Archive for the ‘Knitting’ Category
A Tale Of Two Socks
This bowl of porridge was too hot, this bowl of porridge was too cold. One pair of socks is a bit thick the other has a pattern that is driving me nuts. Both yarns are beautiful. I am probably less in love with the Merino Tencel blend. It isn’t slick it feels like mercerized cotton, rather then wool. Cool and silky to the touch. But (there is always a but) I have had trouble getting gauge. And what possessed a woman who barely tolerates ribbing at the cuff to choose a pattern that is just tarted up ribbing? I knew when I finished the cuff I would never finish two socks in this pattern. Frogging is not really an option, as the yarn untwisted when frogged. Anyone want a half finished sock and pattern? I will gladly send it off to you. No kidding. Otherwise it will die in the back of my yarn closet. I am using a size 0 needle and still getting the occasional loose stitch. So it is tug at each and every stitch. But someone with better tension that me, would probably zoom right along.
The second sock which is suppose to be for my Sockapalooza exchange. I am worried about this because the yarn is a bit chubby. Even thought it is supposed to be fingering weight, I would guess it is closer to sports weight. I love the yarn, Merino, Cashmere an a bit of nylon. It just glides. But suppose my swap partner doesn’t like thicker socks? I love them, but then they aren’t for me. I have scoured my partners blog for hints. But nothing so far. I mean you aren’t likely to see a blog post saying “I love thick socks” I would start another pair, but I am afraid I wouldn’t have them done in time. I don’t knit all that fast. I might have to hire Karin 
Both stitch patterns are from the new More Sensational Sock Patterns. I love how the pattern on the finished sock breaks up the hand dyed pooling. You can see the difference between the cuff and the foot part. On the cuff leg area the yarn looks like it is striping. On the foot part with is just ribbing you can see how the colors swirl around in thick bands. This is the Stansfield 196 pattern. You will find a very similar pattern in Barbara Walker’s Second Treasury. Barbara recommends using this pattern on variegated yarns. And I can see why. If it wasn’t for the thickness of the yarn, I would be very pleased with the socks.
A word about the new More Sensational Socks book. Lots of great stitch patterns. A good many of them from Barbara Walker. But they have been simplified and of course converted to pattens in the round. Also the pattern stitch pictures in the book, really don’t show what the stitch pattern looks like worked up in fine yarn. They look very like they had been worked in thick yarn with tiny needles. It is a surprise to see how open and lace like they do look.
Because the yarn is so much thicker then fingering weight, I choose not to do any slip stitches on the heel flap. I used the pattern repeat without the yo. And edged it with seed stitch.
This is a better picture of the color and stitch pattern
The sock that I can’t bear to finish. Give this poor lady a home. I have turned the heel and finished the gusset decreases. But whoever takes it might want to do that over to fit themselves. There is plenty of yarn
Everyday Was Father’s Day
When I was a very little girl, we lived in a 3 floor apartment building in Brooklyn New York. One night, very late my Dad woke me up. He helped me into my bathrobe and slippers. Shushed me and grabbed up my quilt. We went quietly out the door and up the stairs to the roof. He has already spread out newspapers on the tar roof. There was a thermos of hot chocolate. Dad pointed up to the sky and handed me his prized binoculars. A total eclipse of the moon. Wrapped up in my quilt leaning against my Dad and sipping hot chocolate we watched the moon vanish. In a low voice my Dad recited the 8th Psalm
When I consider the heavens,the work of your hands.
The moon and stars, which you created
What is man, that you take thought of him?
Or the son of man that you love him?
I must have drifted in and out of sleep. Each time I woke up Dad was there watching the show in the sky. In the distance you could hear the city sounds, but even they seem muted. It was magic. In time the full moon returned and Dad took me back to my room. He brought down my quilt and tucked me in for the night. The next day he let me stay home from school. Although my Mom was not sure star gazing was a reason for missing school. Dad went to work as usual.
My parents met late in life. And to be honest they would have been just as happy if they never had children. They were so in love with each other. But Dad took to having children like a natural. He never talked down to children. And he expected we would be just as curious and interested in the world around us as he was.
