Scrappy socks

Boy 1’s Crazy Brown Socks – knit entirely from scraps – are done! Boy 1’s feet are creeping up closer and closer to my size.  For plain vanilla stockinette socks, I cast on 64 for myself.  These are 56.  15 rounds of 2x2 rib at the cuff, then 15 rounds of each crazy scrap divided by 3 rounds of brown.  I LOVE how they came out.I used techknitter’s jogless stripes, but they very clearly still jog to my eye.  Maybe you just have to tug the yarn tight enough in socks that the technique doesn’t work so well.  You can see the jog clearly on the right side of his right foot above. When I do this again, I may move the yarn join to the back/bottom of the sock.

I chose an afterthought heel so as not to disturb the striping pattern down the foot and also because Boy 1 really liked the idea of having solid brown at the cuff, heel, and toe.  They look so silly in this view!Boy 1 chose many leftover balls of yarn.  I edited his collection a bit to make the colors work better together.  (I told myself that this is because he’s red-green color blind, not because I wanted to overly control his socks – ha!)  I only removed balls – I did not add, honest!  Also, I chose to use 100% superwash merino scraps in the topmost position only (just below the ribbed cuff) where they won’t be subject to heavy wear.  I put stronger yarns around the heel and on the foot.

I made them a tad too long in the foot – intentionally.  He’s growing quickly and he gets so sad when his socks don’t fit.  And he doesn’t seem to mind them being a bit big.  Having that extra fabric at the toe would drive me crazy, but he doesn’t seem to notice.

This “feet in the air” post got a big laugh.  He is such a willing and cooperative model! And there’s my compost bin – again! I finished these Friday night.  Saturday morning he had them on – so we did photos right away.  This morning (Sunday) he has them on again.  We’ll see what tomorrow holds. 

Double finish

I finished up a couple of projects last week.  First up, the Farfalle Socks.I’m pleased with the way these came out and think I’ll have lots of chances to wear them.  They are kind of a denim blue.  I modified the (free) pattern a bit to improve the fit. 

Specifically, I knit the leg over 72 stitches as indicated, but I worked the heel over 34 stitches (not 36) so it wouldn’t be too roomy. I had 38 stitches on the instep needle while I did the heel. After picking up the gusset stitches, I decreased on the sole of the foot until I had 34 there (while keeping 38 on my instep needle). I continued the stitch pattern down the top of the foot. When I was ready to begin the plain stockinette toe, I decreased by 4 stitches in the cable twists. Then I rearranged stitches so I had 32 on each needle, and did my normal toe.

I did this because for me, 64 is the right circumference in stockinette. But 72 worked great in the stitch pattern (since the cable twists pull in the fabric and reduce stretchability).

I’m happy with the resulting socks, though this yarn base is not a favorite. The fiber content is fine (75% superwash merino, 25% nylon) and it is a 4-fly yarn.  But the twist is too loose and the yarn splits very easily. This would be terrible yarn for a beginning sock knitter.

…though the dye job is GORGEOUS and this stitch pattern shows it off well.

I also finished the crazy rainbow bright bag for my niece:I think she’ll love it.  But me, ever the critic.  The pattern called for a size 7 needle, but I went down to a 6 so my gauge wouldn’t be off.  That’s fine - but I STILL had to stop at least one inch short of specified length so I wouldn’t run out of yarn.

Projects like this appeal to beginners but are actually quite challenging for them. Holding splitty yarns doubled isn’t easy. Neither the viscose or the Cotton Fleece have any give, which makes the beginning rounds of the body very difficult (you knit the bottom of the bag flat, then pick up stitches around the edge and knit up in the round). The instructions for picking up stitches on the edge of the bottom are confusing; you can’t pick up 27 times between 27 ridges, as there are only 26 “ditches” between the ridges if you have 27 ridges.  I would have written this much differently.

But it’s done, and she will love it.  It should wing its way to Texas later this week.

I’m nearly finished with Boy 1’s Crazy Brown Socks. I love the scrappy look, but there are a lot of ends to weave in! Soon, I’ll show you a scarf-y thing I started, and return to the Vodka Gimlet. 

Updates

There’s a progress shot for Vodka Gimlet – that is the slip stitch detail around the waist.  Now I have to go in stockinette for a while before doing another bit of detail at the hem, and then knit the turned hem.  It’s growing!

In other news, Boy 1’s Crazy Brown Socks are starting to look like something: 15 rounds of sock yarn leftovers separated by 3 rounds of brown.  I’m using the “jogless stripe” technique, but it’s a little soon to say if it is notably successful.  The heels and toes are also to be solid brown.  Just as with Felici socks, I don’t want to interrupt the nice striping pattern, so I’m doing an afterthought heel.  The heel will grow out of a little 3-round brown stripe.  Right here:I knit on these while listening to Margaret Atwood read from her work last night.  What a treat and a thrill.  She’s a knitter, you know!  She SANG us the Mole Day Children’s Hymn from Year of the Flood at the very end of her reading, and conducted us to sing the last word of the refrain with her.  What a wonderful moment.  I will remember it always, and there’s a bit of it knitted into these crazy socks for my boy.

