6 posts tagged “socks”

Here are my May socks. Aren't they pretty?

May socks. Elfine ones, to be precise.

The way my participation in the Sock a Month kal has gone is as such: February pair- my pink birthday socks. March pair- tan socks with a diagonal rib for my husband. April socks- those nice pumpkin colored socks with the pattern from the Vogue cable stitchionary for me. Given that pattern, one would deduce that the May pair of socks would be for my husband, right?

Wrong.

Originally the May socks were going to be Husband socks, nifty grey ones made from pretty charcoal colored skeins of Wildfoote. I gave him the first Vogue knitting stitchionary and instructed him to pick out some patterns he liked and we'd figure out how to turn them into socks. After some debate, we came up with a neat diamond pattern and I started knitting. And then I ripped out what I'd done because I messed up enough of the pattern. I restarted. Then I ripped it out a third time when I realized that the width looked like it wouldn't even fit around my leg. Third time was indeed the charm and I knit the leg and put a heel on the sock. I started the foot and that's when I realized I'd made the same mistake that I made with my pumpkin colored socks- I forgot to mark the beginning of the pattern repeat so I'd know where to start knitting again. *facepalm

By this point it was May 20th and I knew I'd have to haul ass if I wanted to get my May socks in, so I went to my stash for inspiration. I happened to see the three balls of yarn I'd gotten to knit the Elfine pattern, like a year or so ago when I was in my pink and green phase. I had the yarn, I had a pattern, I was good to go. Only, not so much.

First off, the yarn I had was a three ply cotton yarn (I think, I lost the yarn bands when I wound it) in strands of pink, green and white. It knit up too thick for socks, so I got the bright idea of pulling off the white strand as I knit. Yeah. That led to a lot of tangling. Fortunately, it meant I had to cut the white strand a couple times, so I had plenty of yarn when I hit snag number two, the heel. The heel itself knit up nicely. Let's look at the heel, shall we?

It's not all one color, is it?

Yeah. The heel's white. Why is that? Like I said, I lost the ball bands, so I didn't know how much yarn I had. When I got to the heel I realized I had about a third of the ball left. I had three balls of this yarn, so I was guessing finishing these socks was a crap shoot. That's why I made the executive decision to do the heels with the white yarn I was discarding- it bought me a little more time. You'll also notice the top of the sock has a white band. That's because it didn't buy me enough time.

I finished sock number one no problem and started sock number two. I did the heel, still fine, and thought yeah, it might be tight but I'll have enough yarn to finish. I worked my way up the leg and started constantly questioning if I really was going to have enough yarn. Tonight I had my answer. To quote the sheriff on the BBC show Robin Hood (who, amazingly enough, is Lily Allen's dad! The Husband and I have fun doing our own imitations of life in the Allen household, but I digress), "A clue: no." I made it all the way through row three, instead of row 8 where I was supposed to end, then decided I should probably bind off and I'd be lucky if I had an inch of yarn left. Ha! I made it halfway around the sock before I ran out of yarn.

Inspiration did strike, though, while I was looking at the socks. I took the white yarn I'd discarded from the skein and finished binding off, then did a single crochet in the stitches at the top of both socks so the top of the socks were both white. So there you go.

All complaining aside, I really liked this pattern. It knit up really fast, which was good, given that time was of the essence. This was the first time I did socks toe up, so that was a new experience. It was supposed to be toe up on two circs, but I didn't want to take the time to figure that out and besides, I don't own two pair of size three circs so there you go. I'm definitely going to try more toe up patterns and who knows? Maybe I'll go out, get two circs and try that too.

Until last week I'd only ever knitted one thing for the Husband, and we've been married/I've known how to knit for three years. Yeah. That's a million sweaters for me, tons of things for other people- mittens and baby blankets, mostly- and one measly pair of socks for him. Let's see how I managed to rectify the situation.

The sock

Here are the Husband's socks, or rather, here is one of the Husband's socks. This was a completely different venture in that I had the yarn and I had a stitch pattern I wanted to use, but I had to come up with the pattern myself. Not too daunting a task, but it was a little time consuming. The pattern book- Ann Budd's Knitter's Handy Book of Patterns, which I got for Christmas from my brother-in-law, thanks!- gave pattern numbers up to a 10" foot circumference and the Husband's feet are 11" around. He has huge legs and feet. I did the math, figured out the numbers, then thought, "Cast on that many? Seriously? I don't think his other pair of socks asked for that much. Sure, the legs have ribbing but 90 some stitches? Come on." The stitch pattern itself was an 8 stitch repeat, so I debated between 80 and 72 before settling on the 72, because his other socks were 72 and that was all ribbing. Whoops! Should have picked 80, because once I'd finished the leg, worked the heel and then finished off the gusset I had him try them on and they were too tight. I had to tear the whole thing out and size it up. Sigh. The larger size worked quite nicely, though.