When I was around 12 my Dad ground the glass for a telescope lens. I got to help. My father had the grand idea of cutting a hole in the roof of their house in Long Island and putting in a clear dome. Then mounting an electric telescope with camera. My Mom thought it would probably let in the rain. Sadly it never got to happen. My Dad had a massive stroke. He wanted to die, but my Mother dragged him onward for 10 more years. She could not bare to be parted from him.
I never heard my father raise him voice in anger. He never hit us. All he had to do was look you in the eye, with one eyebrow raised. You had this strange urge to explain yourself. It was spooky. His idea of punishment was to take a book out of his extensive library of second hand books and have you memorize something. Usually poetry. You also had to give a summery of what it was about. This did backfire on him a bit, when I had to memorize extensive bits of Hiawatha. I felt I should share this with any guests my parents had :-}
He was a kind and gentle man. He always stood up when my giggly teenage girlfriends showed up. Helped them on or off with their coats. He always took my arm at street crossings and walked on the outside.
Now I am sure you are wondering if this paragon had any faults. My father had no idea of time. This doesn’t mean much, unless you are waiting for him after work in three inch heels. When he did wander up, and you asked through gritted teeth where he had been. He looked very surprised to learn he was late. Meanwhile your feet are throbbing like drums. In spite of his many stellar qualities, I was sometimes sorely tempted to push him under a bus. :-} No matter how far back we pushed the clock, we were always late.
My Dad who was from Barbados had a very British sense of humour, which alas floated over the heads of most people. Including my mother. She laughed but she wasn’t sure why. This led to him giving us outlandish answers to questions like “Where did you meet Mom?” “Ahh, she was a go go dancer in a glass cage, I rescued her.” My brother repeated that story at school, when his class had to tell something about your parents. My mother nearly died. She was a short chubby lady and president of the PTA.
Rock on Dad, you are a star
ps Daddy if you are reading,I wouldn’t have really pushed you under a bus. I still have your book on the Qualities of soap bubbles. And you were right about that guy. I should have pushed HIM under a bus.
sorry I haven’t been around much. I haven’t been feeling full of mojo of any kind.
Grace Is Great
Grace is GREAT, better then chocolate cake
I sent Grace some yarn, which truthfully I was never going to use, and was glad it was going to a good home. In return, Grace surprised me with this.
This is like handing someone a bologna sandwich and they give you the keys to their Porche. It is beautiful, and warm and made with love. I have been waiting for someone to take a glamour shot of me holding the shawl open. No one seems to want to take my picture. And I really wanted to share this with the world. Is so so beautiful. I am shawl impaired. I have started SK’s SunRay three times. It says more about how great Highland Wool is, then my talents as a knitter. The yarn is a lot less frazzled then I am.
Yesterday I had to go for a stress test. Due to the knee problem, it was a chemical test. I know only to well how freezing cold the hospital is. There are morgues that are warmer then the hospital. So I wore wooly socks and took my lovely shawl. I was toasty warm. And the shawl got lots of touches. People couldn’t believe that a real live person knitted it. The technician that did part of the test kept coming back for another touch. She even dragged in the Radiologist in to touch it. Oh Grace I wish you could have been there.
You can see the stitches in this picture, but the color is off. It is more like Tranquil Lagoon
Thank you, hardly seems to cover this gift. I have to go back to the hospital for some more tests. And I will be wrapped up in my beautiful shawl. Even if it is August.
Thank you again Grace, your the greatest
Yarn and Socks
Some new yarns. The top on is from The Knittery in Australia. Talk about fast shipping. It was here in under a week. And consider I am as far from Australia as you can get and still be on the same planet. The color is “Orange Blossom” Merino, cashmere and nylon. So soft Bets could roll around naked on this stuff. Super super soft.
The bottom one is from Zen Garden Yarn Canada. Color is “Just Peachy” Merino and tencel also super soft. I undid the skein which is why it looks a bit messy. I will use one of these for my Sockapalooza partner. Ok I am sorely tempted to keep the Knittery one for me. I will strive to overcome my naked greed.