I recently tidied one of the rooms in my house where fiber-ific things tend to pile up, and I found a scarf I made from yarn leftover from this baby bunting project way back in 2005.  The scarf wasn’t very long, so I didn’t really wear it.  I decided to unravel it and repurpose the yarn.  Boy, was that a bigger project than I expected.  There were a lot more stops and starts in that yarn than I remembered (my ends were woven in so well that I couldn’t see them).  Also, I knit with two strands held together (one green, one blue), so the yarns never ended in the same place.  After a couple of hours of frustrating picking – during which S1’s help was required to hold the yarn I  was rewinding – I had a whole lot of ramen:

Nice tidy little nests of ramen, to be exact!  Or, muppet wigs:

I gave them all a nice bath and now I have nice slinky piles of spaghetti:These little skeins aren’t big enough to wind on the ballwinder, so I’ll make little balls by hand.  I’m not even sure if the circles will fit on my swift.  I may need S1’s hands again.

This is worsted weight superwash merino, so I thought maybe I could get some baby hats out of it or something.  We’ll see.

Two balls in

I spent most of my Thanksgiving holiday knitting selfishly (and happily!) on my Vodka Gimlet.  Here’s how it looks after a little more than two balls of yarn:

Yeah, not that impressive when it’s still on the needles and shown on a nine-year-old.  But it serves as proof that I’m finally off and running on this project!

I also dusted off the spinning wheel and started making some yarn.  This is an alpaca/wool blend I got from The Spinning Loft in Michigan (by mail – but wouldn’t it be great to visit there one day?).  I believe it’s this: Louet Eastport Sliver in sea foam green.  And for my knitting readers, “sliver” is pronounced with a long “i” – rhymes with MacGyver. I have neglected my wheel for too long and need to address my fiber stash!  Last year, S1 got me a gift certificate for this shop, a nice generous one that was enough to buy a rare breeds sampler.  But I ended up chickening out and not buying it, because the fiber required carding or combing and I don’t have those tools.  Instead, I just bought a range of other things, including some breed-specific prepared fibers.  All have been marinating in the fiber basket for far too long.  I’m interested in taking Deb Robson’s Rare Wools workshop at MDSW 2012, but I won’t feel worthy unless I spin a fair bit of my stash before then.  So, to the wheel!

Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival
West Friendship MD
May 3–6, 2012

A two-day workshop on "An In-Depth Look at Rare Wools." On Saturday and Sunday mornings, I’ll also be doing half-day walk-arounds in the barns! (The Sunday one will end in time for the Parade of Breeds, which I don’t want to miss, either!)

Here’s the link to Deb’s teaching schedule if you’re interested.

I’ve worked a bit more on Boy 1’s Crazy Brown Socks, but I’ll share those with you again next week.

I hope everyone had a great holiday.  What’s your favorite Thanksgiving food?  My “musts” include pumpkin pie, that horribly processed green bean casserole (just open cans and heat!), mashed potatoes and gravy, and a dab of cranberry sauce.  I like the good sauce, but I also like the canned stuff I was raised on, ridges and all.

Fall Footsies Finally Finished

Okay, we don’t really call socks “footsies” around here, but I succumbed to the alliteration.

I finished these socks a week ago, but daylight savings time and a few rainy days made photography difficult.

As I’ve said before, I really love these socks – but I hate the way the pattern was written.  I may knit another pair for myself, though.  The slanting cable is beguiling.  Half of the cuffs and 3/4 of the feet are stockinette, so they progress more quickly than you might think.

On sock #1, I knit the toe as the pattern indicated – a standard wedge toe.  But it didn’t fit perfectly, so I knit a slightly more rounded toe on sock #2.  See the difference? I decided that it was worth it to fix sock #1.  So I ripped back thusly …and reknit the thing.  I’m glad I did.  I’ve found that if I decrease every other round until I have half as many stitches as I began with and then decrease every round until I have 8 or 10 stitches left, my sock toes fit better.  (so do S1’s.)  But every foot is different!

The last bits of fall are slipping through our fingers here.  I can tell that winter is hastening because of the number of handknit socks in the laundry each week.  Boy 1 is wearing wool socks every chance he gets (which is precisely 4 times per week, as he has 4 pairs that fit now) and he let me know that he needs more socks.  That’s what this is about: I’ll leave you with some shots of a hike the two of us took last weekend.  Fall fun!