Sock pattern detail

What stitch pattern did I use? Well, I had Nicky Epstein's hat book from the library because I'm designing myself a hat, so I've been looking at patterns for ideas. I liked her reversible diagonal rib stitch that she used for one of the hats and so did the Husband. Check it out over there. Cool, huh? I didn't realize until I saw the pictures that it makes a spiral on the leg. In person it's more of a stair step look. In fact, if you look at the pattern on the right side of the picture, it does look more stair step like. Anyway, we both liked how it turned out and the Husband is happy he has a new pair of socks. I even managed to finish the first on our anniversary, so good deal there.

Here are the mechanics of the socks:
Yarn- Knit Picks Palette, color is Twig, two skeins. Yes, I got cheap Palette for my Husband's socks and at the same time bought myself the slightly nicer Essential. I am a horrible wife.
Needle size- 3. I do pretty much all my socks on 3s, but not the pair I'm doing now and using the aforementioned Essential. 3s make the fabric too loose.

And here they are!

P1000284

Knit from Debbie Bliss Pure Silk, using this pattern. When I bought the yarn I stood in the yarn store and debated whether to get silk or cashmere because I wanted luxurious socks for my birthday. For those of you who don't know the story, normally I knit myself a pink sweater for my birthday. I'm not sure why, things just happened that way. Since this is the year of "More socks, fewer sweaters" I decided the only logical option was pink birthday socks, but socks? For your birthday? That's really not the grand undertaking that a sweater is. To make them more of a big deal I decided to go luxurious with the yarn. I had a gift certificate for the yarn store from the Husband and I also had loyalty points, so price really wasn't an issue, which is why I looked at two different yarns- silk and cashmere. I really wavered between the two yarns. I petted them. I held them both at once. Finally I asked the yarn store employees, who both looked at me and gasped about my using either of them for something like socks, which would put a lot of wear and tear on the yarn. They tried to steer me towards angora or something equally soft, but since it was my birthday I figured I was allowed to go impractical and they said the silk would probably be the better choice if I was going to be crazy about it.

I swear, these were the socks of "Wait, what? You mean I have to do this again? Crap!" There were a lot of pattern repeats in these socks. I figured that you did leg pattern 1 for the top band, then moved on to leg pattern 2. Seems like a logical progression, right? Not so much. You knit leg pattern 1, then do a purl band, then leg pattern one twice more before you get to leg pattern 2. Then it's move on to the heel flap, but oh! Do the heel flap pattern twice! Gah. It seemed like every time I'd finished a section I'd think yay! Done! and then I'd read the directions and realize nope, do it again. This was cause for frequent bits of frustration when I knit sock number 1.

I will admit, knitting these socks made me realize just how far I'd come as a knitter. When I first started knitting I was so afraid to pull out mistakes. I'd painstakingly tink out what I'd knitted incorrectly because I was too afraid to rip things out and then restring it on the needles, or else I'd think eh, only I will know it's there. With this project, though, I ripped out entire sections because of the aforementioned "Wait, I was supposed to do this section again?!" Ripping out lace is a scary project, especially without something like a guide line, but I did it and nothing horrible happened, and that really made me feel like a pro knitter.

What did I really like about this project? Well, one of the things that made me pick the pattern is the detail along the heel flap/gusset. Let's have a look.

P1000285

See? The pattern continues in a band between the heel flap itself and the gusset. Pretty cool, eh? Every since I learned how to make short row heels they've been my heel of choice and I tend to automatically discount a heel flap in a pattern and switch it out for a short row one, but with this I couldn't.

Also, check out the bad angle from which I shot this picture. It makes me look like I have stumpy feet and fat ankles. Rock!

I swear, these socks are super soft. it's like getting a foot massage with a silk cloth. I almost feel guilty wearing them. I mean, putting something this soft and luxurious on your feet? On your feet where they'll get beat on and rubbed until they get pilly and might wear out? Yeah, I know, but they're pink and pretty and soft- holy crap, so soft!- and silky and I love them. I'm not sure where I'll wear them- not to bed, because I get super warm when I sleep and that would mean sweating in them. Not around the house, because my floors don't stay clean for long and I don't want the bottoms to get skanky. Not in shoes, because I don't want to wear them out. I think I've created the ultimate problem- something too good to live. Or, in this case, socks too nice to wear.