I have a skein from Jayne which my daughter has gone off with. I need to get it back and take a picture. Because it is beautiful.
And a gift so beautiful from Grace that I want to devote a complete post to it. Also I need to get someone to take a picture of it.
Bets and I swapped yarn. She sent me a box full of goodies.One of which is this Opal yarn. I love the turquoise color. I decided to do Nancy Bush’s Child’s First Sock from Vintage Knit Socks. The pattern is easy except for the purl YO knit. It is just so counterintuitive to not restore the yarn to the back of the needle after a purl stitch. I expect after I finish these socks, I will be making unplanned Yarn Overs for a long time
Round Toe
Round toe uses decreases over a lot over rows, to create a gently rounded shape. To do this successfully you need to know your row gauge. The decreases are usually worked over a number divided by 8, but can be a number divided by 10 or any number I guess.
I measure from the base of my big to to the tip of the toe. Then divide the inches by my row gauge. You can work less knit rounds if you need a shorter toe. Or start the toe part earlier.
Round toe is part of a family of toes that slowly decrease and end up with a number of stitches that are then drawn closed as opposed to grafting. The decreases can be worked to create a pattern as in the Star toe (toe used so beautifully in the Embossed Leaves sock) Swirl toe creates a decrease that seems to move to the right across the toe. The best source of information for these different toes is either Nancy Bush’s Vintage Socks or Nancy Bush’s Folk Socks.
If the number you are working isn’t divisible by 8 or 10, do a decrease to get to the correct number and then go onto the Round toe action.
To work round toe over a number divided by eight
Knit 6 K2tog repeat around the sock
Knit 6 rows
Knit 5 K2tog repeat around the sock
Knit 5 rows
Knit 4 K2tog repeat around the sock
Knit 4 rows
repeat with one less stitch on each decrease round and one less row on the plain rounds
Until you have just 16 stitches left. cut yarn and run through the stitches on the needles. Draw up and run needle through the stitches again to close up the hole.
The shape produced fits my feet perfectly very tapered. When I grafted toes closed they always looked to blocky and the squared off shape never went away no matter how many times I wore them.
If you have toes that are in more of a straight line across, then the grafted toe is probably perfect for you.
You can see the blocky effect with the grafted toe on these socks I made my daughter.
I have tried all the tricks that are supposed to get rid of the sharp corners, and they haven’t worked for me
I have the same problem with toe up socks. They are too wide across the very tip of the sock. And there is a lot of excess fabric over with would be your smallest toe.
Not to mention that I do crap short row heels :-}
Star Toe from Embossed Leaves Socks
Nancy Bush’s Evening Stockings
One down, one to go.
I didn’t want knee socks so I did a few mods on the pattern. I changed the heel flap to repeat the P1 K 5, pattern repeat. The flap is edged with seed stitch. I will do more rows of seed stitch on sock two. I did three seed stitches on each side. But one row gets eaten up when I picked up the gusset stitches. In effect I just used the lace pattern. I think they turned out pretty well. Of course I need to knit another one.
I did round toe, my favorite. I wanted to keep the P1 K5 pattern going. Due to brain damage I decreases in the purl stitches. This causes the purl row to go wonky. Next sock I will do the decreases in the knit stitches. That way the purl rows should remain true.
Sock without Suzann’s big foot in it :-} I can’t get the color right. But it isn’t a light pink, more a peachy pink. The yarn is soft and cushy
New KAL
If you missed out on Sockapalooza4 here is another sock KAL
It isn’t a swap but a three month KAL, starting with the Summer Solstice (June 21st)and ending with the Autumn Equinox (Sept 21st) Makes me feel all druid. There are contests and other fun stuff. You get to flash your socks and their is a contest for the most socks knit (Jayne) And you can enter designs in a design contest.
I can’t believe I signed up for more socks. But there is no pressure of completing a perfect sock for a partner.
