Just one more

pair of socks to complete before Christmas. Today is the 14th and Christmas is a mere 11 days away. Really I'm not sure if the last pair will be complete by the official day or not. I hope so but will not stress if it is not. That there is only one pair to complete before christmas means that the Old school socks are done and put aside with the other gifts.

Here they are, in all their ruffled glory. Technical details, 54 grams used, which means 46 grams left, enough for a second pair without the ruffle maybe. Needles were signature 2.25mm dpns (lovely to use), pattern was made up, and is to be written up soon for sharing. Sized to fit a UK size 3 foot which is what younger cub has right now. Destined to be work with black mary-janes and a wedge-wood blue print floral dress (that is yet to be made). Or anything else that is cute and clean.

The final pair of socks for 2011, of the seven knitted this year, is KAL aka Keith A... L.... In the last few socks I have knit I have been developing some guidelines for my own use. Things that I always seem to be working out from other patterns and from first principles. Things that I feel I should 'know' or have an opinion on. Things like where the gusset increases should start on a toe up sock. What I have found is that every sock designer has their own placement and proportions - some of which don't feel 'right' on my feet or the socks I knit. When I was knitting top down socks the heel flap was worked over half the sock stitches, and the gusset was formed from stitches picked up from the slipped stitches along the edge of the heel flap. Because the heel flap seemed to be worked as  as square or to a length that equaled the width the number of gusset stitches seemed to be 1/4 the count of the sock. Many toe up pattern work with a gusset that is much smaller than the top down patterns I started with. I've been playing with where to start the gusset shaping as a proportion of the foot if I want the gusset to be 1/4 of the sock count. Having such a deep gusset will let me have a long heel flap - which is what I'd like to achieve in the socks I work to my own patterns. I'm not saying the socks that I knit that others design don't fit - they do, I'm just saying I want a longer heel flap. I've not yet discovered the proportion for the gusset to sole length that will give me the heel flap I want, but I have worked out how to wrap the slip stitches of the heel around the sole of the foot. I'll work the pair the same way as this one ... but in the next pair I aim to extend the slip stitches further along the sole.


This is not a new idea or unique to me, way back in 2008 I knit Cat Bordhi's Batholomew and in that sock the slip stitches continued under the heel. The idea that slip stitches create a double layer of knit fabric and the result is the slip stitched area is more durable appeals, and why should that stop at the base of the heel?  Bartholomew was was knit top down so continuing the slip stitches round the curve seemed a natural thing to do as it was worked. Now I think I've worked out how to start slip stitches from  under the heel ... and I'll test my method in the second of the pair just to check. This kind of discovery and problem solving is quite exciting and I only had to frog back and rework the heel cup turn-ey bit once!

Take care - only 2.5 more work days before I'm on leave/holiday :D
Just knowing that makes me smile, and yet I'm still pleased at how well the preparation for 2012 teaching is coming along at work.

na Stella

KAL

usually KAL means Knit along ... but in my family  KAL is the initials of my Dad. Yesterday with only 22 days until Christmas I cast on a pair of socks for him. Our family takes Christmas quietly, there are traditions amongst us around gifts, for my dad we search high and low until we find a vintage tractor calender, and usually we add a generous gift card at a supermarket or hardware shop. This year I was knitting socks for both cubs and decided that my dad, their grandad probably needed a pair as well. The impetus was finishing the Bigger on the inside socks. So today there is the finished socks, the the socks that are one-point-four done, and new socks. With three socks discussed in this post today is indeed a sock day.

Bigger on the inside, all done, and on the lawn. This many daisies worries Bear, right now he is mowing the lawn. Details, Pattern worked toe up based on the cuff down Tardis Socks tribute pattern by Ellen Botilda, 2.25mm needle, circular, yarn a custom one off from Vintage Purls. Yarn left over = 11grams, Sock sized up to 72 stitches, as that cub has large paws. Interesting detail -  I worked the gusset in one by one rib, which may be something I do again.

