FO: Orange Pumpkin Socks

After struggling with a couple of other projects, I can’t tell you what a pleasure it is to finish something that I LIKE and that FITS! There are S1’s new fall socks for Fall 2010.  The yarn is Knit Picks Stroll Tonal in colorway “Foliage,” which is aptly named.  I love this yarn.  The 75% superwash merino/25% nylon blend should wear very well.  It has at least 8 distinctly recognizable colors in it, but they work together harmoniously and don’t pool.

I worked out the ribbing on the cuff so that it flows into the cable pattern well – that pleases me.I really had to focus on the cable pattern at first, but once I figured out the errata and remembered how to cable without a cable needle, these were straightforward enough to knit at the office (which is where they mostly were knit).

I tried a new heel flap this time: the eye of partridge.  I love it!  It creates a super strong fabric that isn’t as thick and puffy as my regular slip stitch heel flap. I had to modify the way I do my “pre-darning” on the inside of the heel, but it worked fine to weave in a strand of yarn diagonally.  I think you can see what’s going on here:I didn’t skimp on these socks (the legs are a good 7.5” long), but I have a lot of yarn left – 23 g.  If you’re knitting really big socks, this may be the yarn for you!  I think the Kindling colorway would be perfect for a pair of men’s socks.  And you sure can’t beat the price at $9.99/hank (that’s for the whole 100 g).

Next, my boys both need new socks for fall… those will be my next office knitting projects.  They should go MUCH more quickly than the orange socks.

Happy pumpkin sock #1

This sock matches the weather here perfectly:The yarn is full of oranges, golds, and browns, and it feels so warm and snuggly. Look at those cables! I can’t believe it’s taken me so long, but I finally tried the eye of partridge heel flap.  It’s almost like my standard slip stitch heel, except you alternate the slipped stitches on adjacent rows so that you get a checkerboard effect rather than a columnar effect.  It results in a flatter fabric that should wear like iron: This has become my office knitting project now that I have the pattern down, which could mean for slowish progress.  Home knitting time is reserved for that tangled garden.

Much better

Braided cable with garter bead, the right way.

A very productive meeting!

Ack!

This sock just wasn’t looking like the picture in the book.  I kept going a bit, thinking that it might be a few repeats until the cable pattern would really begin to show.  But no.  This is supposed to be a cable braid and it doesn’t look braid-y at all. I stared at it pretty hard during my morning meeting and decided it looked too stretched out.  It might look more braid-y if I made this an 8-round repeat rather than a 12-round repeat.  I started that pattern (seen here at the very top) and decided I was right – isn’t this starting to braid now?

I googled the name of the pattern (braided cable with garter bead) and discovered that there are errata on the publisher’s website.  DOH!  This has happened to me before and I swore I would never begin a new pattern without checking Ravelry for errata.  Serves me right, I guess.  I was kind of pleased that I figured out the correction without seeing the errata first, though.

Home for lunch.  Rip rip rip.  I tried to pick up a row of stitches near the top of my ribbing (see the bottom needle inserted in the photo above?), but it didn’t work very well.  I can pick up knit stitches and stay in the same row just fine, but purls are another matter.  Fixing it was so time consuming that I finally just ripped out the whole sock.

Started over in afternoon meeting.

Tomorrow I have an ALL-DAY meeting, the kind with tons of people and not much audience participation.  Primo knitting, people!  I’ll post a progress report.

So far I love the colors of this yarn – so many shades of orange and brown and gold.  But it’s kind of splitty and all this ripping isn’t helping.