FO – Mother Outlaw Socks

Here they are.  These have been finished for a week, but I’ve had poor photography conditions.  I always forget how quickly the light patterns change here at this time of the year.

The pattern is “Uptown Boot Socks” from Favorite Socks.  I used the stitch pattern but inserted my usual slipped stitch heel and round toe.

Closeup of the stitch pattern – it’s just a cable cross (always the same direction) offset to make a checkerboard pattern:I really liked working with this yarn.  It is a one-of-a-kind hand-dyed hank by the Purl Up and Dye ladies at Purlescence Yarns (I picked it up at Sock Summit), and it’s dyed on the Cascade Heritage yarn base.  Cascade Heritage sounds like a typical 75% superwash merino 25% nylon blend, but it feels more luxurious to me.  The hand is a bit heavy and soft, as if it included a bit of alpaca, perhaps.  It really is lovely.  A scarf knit from it caught my eye at The Mannings booth at Knitters’ Day Out.  I’ll probably knit with it again sometime.  Just look at those pretty heathered solids!  (Steven, I see both green AND gray…)  They have a few nice handpainted colorways, too.

I should also note that Heritage comes in a generous 437 yard hank.  I have 26 grams remaining of mine.

Another Christmas gift DONE!

Family Knitting

Yesterday after bathtime, Boy 1 appeared in his PJs and … felted slippers.  I made them back in January 2008 (pre-blog – here’s Rav link) and they still fit him as long as he doesn’t have socks on.  I mentioned that I had fun knitting those for him, and he said he wanted to knit some slippers for me.  Of course, I responded that I would teach him to knit anytime he wanted.

How about now? he says.  Okay!

I never put away my World Record knitting after returning from Sock Summit, so we grabbed that.  It was on short needles I intended to give to kids, anyway.  I had a garter stitch strip started, and he just kept going.  We’re using the rhyme from Kids Knitting: “Through the door, around the back, open the window, and out jumps Jack.”  He’s doing pretty well!

And also, I’ve made some progress on the outlaw socks – one is done:

Knitting for Outlaws

This is a bit of Christmas knitting ... a sock headed for my mother-out-law. We had a Sock Consultation during her last visit. She likes grays, browns, purples, dark blue - absolutely no orange but red might be okay in small amounts. She seemed drawn to handpainted yarns. She also marked a half dozen patterns or so in my sock books.

I got this yarn at Sock Summit earlier this month. It's a one-of-a-kind handpaint from Purl Up and Dye, the yarn dyers at Purlescence Yarns. The base yarn is Cascade Heritage (75% superwash merino, 25% nylon). In the skein, it looked mostly grayish... with a brush stroke of deep purple every now and then. The skein was not dipped into the purple color, because the color didn't saturate the entire segment of the skein. I thought it would come out more mottle-y than stripe-y. Do you think that's what's happening? I think this pattern (Uptown Boot Socks, from Favorite Socks) shows up pretty well in this yarn. I've knit this pattern once before, but picked an unfortunate handpaint with too much contrast. Blech! I'm embarrassed to link to it right now! It totally offends my current sock sensibilities. I knit that pair while on a camping trip, and I didn't have alternative yarn with me, so I just kept going. This pattern does knit up quite quickly. Every 4th row has some cable crossings (all the same way, easy to do without a cable needle) and the rest is stockinette. Speedy speedy.

This sock fits pretty snugly at 64 stitches around, but it's too loose at 72, so I'm sticking with 64. I was planning to knit an eye-of-partridge heel, but decided to go with my usual slipped stitch heel because it's more stretchy than EoP. I'll knit the heel flap a little longer than usual to help get the sock over the heel. On the up side, there will be no danger of sock sag! And if they are too small for the recipient, I'll just knit her another pair.

I'm also using new needles for this pair - Addi Turbo Lace needles. The join seems more secure than with my usual Knit Picks needles. The cable is fine - not quite as fluid as the Knit Picks cable, but much more fluid than the old Addi Turbo cable. The needles aren't quite as slippery as Knit Picks, and the points aren't quite as tapered, but they are definitely not as stubby as regular Addi Turbos. They'll fit into my tools rotation fine, but I probably won't rush out to buy them in every size they make.