Speaking of which I heard from my Sockapalooza swap pal. *Waves Hello* I am waiting for yarn to get started on socks for my pal. The yarn is coming from Canada and is probably sitting in a customs office someplace.
Oh and I would like to thank Jayne for pointing me in the direction of Etsy. Oh good another place to spend hours drooling and spend money. I have no control.
My socks are coming along well. I really really love the yarn and the pattern. I stuck my finger with the damn needle so I am taking a day off to let it heal a bit.
I would take pictures (the socks not the wounded diget) except the most evil line of thunderstorms is heading our way. The radar is a bit frigtening. Cate is probably getting hammered right now, and Kim will be next. Hale winds and lightening. Could we just have some nice normal rain, pleaseeeeeeeee
Stupid Place part II and Socks of course
Ladies, I am here to tell you, you can access the Stupid place without a 20 pound cat. All it takes is a double portion of very garlicky Shrimp Scampi and two very large Caribbean Sunset Pina Coladas 
My daughter and I went off for the day Saturday shopping. We were high in the way, only woman can be who have stuffed the trunk of the car with BARGAINS. We decided to reward ourselves with lunch. Not some nasty quickie food. We wanted wait staff and food. hehehe. The only place near by was a Red Lobster. As we waited for a seat, we spotted large pictures of Caribbean Sunset Pina Coladas. hmmmmmmmmm, looked good to us. Got seated, ordered our drinks and dived into the menu. We both had double orders of Garlic Shrimp Scampi. Burp!!Burp!!Burp!! Very good. And you know those drinks went down so smoothly, why not another one. It was at this point the portal to The Stupid Place opened. We called home, and in fits of giggles announced we were knocking back Pina Coladas at Red Lobster and forget dinner as we were stuffed. The worried voice on the other end of the phone wondered how we planned to drive home? Ha! had it covered. We were laughing so hard, we were drawing strange looks from other dinners and the wait staff. Wiser minds decided that a third drink might mean spending the night in Hampton. We leave Red Lobster. Go back to the mall, and Macy’s, we are still giggling . The sales help at Macy’s got garlic breath for their trouble. Which for some reason we thought was funny. I was trying on jeans, and Dawn tells me “Mom you have an ass, flaunt it!” I looked over my shoulder to see if I could find it. Must have been someone else’s Mom 
My daughter grabs my hand and drags me out of Macy’s and off to a Starbucks, where she declares we are having a time out. I found this funny. So funny I called home to announce we were in Starbucks, having a time out. All I heard was GAWDS PUT DAWN ON. Mz Schoolteacher advises that she really thinks I NEED A TIMEOUT. Excuse me I am not 11. It was alright in the end. We had coffee and dessert (like we needed that) wandered around for a few hours and made it home safely. Two things that made this work. I bought home dinner for the stay at home and also got him a few new shirts. So he never noticed the huge bag that had my name on it.
The yarn for the socks is from Fearless Fibers and indie dyer at Esty Fearless Fibers A thicker fingering weight or a skinny sportsweight. Very soft very cushy. Slight changes in the color don’t compete with the pattern. The pattern is from Nancy Bush’s Vintage Socks. Evening Socks. I didn’t want knee socks, so I just used the lace pattern on the leg over 60 stitches. The cuff is shorter then the pattern, because the leg is shorter. I am repeating the P1, K 5 cuff for the heel flap. With a seed stitch border. The lace pattern is super easy, actually only two rows of lace the rest of the rows are the P1, K5. I made a mistake. My fault knitting and boozing are probably not a good combination. I was going to frog back the two rows to fix it. But I decided to leave the mistake there, as a reminder of when Dawn and I took a trip to the Stupid Place together.
This is closer to the actual color.
The beginning of the heel flap
Suzann Gets Stuck In The Stupid Place
Everyday around 2pm I am off for a nap. I get up at 5:30 am to make breakfast and wave the folks out the door. No problem. But by 2:00pm I am exhausted and need to rest. At first there was a bit of resistance to nap time. Then the quality of the dinners went down the tube, and nap time was reinstalled. So I went off for my rest and something happened. Granted I have a rich inner life this one was over the top.