You can just see the lines in the gusset that the rib creates, to get the lines running this way I placed the increases on the sole edge of the gusset. This was the bit that I frogged and reworked - just to get these ribs all neat and tidy - and they sort of work well with the slip stitched heel flap.

The Old school socks are making good progress, up to the gusset already. Once the heel is done on these - there is very little left to do as they are quite short. There is only one thing I would change if I was to work these again, so somehow integrate the pattern into the toe shape more --- I'm growing dissatisfied with socks where the pattern just starts once the toe is worked but haven't yet sorted out what my approach will be to integrating the sock instep pattern with the toe. Which leads me to ....

.... the KAL sock, here  I've tried to work the sock decoration inside the toe - in a very simple way. This yarn came with a sock club in 2009, Vintage Purls, and was intended for the sock design Mandorla. It was the most 'grandady' of the yarns I had in my sock drawer that I was willing to sacrifice for some one else. That sounds mean - but there is a lot of pale blue grey, and blue, and pink in there that wouldn't be appreciated by Grandad as much as by me. Selecting this yarn did make me aware that I should widen my colour selection if only to have yarns I want to use for other peoples socks. Pattern is one I made up, slip stitches in columns with a 'chain' or 'square' of slip stitchs every 9th and 11th rounds.So far so good and knitting up fast so promises to be done by Christmas - or perhaps it can be a New Year sock?

Take care, life here has finally returned to normal, the mad rush of ballet practices and concerts is done. There are no more weekend classes - although I do have a promise to older cub that once ballet was done he could have  sleep over for 5 friends, so there is that still to survive. there are only two more weeks of work, and school before the long summer holidays begin... and that feels timely and nice.

na Stella

Progress.

Today it is all about the progress - two socks, one done, one nearly done with the impressive bits done. In keeping with progress - there is a decision to abandon a poorly thought through project and a new project jumps on and nearly off the needles.

First up - the Old School sock is one, and a second one started. I still have reservations about this sock - the frill is larger than I imagined - but the littlest cub coos and fondles and thinks they are so pretty I shouldn't change them at all. I will keep an eye out for lace edge that is smaller and suitable for use as an frilled edging on a bobby sock.

I've started the second toe and managed to reverse the shaping so the increases on each sock spiral out and mirror the other sock. I didn't want the usual toe, the one with increases at each end of the sole and instep stitches but I did want a toe increase with four repeats or sections. Figuring that the usual toe involved a cast on of two sets of 8 stitches then increased four stitches every second round I rejigged that to fit neatly on dpns. I cast on 8 stitches, increased in each stitch on the first round to get 16 stitches and then every second round increased in the last stitch on the dpn for the  first sock and increased in the first stitch on the dpn for the second sock. So now I have  just the boring bit - where I work the chart until ready to increase for the gusset now.

Second up in the report - Tardis socks made good progress this week - mostly as the older cub tended to work in his bedroom rather than watch 'boring tv' with his parents most evenings. He is off an age where reading Harry Potter or about Aliens is far more fun than watching tv - and I'm keen to promote the reading - so we are keeping him supplied with library visits to stock up on whatever he fancies. The sock is being worked in reverse order - toe up rather than top down.   The chart was easy to reverse - I just turned the page upside down. I also worked the colour work on needles 2 sizes larger, so 2.75 mm not 2.25mm, just because I needed to make sure the colour work would stretch enough to go over the heel and around the calf.  There is another 12 or so rounds of 1x1 rib and then this one will be done.

The next project is the one that is about to fall off the needles, frogged.  I've already reknit this one, adding more stitches. This is a whim project, as in one I cast on in a whim, thinking I knew enough to just wing it. Seems I don't or rather I didn't think enough about what was required to make this work. Now intellectually I know that cables draw knit fabric in, they reduce its ability to stretch - and the more cables and the more stitches cabled, the more drawn in is the knit fabric. So when knitting this I completely ignored the fact that having 5 cables around a tube that fits the wrist - would make that tube tight. This fits - but it feels tight. I had thought I would give this away  - there was an opportunity to have it knit ready for latter this week. I'm now rethinking that and this will be frogged and parked. Besides its spring, wet and warmish rather than cold - hardly weather to gift warm cabled hand knit wristers. Mental note to self - 60 stitches even when on 2.75mm needles, using sock yarn, cabled rib is not enough to fit a wrist comfortably.

