Circle Socks

Boy 1’s socks are done.  He loves them!  I like them.  Here are my thoughts:

• The honeycomb pattern isn’t as stretchy as you might think a knit-purl pattern would be, even accounting for the slipped stitches. I worked the leg over 56 stitches and he has a hard time getting it on.  (I knit the heel over 30 stitches and made the heel flap deep in order to compensate.)  If I were knitting for an adult, I might use more stitches than the recommended 64.
• The Knit Picks Stroll yarn in Midnight Heather is lovely – but not quite a perfect match for the hand paint.  I couldn’t tell this from the website, but the heathered bits are mostly greenish – so the overall effect with the deep blue and green is peacock-y.  Not an ideal match for the purple and blue handpaint.  I’d love a pair of socks made from the Midnight Heather alone, though.
• I had plenty of blue yarn left – I bought 2 50-gram balls, but only used 37 grams of the first ball.
• Even though I only knit with one yarn on each round, working with two yarns was still fiddly and really slowed me down.  Not my favorite sock knitting experience. S1 likes the honeycomb pattern and has requested a phone cozy made in it – but with just one yarn, not two.  I’ll have to add that to the list.

I have a tiny bit of class homework for Sock Summit left, plus the gathering of class supplies, but finishing these socks and getting that Japanese book were the biggest homework components.  So I’m happy to be done with those.  Now, on to Eloise’s hat!

Check out Boy 1’s foot modeling:

Circle game

You haven’t seen these yet… they are Circle Socks (free pattern!) and they are for Boy 1: This honeycomb pattern is pretty neat.  Look at all the versions on Ravelry – many people use a single, multi-colored yarn throughout (there are some beautiful versions with Felici), but some use two yarns, as I am doing here.  The solid yarn which frames the circles is Knit Picks Stroll in Midnight Heather – it is a very deep blue that looks black unless you’re in good light.  The multi is Knit Picks Stroll Hand Painted in the colorway “Lullaby.”

This pattern looks far more complicated than it is.  You never use more than one color on any round (thank goodness, stranded colorwork does not seem to be my thing!).  The magic is achieved by using slipped stitches to the extreme. I’ve just started the heel flap – it and the entire foot of the sock will be in the solid yarn.

These socks are my homework for the Sock Summit class Twinkle Toes.  Boy 1 thought it would be be neat to have blue lights on his socks that look like stars in the night sky.  He also wanted a busy yarn.  We spent some time on Ravelry and came up with this pattern as a compromise.  Some blue lights can go in the little circles.  You’ll have to stay tuned to see how that works out!

FO: Scrambled Eggs with Waffles

I finished up another pair of “office” socks last week and they are just perfect for spring, don’t you think?

Daffodils are starting to bloom here, and these socks share their sunny disposition.

I reprised the garter ridge rib pattern from Vogue Stitchionary that I used for the Yum Yum Waffle socks last year.  These were knit top down, with a slip stitch heel that goes slip-slip-knit to continue the sequence established in the waffle part: I had 27 grams of yarn left over – these Stroll skeins are so generous.  That’s not quite enough for one of those Stella Pixie hats, but I can probably do something with it.

Scrambled Eggs with Waffles (sock version)

Back before the Felici obsession took over again, I started a simple office sock.  I’ve been enjoying my Yum Yum Waffle socks this winter, so I decided to make another pair.  Here are mine: This stitch pattern has such well-defined texture:

I grabbed this from stash – it’s Knit Picks Stroll Tonal in color Golden Glow:

These are for S1.  She commented that the variation in shades of yellow looks just like scrambled eggs – so these are Scrambled Eggs with Waffles socks.  First one is done:This is the second pair I’ve knit with Stroll Tonal and I really like this yarn.  The first pair has been worn a lot this winter, and it’s holding up very well.  I don’t adore a lot of the colors in this line – most of it is dayglo little girl bright - but I’m thinking about stashing some Kindling.

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.