I found I couldn’t talk. Couldn’t even mouth words. People were talking to me, and I was shaking my head, franticly. Trying to let them know I couldn’t speak. Hands grabbed me and a voice boomed out…”Dawn come quick, your mother is stuck in the Stupid Place again” They began pushing be back and forth and slapping me. Not hard, but like they were trying to wake me up. I was desperately trying to tell them I could talk. It didn’t work. They kept yelling, YOU’RE STUCK IN THE STUPID PLACE AGAIN. At some point I broke away from them and found paper and pencil. I wrote I CAN’T TALK!!! The answer, of course you can’t talk, YOU ARE STUCK IN THE STUPID PLACE.
Then I saw my mother sitting at the kitchen table cutting out grocery coupons (a favorite hobby) I wrote to them I CAN SEE MY MOTHER!!!. They said, yes yes everyone can see dead people, but YOU ARE STUCK IN THE STUPID PLACE.
I woke up. I couldn’t talk. Not sure about the stupid place, but a 20 pound cat had half his body across my neck. He was peacefully sleeping away. I was gasping for air.
Have a good day, and watch out for THE STUPID PLACE or 20 pound cats, whichever comes first :-}
Negative ease a bit later.
PS I feel the term, Stuck In The Stupid Place is going to be thrown in my face in future. Ya know, like when I can’t locate my glasses(on my head) or stuff or mumble mumble mumble
Basic Sock Patterns
Here are a few tried and true but interesting to work sock patterns
The first is the famous Blueberry Waffle pattern. Wendy Johnson just did a sock using this pattern. It is the first stitch pattern I ever tried. It looks great in a sock color and breaks up patterned yarns. It has a lot of texture, but is basically ribbing. I have a short attention span for ribbing, but I managed to use this pattern twice, once for a CIC kids sock and once for a pair for my daughter. The pattern is for sports weight yarn, but is easily changed for fingering weight yarn.
The next is Fluted Bannister Socks. This was a Six Sock KAL sock, but is available to anyone now.
I did this with some opal yarn and even as a raw beginner I was able to change the pattern repeats for use with fingering weight yarn. Nice pattern, it is a bit more difficult then Blueberry Waffle, because the number of knits and purls change each row as the banister twists around the sock. Both of these patterns can be used on the instep without causing you pain if you wear you socks in traditional shoes. I would not carry cables down onto the foot. The cables can really cramp your style inside shoes. It is easy to change the cable pattern to ribbing instead. Or just do a plain foot.
Next is Dublin Bay socks. I have not knit this one. But it has a lot of play time around the net. Looks pretty
The last one is the Tidal Bay socks I knit for Benne. While not a super simple pattern, it is really interesting pattern to work. It has no tricky parts. Increases and decreases. There are two rows with double decreases that you need to watch for, but other then that it is easy. It is a stretchy pattern, so no fears of not being able to get it over your foot. A fun knit in either solid color yarn or patterned. Jayne I bet this would look brilliant in your hand dyed yarn. Your beautiful blues or the yummy Butterscotch.
As soon as I get to feeling alive again, I will post the pattern for the green socks. I wouldn’t trust any pattern I posted just now. I am beyond fuzzy
And a final word on negative ease and twisted stitch patterns. I look at a lot of sock knitting blogs. And I can’t tell you how many people I see with socks that could pass for compression bandages. The sock is stretched to the screaming point and it is hardly flattering. This happens when you have complex patterns with twist stitches. A pattern repeat of 15 is hard to adjust for a larger foot. Unless you choose to go up a needle size or use a heaver weight of yarn. The twist stitches make the pattern inelastic in the extreme. All you need to do is Google for images of Pomatomus, or Jaywalker and see the problems. The other problem is negative ease. I have a post about negative ease to put up, because unless you have very very skinny legs mostly you can skip this disaster causer.
ramble ramble ramble :-}
I hope the pattern links help people to find something they might want to try.