And this is the fast and furious project that jumped on and then off the needles, a pair of red wristers. I've been invited back to teach at Handmade again. I've offered to enable new knitters by teaching them how to make a wrister. This is a project I developed first for littlest cub, then for WWKIP 2011 and it is designed especially to give beginners the skills they need to start and finish a project in one lesson. Working the wrister involves casting on, casting off (to make button holes), casting on again ( to complete the button holes), weaving in ends, and then knitting to the length you need. It involves only 25 stitches and a few hours. I know that this hasn't got purling or shaping - but in a 2 hour class I don't want to confuse people. I figure that once people have  knit a wrister or two - they will be ideally positioned to pick up purling and increasing or decreasing. So this sample is knit in Max - the Vintage Purls dk sock yarn - superwash merino with a hint of nylon for durability,  in reality this is blue-redder than this image but its a grey day here and my camera seemed determined to add a little orange to the red.

Well its raining, again, has been on and off heavily all day. It is now late afternoon and all the cubs have come home, as is Bear - late afternoon and time to bunker in for the evening. I'd best go and put on the coffee pot, there is lemon syrup cake (a glut of lemons has been gifted to us), crisp ginger lemon cookies in the shape of bunnies, dog bones, flowers and hippopotamus (Bears favorite), elder cub has made chocolate cake and wants a hand with fudge icing. Littlest cub returned home from a play date with afghan cookies. Rain does that - makes the kitchen inviting, and I don't mind one bit. I had planned nachos for dinner but perhaps we need something healthy and green to counteract all the baking? Then again perhaps Nachos is a perfect way to end the weekend?

Take care
Stella

Change of name

As a user of Ravely (there goes the drug terminology again - user), I am used to naming my projects. and sometimes the names come easily, Bubbles and Toad. Other times the names are perfunctory such as  Bears Paws 3, yes surprisingly the third pair of 'back paw covers' I had knit Bear. Then sometimes the names are nothing but a description, 'nother big blanket being a good example, or Miuaik (or Making it up as I knit).

All in all the challenge of naming projects is at times beyond me - and the names are not very inventive, take for example one of the latest socks, originally titled Ice sock, because of the pale icy blue colour yarn. As I knit the sock an idea formed, the sock was pretty, covered in traveling stitches that grew from 2x2 rib and formed a delicate lattice. I liked how the twists paired well with the icy blue .. and began to think of the socks as pretty girly socks. The kind of sock  I wanted as a wee girl but don't remember ever having, lace trimmed bobby socks.

The more I considered these socks as pretty girly socks, the more I wanted to add a lace ruffle to the top edge and keep them short - ankle length.
So I did, I finished off the short leg but closing off the traveling stitches into a standard rib, and worked a turning round of K2togYO, followed by a knit round. Then I searched through all my lace pattern books looking for a narrow lacy edge that I could work as a sock frill. In one of my earliest knitting book purchases, Heirloom Knitting for Dolls by Furze Hewitt I found two seconds on lace trim and the Fan Lace on page 76 seemed perfect. I do like the way the eyelets transition the rib to the lace ... I'm feeling quite proud of that little detail and might have to use it again some where. 

Nothing is every that easy, I worked a few repeats and realized that the lace was rather wide even though it was only on 8 stitches so I rejigged the lace to fit into 6 stitches. I made the lace 'frill' a little by working a join to the sock row every forth row. So far so good, littlest cub has pronounced them 'pretty' and asked if they can be house socks. Perhaps the frill is a little OTT (Over the top) if she wants to keep them for house socks?

