern made it a lot easier to carry more of the pattern farther down the toe.
This is probably my favorite picture. This heel detail just makes get a happy little smile every time I see it. And, according to my sock model, it is not a problem for those of a manly persuasion. It almost makes me want to go out and buy a pair of Birkenstocks. Almost.
Not exactly a matched pair, but I hope this pictures demonstrates the differences in the looks of the socks.
I'm working on writing up the pattern now. It will include both sizes and all the charts you need for the toes and the heels. Patterns always take me longer than I think they will -- I forget how long it takes to make sure that all the instructions make sense. And I like to add information as to how the pattern can be customized to meet different sizes and needs. But it will be coming soon. I promise.
I just have too many projects that I want to work on right now. I'm trying to rotate through all of them, but most of my time is being divided between the Pearl Buck Swing Jacket and John's green Dragon Scale socks. I've shifted most of my energies today to the sock since I would like to start putting a pattern together. Right now, I think I'm about 2 pattern repeats before I start decreasing for the toe. So I'm making okay progress and still have a fighting chance of getting a good first pattern draft over the weekend.
The soon to be owner of this sock has been an excellent sport about the design process, too. Every couple of repeats I make him try it on so I can see if it fits correctly or needs to have the shaping modified. So far, it's working out well for a man's size 10.5. And I am also fairly pleased about how the short-row heel came out (the side with the knit wraps is neater than the side with the purl wraps, but it's definitely better than most of my earlier attempts) and now that they look nice, I'm finding that I like the process of making short row heels better.
Speaking of heels, here's the detail on the heel of this sock:
Like the sock with the larger scales, I carry the center scale pattern down into the main part of the heel. This is something that you could always omit if you didn't like the detailing, but I think it gives the sock a little extra oomph but, at the same time, isn't too fussy for a guy sock.
Process or Product? I go back and forth on the kind of knitter that I am or think I want to be. Usually I put myself in the product camp. I hate to rip. When I rip, it feels like I've just wasted time, and time for me is both the least and most valuable thing I have. When I try to design something, I always want to knit the minimum amount to make a decision about where to go. In programming speak, I want to "fast fail" a project -- if something is going to go wrong, I want to terminate the process at the earliest possible point so that I can try something else or start the program again.
But the problem with desiging something is that fast fail is not always a good strategy. Sometimes what you're working on really has to take shape before you can make a good decision. Trying to make that decision too early may lead to failing something that was really a success. Which brings me to my current design project -- the bigger size dragon scale socks. (Which is actually sort of a funny thing to call it, because while the sock overall is bigger, the scales on the sock are smaller). I was thinking that in spite of the work I had done to figure out a bunch of things, that it just wasn't going to work out well, that the scales would be non-distinct and it was just going to be a lot of work for not much payoff.
I was really close to ripping.
But then I picked up the first pair of socks and realized that what makes them interesting is the all over pattern. When you look at the whole sock you get the sense of scales. If you just look at one or two intervals, you don't see anything at all. But because the scales are so much bigger relative to the sock, it was easy to see the pattern take shape and become interesting fairly quickly. It took less time and effort for me to judge the overall direction a success.
So I decided that I needed to grit my teeth and not give up on the pattern with the smaller scales. Today I knit two more intervals from the last picture (for a total of 5). Suddenly, I started to feel a real sock starting to take shape with a pattern that made me happy. And the lighting obliged as well, and I was able to get a picture that conveyed the spirit of the pattern and the sock.
Since that photo, I've gotten another interval and a half done and the more I knit, the more I like them. I need to do 9 intervals to get to 6" (these aren't going to be tall socks, otherwise I probably won't have enough yarn to complete them) so I'm only 2 and a half intervals away from getting to the turning the heel part. I'm looking forward to that because just like the first pair of Dragon Scale socks, I want to do some neat detail work on the heel and the toe. Seeing how my current plan for that will turn out is part of the adventure.
My goal is to do the first sock, write up the pattern, and then do the second sock with the pattern to make sure I've written it right. If I'm lucky, I'll at least get the heel turned by the end of the weekend. The instep part of the sock should go faster because the pattern is only on the top and it's plain stockinette on the bottom. So I'm hoping that means that I might be writing a pattern the weekend after this coming weekend.
So, please, share your opinions. Do you like the way the scale pattern looks? The intended recipient of the socks does and at this point that's good enough for me to continue, but I always love to hear more than one opinion since I want the pattern to be for a broader audience.
This picture really fails to communicate almost anything about the upscaled Dragon Scale socks. I hope that at least the barest outline of scales is visible in the picture. The colorway I chose (to be man friendly) defies all attempts at photography. Unfortunately, it's also subtle when you are looking directly at these socks. For the record, it's Socks that Rock (Light) in the Beryl colorway. I'm not sure yet whether it's the variagation in the yarn, the color of the yarn,. or the fact that I have downsized the scales to create a 20 stitch repeat, although my suspicions lie mostly with the former two explanations. I may try knitting the pattern flat with a solid, lighter colored yarn if things don't get a bit better as I get farther along -- just to be sure I'm not leading anyone astray. I was considering ripping these again, but so far I've only got about 2.5" of sock top and I don't want to make any rash decisions before I've given the pattern more time to play out. I am beginning to think that Claudia's orange Dragon suggestion from yesterday might have been a better option than what I chose, but I know for a fact that the intended recipent would probably reject orange Dragons, no matter how lovely the pattern turned out -- and so far, he is happy with these, and they fit him. And a sock that might get worn is a happy sock.
I used the same process that I used to upscale the original stitch pattern for the first pair of socks to downscale the pattern for this pair. I had originally hoped to just use 3 intervals of the original pattern (78 stitches being not so bad given how this pattern pulls in a bit) but I found it impossible to center things so that I could get a nice design over both the heel and the toe. The down-scaled (no pun intended) pattern has a 20 stitch interval and this sock uses 4 intervals.
Over ~40 stitches on bamboo US 1's (2.25 mm) I'm getting right around 4.25" of sock. When I did the same thing on US 1.5's (2.5 mm) I got about 4.5" of sock. I suspect that dropping down another needle size (US 0's/2.0 mm) would get it very close to 40 stitches to 4". So that should give anyone knitting the sock a fair amount of latitude in the sock sizing with the same yarn just by changing the needle size. I've tried the cuff out on my husband (who is a pretty standard man's size 10.5) and it fits just fine and doesn't cut off his circulation. So I hope that this pattern will mean that there are dragons for everyone -- at least everyone of adult size. I'll leave the exercise of creating a child-sized sock to someone else.
I'm also pleased with the way that the cuff and the pattern combine. The garter stitch gets a little wavy, but not so wavy as to disturb the manly creature that lives in my house.
I don't have a good ETA for completion of the first sock -- it takes a while to traverse the rows with the decreases on them. I'd love to have the leg part finished by the weekend. So far, I've got 3 pattern repeats to 2 inches. I'm going to need to do about 5 more before it's time to turn the heel. I'm only going to work about 6" of leg on these socks, otherwise I won't have a pattern done before Christmas. And, I promise, if the first sock comes out well, I'll write up the pattern for both sizes before I take on the second sock.