... I just might have to try this. Of course, these days my socks have crazy patterns going on, but who knows?

By the way, I joined the sock a month knit along, so expect to see sock pictures once a month. I've finished the first of my pink birthday socks- siiiiiiiiiiiilk! Oh so niiiiiiiiiiiiice! I might have to buy some cashmere, I saw a cashmere blend on elann for a reasonable price. Mmmmmm. Anyway, socks!

I realize I haven't written anything about what I'm knitting yet. I'm in the middle of a couple projects and I don't usually write about WIPs, but what they hey. I've been having fun knitting lately and want to talk about it.

Project numero uno on the needles right now would be the Snicket socks. I loved the honeycomb pattern and those socks looked fuzzy and warm. Did I get that yarn so I could also have fuzzy, warm socks? Hell no! I pretty much never get the yarn called for when I knit a pattern. I had been in the mood for pink socks for a while, so when I went to the yarn store I looked for some soft pink. Instead, I got some Twisted Sisters variegated in what I think they called Geranium. I don't exactly remember and I can't find it on Yarndex. Anyway, it's a hot pink color and it has a bit of darker pink in it that so far is making a nice spiral down the leg of the sock. I'm excited because knitting this pattern has taught me a new heel method. Normally I do the slip the first stitch, then work across the heel flap, do the short rows to shape the heel then pick up stitches along the gusset and decrease back to where you're supposed to be heel, but this time out the pattern called for a short row wrap and turn heel. I really like this style. It seems a lot neater on a sock, and I hate having to pick up stitches- when I knit socks like this, the heel invariably ends up bulging a bit and the gussets look too tight. With the short row wrap and turn, you get a neat diagonal line. The heel ends up looking a bit more natural, too, instead of the somewhat sharp edges you get with the flap and gusset method. That's just my opinion, though. Anyway, I've just turned the heel on the first sock and am working the sole and instep and I'm really liking these. Pictures later when they're done.

The second project I have going on are the Seaside wrist warmers. I'm thinking I'm going to make these as full out gloves, because I like gloves. Fingerless gloves? Not so much. I had been yarn shopping and was taken by a lovely orphan skein of Noro Silk Garden, color 84. You can't tell by the picture, but it's this beautiful mix of reds and a bit of orangey pink and theres some dark mossy green and what could possibly be described as purple in there too. Lovely. I bought the single skein, not knowing what I was going to do with it, until I saw this glove pattern. The gauge matched and I was able to find another skein from the same dye lot on eBay, so I was set. All I needed to do was find beads. I got beads that sounded like they fit the description in the pattern, but they were too teeny to be strung on the yarn, so I had to do a bead search. It was doubly hard, because not only was I looking to something big enough to go on the yarn, but I also was looking for a color I'd like that would go with the yarn. After striking out at a bunch of places- including the strange bead shop, where they didn't seem to have a lot of beads and the person working ignored me, even when I bumped into her, literally. She was busy talking to people and backed right into me and didn't say anything- I ended up finding beads that fit my requirements at Hobby Lobby, of all places. I ended up having to buy a bunch of beads I didn't want to get the beads I did want, but at least they fit on the yarn. Last night I strung the beads for the left glove, then started knitting. I haven't done beaded knitting before, but this seemed really easy and I haven't had any problems yet. I'm really liking the way this is looking. I suspect it might look better with different beads, but I like what I'm seeing so far. The beads are iridescent ambers and greens and they go well with the yarn, I think. They're knitting up pretty fast, so I should have new gloves by at least the end of the month.

The only other project I have on the needles is the Honorine sweater- I know, all from the same issue of Magknits. What can I say, I really liked the patterns that month. I'm using a nice silk alpaca blend in a great eggplant color I got when D and I were visiting her mother and went to their local AC Moore, which we don't have. The body knitted up really quick, but my progress has stalled out because I can't figure out the lace pattern. Normally pattern reading isn't a problem for me (my problem is not reading ahead, then being all "Oh! Crap! I should have been doing ___!" when I get to important points in the pattern) but this has me totally clueless. I asked Library Kat for help, and we couldn't get it to work, so I e-mailed the designer, and what she told me really wasn't a lot of help either. Until I get this all figured out, I'm stuck. Not even my Google-fu helped me, which was frustrating.