When not adding extraneous frills to socks I've been reworking the cabled wrister. Apparently 48 stitches on 2.75mm needles was little to few, so I've frogged and upped the stitch count to 60 stitches. I suspect the stitch count could be even higher - but  whilst the cast on was easier the fifth time around I'm not in a hurry to practice it again just to add a few more stitches. I also added a round between cable twists .... and the cables seem more relaxed. Funny how a bit of space will do that to most things. Looks like there will be plenty of yarn for two wristers. It is a nice yarn, dark chocolate black - something left over from something - perhaps Tripple and the inside collar of Toad.

take care
Stella

I might have started another pair of socks ...

just might have. Usually I like to have only one pair on the needles at any one time, but sometimes a new sock is just the right answer. We have just been away, visiting a few Air Museums around the south island, Wigram and Ashburton, both homes for flight training bases during World War Two. Like most knitters I made sure I packed enough knitting to keep me busy for three times longer than we were away - you know just in case. I'm not sure in case of what, in case we got held up and didn't get home, in case the weather meant that I was stuck inside knitting (not a bad thing in the scheme of things), in case I got bored with what I was knitting and wanted a change. That last one is probably the best reason, and in fact I found that knitting continuously on the same size needles did tire my hands out and switching to a different size needle and project did my hands good.

So I wanted to take the Bubble sock but two reasons stopped me, first it is a chart and so not good travel knitting and second it was nearly finished so wouldn't have provided enough knitting. This is where Bubbles is at, and if tonight turns out to be a tv night (between the two extremes of Big Bang Theory, and The Borgias) I should be done today.

I did take Toad, my handspun Texel sweater that is in progress, and made lots of progress. I am nearly about to start the lower hem, 2x2 rib I think, with maybe a garter band above and below. Elder cub is 12, and taller than me, say 5ft8", so I'm happy to make this long just in case he has not stopped growing. I think it will be body band/hem, then neck band then sleeves, that way I won't have to worry that the neck will draw up the shoulders and shorten the sleeves. I am almost tempted to work something fancier at the hem, say a cable or such but then again .... perhaps I should keep it simple. Whatever I do I will have to match the cuffs to the hem so I am keeping that in mind as the cuffs are significantly smaller so I'd need to find a pattern with a repeat size that would fit around cuff and hem neatly.

One of the best reasons to keep projects simple is that at least one of the projects needs to be a pick up and go project. While I was away I wanted to start Toads Christmas prezzie, a Tardis Sock on the road. I had the pattern, the project bag, the needles and the yarn (Vintage Purls of course). Then just before we left I discovered that the sock was knit top down, and not only that but the words Police Box were formed first - I wasn't going to be able to knit that in secrecy in a motel room for very long was I? So I grabbed a lovely icy blue Vintage Purls sock yarn and a nostepinne to wind it with and decided I would knit something for younger cub. This is the first attempt, a quadrant toe and a cable that I had charted in my workbook. The cable in a slightly different form was part of Bears Paws 3, but this time I'm working it continuously. As things go I realized that the cable would work better if it was more woven and symmetrical around the center ... so I frogged.

This is take two, and as I started the pattern row I realized that I could work a cute baby cable up the middle just to complicate things even more so I allowed two center stitches which spaced the cable out a little more. I love the pretty pale blue of this sock, I'm thinking an eye of partridge heel and maybe even some sort of lace cuff or cast off.

Another day of knitting and the sock is looking like it might work. Part of me wonders if I should have a baby cable along either side and part of me thinks that it is just fine as it is.

That is progress so far, I'm still on leave for a few more days but I'm in the midst of finalizing another column for Entangled so I'm keeping this post short. I thought the article was to be on Scale but as I write my way towards the importance of scale in crafting I find I'm defining craft first and have yet to get to the scale. And I have some great images to use so I'm going to have to fit the scale in somewhere. Writing is a bit like knitting, sometimes the direction that is best isn't quite the direction that you imagined you would be going in.

Take care
na Stella