Time out

Having acquired yarn for Dave’s 50th birthday socks at SVFF, I decided it was time to cast them on.

Dave watched my video and sent in his measurements. I like to knit my socks cuff-down, but I decided to try a different cast-on that would be stretchier. I chose the Twisted German Cast On. It’s always fun to learn something new, but it did slow me down and I lost some potential meeting knitting because I didn’t have this method memorized.

I drew out the sheep on graph paper and decided to place them just under the cuff. Originally I envisioned them closer to the ankle, but I thought it might be hard to get the sock over the heel if that were the case. It took me quite a while to get to this spot (there were bumps in the road), but they do look cute so far, don’t they?

Don’t let that photo fool you – there are problems. The first problem is figuring out how to manage the floats when I switch needles (I prefer to knit socks on two circulars). I did not always succeed. Here, you can see that I accidentally got the floats on the RS of the sock in at least one round:

And here, you can see big ladders at the other join (which I don’t get when working with a single yarn):

I was knitting these inside out (sort of – not sure that’s the right way to describe it) so that the floats would not be too tight. Here’s what I mean – I’m ready to begin a row but it’s the one on the back needle.

So here are all my problems so far:

• Working on two circulars isn’t going well. I don’t know how to “turn the corner” with 2 or 3 colors.
• The floats are often too long and require me to twist the yarns in the back.
• There are four rows (the ones with the sheep face) that use 3 colors in the same row. I got so tangled in these and they took forever.

I emailed Steven for help since he is a master of stranded knitting. He reminded me (I knew this but had forgotten!) that you should go up a couple of needle sizes for colorwork when using it in the same piece with stockinette. I did all this on 2.0mm needles. The rubbed cuff is nice and stretchy, but the stretch disappears completely with the sheep – and that will make the sock impossible to get on. He also recommended catching floats every 3 stitches, which is much more frequently than I did it. I will definitely be ripping back these 7 little sheep.

For now, this sock is in TIME OUT. Today I ordered one of those tiny 9” sock needles in 2.5mm. I figure I can use it for the section with the sheep and just work the rest of the sock in my normal way. I don’t think I will like it (the needle tips are short and hard to hold), but it’s just for 12 rounds.

I also watched a video about knitting with 3 colors, and I think I’ll try it again. If it doesn’t work, I might duplicate stitch the black faces on the white sheep. I don’t want to do a lot of duplicate stitch because it adds bulk, but the face isn’t that much – and it might make it look a little more three-dimensional which would be neat.

The only other thing I have to figure out is calf shaping. I was going to CO 76, but when I started working with this yarn, it just felt a little on the plump side and I only CO 72. I decreased to 70 just before starting the sheep (they are 8 stitches wide and separated by 2 stitches so the math worked out). I’ll probably decrease a little bit more… but since I will be in a field of stockinette by then, the placement isn’t worrisome.

Whew! I also realized that this sock is NOT my simple, portable project for the next week. I quickly wound some yarn and started another Sockhead Slouch hat. This is handspun Montadale:

And finally, I whipped up this hat as a donation for an upcoming holiday party. The pattern is Vegamot (free), which I have knit before and really liked. This took a little more than half a skein of Cascade 200.