More Socks

A year ago I began working on a sock using some red Trekking yarn, Sunday, a year later, I finally finished the second sock. My second sock was delayed because I had no real notes telling me how I did the heel turn for the first sock. Eventually, I looked up another toe up sock with a gusset and heal flap and improvised the second heal. Immediately after I finished the heel, I found the very limited notes I made about the heel turn.

The pattern is of my own design. The sock is a toe up style. The toe is a round toe which I reverse engineered from a cuff down pattern. I arranged the toe so that the number of stitches between the increases equaled the number of stitches for the 2 stitch patterns selected (9). I thought that this would give the sock a nice flow.

The sock was knit on size 0 Addis. I am not sure what gauge I got, but there are 72 stitches to a round.

As I mentioned, this sock has a heel flap and gussets. I didn't want to just do the standard heel flap stitch (k1, slip1) so I divided the flap into sections of 9 and made the flap alternate between the standard heel flap and a flap that looked more like seed stitch (still done with k1, slip1, but alternating rows so that the slip stitches don't line up)

As mentioned, there were 2 different stitch patterns used, one that is a pseudo cable and one that is a something like a traveling stitch. The stitch patterns alternate so that the same motif does not sit next to itself. I also decided to make the socks mirror each other. The cuff for the sock was a very simple rib, no frills there.

Well, I guess those are all the details of this sock. Next sock I will be working on is another sock of my own design where the first sock was made last year. This one also has a design challenge in that my notes simply tell me that the toe used was a "star of 3 points." That would be fine if I had done a cuff down, but I had reverse engineered that toe too, so I am not really sure how I created the "star of 3 points" and the yarn used isn't perfectly suited for recreating. Until I get the courage to try to figure that one out, my traveling project is a thrummed mitten made from this kit:

Socks for a Hiking Trip

Yesterday at an undisclosed Massachusetts courthouse a green sock became part of a pair. I finished the second green Traveler's Sock. I forget the name of this sock yarn, but I did buy it specifically for these socks. I thought that the variegation in the same color would enhance the traveling stitch pattern that forms the cuff of the socks. As noted previously, these socks will coordinate with my hiking boots and my hiking pants (unfortunately they aren't really thick enough for backpacking). I plan to wear these socks on the first day of my White Mountain hiking trip. I don't think we will be doing much hiking on that day, and the hiking we do won't be of the backpacking variety. In addition to finishing these socks, I managed to finish my colorwork socks (from the current Interweave). One of the two is a Frankensock. This pair of socks was started using left over louet Gems sportweight merino. The yarn was left over from when I made Eunny's colorwork mittens last winter. I knew full well that there was no way I had enough yarn to make a full pair of the socks. I therefore made some alterations. First off, I made the leg shorter than the pattern called for, then instead of making 2 matching socks, I made one the inverse of the other, so that the color use would be roughly equal. Despite these changes, I ran out of the darker color yarn before the lighter, I then substituted some of the blue yarn that I am using for the edging to my Season's sweater to finish the dark part. Then I ran out of the light yarn mid toe. In order to finish the sock, I again used some of the Season's edging yarn. Now I have two socks that roughly coordinate, the fact that they don't remotely match doesn't matter much to me. These socks are going to be strictly "at home" slipper socks, with one exception: these socks will be going hiking with me. I am told that the huts that we will be staying in aren't heated, so these socks will be worn while I sleep so that my feet stay warm and cozy.

Despite being finished with all major pieces of Whiskey, the sweater is still not done. For some inexplicable reason I didn't bother with blocking the right front this weekend. I thought I would block it, I intended to block it, but yet, I didn't. In an effort to not loose complete momentum with this sweater I did some seeming instead. I attached the left front to the back and I attached the left sleeve. I tried the sweater on, and I wish that I made the sleeves a bit longer. They aren't so short that I won't wear this, but I prefer sleeves that reach a tiny bit past my wrist. I like the length of the sweater body though and am now looking forward to wearing this, though I don't expect that to happen until fall.

As far as socks go, I have started my gusset increases on my Trekking sock. I know that the sock in the photo looks short, but when I compared it to the finished sock, the gusset started at the same place. In other words, the second sock is moving along without any bumps (knock wood).

Socks, Some Rock & Some Trek

Last Thursday I mentioned that I was starting a new pair of socks using Socks that Rock for the yarn, and following a Cookie A pattern. Yesterday, on the Orange Line I finished the first Twisted Flower Sock. In order to finish I had to be a bit creative, you see, this was the only knitting I had with me and I didn't have a book to read so I needed to get the sock done and to start the second or I would be sitting on the T with nothing to do (I can't handle that). I didn't have a sewing needle to use for a kitchener stitch nor did I have another knitting needle to use fora 3 needle bind off, so what was I to do? My solution was to take the plug part from my Ipod headphones and use that as a 3rd needle which let me do a 3 needle bind off. I had no scissors so I had to break the yarn by hand, which I didn't find to be easy. After finishing the sock, I cast on for the second sock and started working on the ribbed cuff, then my T ride was over. Now the second sock has been set aside so that I can try to make a second trekking sock.

Months ago I created this sock:

It is my own design, unfortunately, I didn't leave myself good notes about how I made it. I made a note of when I started the gusset increase and how many gusset increases I used (it is a toe up sock with heel flap and, obviously, a gusset). I did not write notes on how I turned the heel, and more importantly my toe instructions tell me how to get up to a certain number of stitches then include the phrase "too big." Unfortunately, looking at the first sock, it appears that I did toe increases to the number of stitches written before I noted "too big," so, while I started the toe following my handwritten instructions I am quite concerned that I will have to rip it all out because it won't match the first. I have no idea what my "too big" referred to, was my toe too long? My first sock fits so it clearly isn't too wide around. My notes were in pencil, did I erase the number of my original increases? This will be something of a mystery, and a lesson on why detailed notes are required for designs.

Four Letter Words

Were said on Tuesday night. After posting about my speedy progress on Whiskey I went home and worked some more. I was nearly done with the left front when what did my eyes see?

Can you see the problem?

Maybe not, perhaps this is too much of a close up on the problem area. This is how it should look:

As you can see, the squares should line up so that the dark diamonds form a diagonal stripe, and the light diamonds form a parallel diagonal stripe. Is that what mine does? No, somehow I managed to put two diamonds of the same color above one another.

Time to frog.

I certainly did not feel like frogging on Tuesday night, so instead, I dug into my smallish stash and pulled out some Socks that Rock yarn. I have never posted a photo of this purchase, and I stopped making socks shortly after I bought the yarn. I found my sock mojo again when I discovered the collection of fabulous sock patterns by Cookie A. Cookie A, you may recall, is the designer of Knitty's Pomatomus socks and many other Knitty socks. I will show you progress on this soon.

By the way, you can see that Isis is ready for her close up Mr. DeMille. I tried to shoot the yarn without her, but she clearly wanted to be the focus of the photo.