The lonely sock....

As many of you know, I seem to fall victim to the deadly second sock syndrome on a regular basis :) I can race through one sock but fail to muster enough oomph to continue onto the second. I enjoy the challenge of the new pattern or technique but not the repetition of it - hence a lot of single socks, gloves, mitts and armwarmers are hibernating all over the place in their incomplete state, making me feel guilty every time I rediscover one.

So last friday, when I was looking around for an easy knit in the evening, I stumbled across this poor, lonely single 2x4 rib sock I started. No specific pattern for this one as I just knitted a basic toe-up sock with a short row heel and added a simple rib to compliment the busy hand painted yarn.  The yarn isn't one of my dyed yarns:), it's from Zitron Trekking's hand art range. I've had it for quite a while and it's been tried out with a few sock patterns with little success. I love the randomness of the colour drifts but it always fights even the simpler patterns so rib it was destined to be.

Because this is for a gift, I increased my stitch count to 66 sts instead of my customary 60 to fit a large womans/small mans sock size. (If you needed to decrease or increase the size, just work with a multiple of 6 and knit as long as you need to the heel.) The sole is smooth, the top is ribbed and after the heel shaping, the rib is continued in the round for as high as you want to make them. The cuff is a nice stretchy 1x1 rib and the bind off is extra loose. I remind myself every time and still I always have to unpick the bind off. I think I'm knitting it soooo loose and then when you try and get the damn thing on it gets stuck at the heel :)) So, for me loose means looooose!

So, progress so far on the second sock? You will be proud of my staying power! I knitted all friday, saturday and a little of sunday night and I have raced through the cast on, zoomed up the sole, conquered the heel and am now on the home straight up to the cuff. Wooo! See what I can do when I just get past that second sock syndrome? :)

So now the lonely sock might actually become a matching pair after all :)

Stripey noros - again!

Remember these? Yup, I've pulled out the stripey noro socks out of the pile of hibernating projects and decided its time to sort them out! If you remember, I had a few troubles with the variegated colours merging and then after fixing that, I knitted this knee-high and the increases were all wrong and the colour changing wraps were in the wrong place as well as hard and lumpy. So, it needed ripping back completely but after those trials and tribulations, I had a cooling off period and stuffed it away:-)

But now its back! I think I have cooled off enough now to rip this back with total indifference to the amount of toil and trouble that went into the first knitting of this:-) I had to get back into stripey noro headspace - good thing I keep a blog to remember what I should and shouldn't do again! So, yarn colourways were already sorted - check. Fix the changing of the colours and move to back of sock - check. Get a pattern to follow increases for knee-highs - check!! So, in theory I should be sorted and this should be a painless knit, but I don't want to tempt fate:-)

Knitting away, I have now cast on (judy's magic cast on), shaped the toe, knitted about 6.5" of sock foot so far with the colour changing at the back and there is no hard 'rib' feel to the change. I don't know why I thought I'd have to trap the yarn every row to carry it up the sock - overkill really - as all it did was make a hard ridge. This time all I did was pick up the thread after knitting four rows - no wraps, twists of any sort. Easy and no bumps.

I was also thinking of trying out a new method of short row heel - apparently I said so on my earier blog post. Unfortunately I can't remember just where that wonderful new technique is. Should have written it down on the blog, I know:-) So I'll just go back to my tried and tested method until it turns up again.

Or, I could look in my new sock book! I got this a wee while ago but forgot to blog about it. It gives you all the basic information you will need to knit a sock of any type; toe-up, top down, heel flaps, short row, knee highs. So this is the book I'm using as reference for the increases on those knee-highs. Maybe it will have a better version of the toe-up short row heel.

Well, that's my evening planned - a bit of light sock reading and turning a heel, while watching some good television, of course:-)

The sock that never was......

Once upon a time, as all good stories start, there was a lovely ball of Noro 92 Kureyon sock yarn wanting to be knitted into wonderful stripey socks. The bright rainbow colours promised a stunning and enjoyable knit. So off we went, knit, knit, knit. Toe done. Knit a bit more and the yarn starts to show how lovely these stripes will be.......

For the first time knitting with noro it's looking good. The colours are strong and are contrasting well as we go. Yum, yum, yum. Worth a close-up look:-)

On we go to the short row heel. Now this should be interesting - short rows and making sure the stripes meet up on the way back and when I rejoin the sock. Thought this would be tricky but it's deceptively easy. I shouldn't tell you that so you can be stunned at my prowess!!! I am mighty proud of my first efforts!

And a close-up of the heel stripes so I can remember how I did it the next time:-)))) I love the little green oval at the bottom! I'm liking these socks!

So on we go, knitting up to the top - the home run.....

Oh dear! I start to run into stripe problems - you knew it was too good to be true, didn't you? It's not so easy to see at the top of the full sock, so have a look at just the top closer up.

To explain my sock predicament. To get two socks out of one ball, you use the inside end and the outside end and alternate the colours every four rows. But if you use this method, the colours run the opposite way from each other. Okay, you say so why is this a problem? Because no matter where I start in the ball, one colour will always meet the same colour coming the other way.

In this case, the green. After the heel, the black is drifting into green but the green is now drifting into black and there is a section at the top of this photo where all stripe definition disappears completely. After such a punchy sock this won't do! So what can I do?

Apparently the answer is to have the colour sequences running in the same direction. I do wish I'd known that before I started and knitted such a perfect heel! So to resolve this problem there is only one solution - rip it all back and start again. I paused first and lived with the sock for a day or so before doing this as maybe I would decide I could live with it, but no. This is a present and I do want to get it as good as I can, so rip, rip, rip. I rewound the yarn back into two balls, both going the same way, ready to begin again.

But another problem lurks now. Both balls start at blue - no contrast! So I wind off a chunk and move the sequence on two colours - the only option that will leave enough for a full pair of socks. And then I can start again.

Sorry for the poor photo. I just snapped this quickly in artificial light before ripping it out in disgust. The red which looked so lovely contrasted with the blue now looks vile next to the green. The photo doesn't do the grossness of the clashing colours justice - thank goodness! So what was a lovely sock experience is deteriorating into a fiasco. There is no other way of winding the yarn without taking off too much to get a better combination and its just NOT NICE. I won't knit that. Nope, No way.

So what is a girl to DO? Buy more yarn!!:-)

If I can't get one ball to give me a stripey effect, then some people have used two contrasting colourways to great effect. And you can get 4 socks out of it! The problem buying yarn online is you really can't gauge whether it will work with the colour scheme you have. So I bought two just in case. The top purple one is prime candidate to work well with the blues and greens. And the pink I thought would be lovely with the lime colourway - knee highs? Magenta and Lime. Yum.

So, the ending of this tale is our little sock is now no longer with us but it is happy being reincarnated alongside some purple noro to be the little sock that could!

Stripey green socks finished!

As I was thinking what to blog about today, I suddenly realised I'd completely forgotten to tell you that these stripey green socks are now finished! After the length of time these have been dragging on, I can't believe I forgot :-) It's like a huge weight has been lifted now these are done and dusted. I do like them, don't get me wrong, but sometimes a project just needs to be finished so you can move on and start something new.

It's my own fault though as I put them away to 'get back to'! I got to the heel of the second sock and look, the stripes don't match. How come one is so much bigger?! Perfect heel though, which I was pleased about but not so pleased that I would have to rip it back to sort out the stripe patterning. So it kind of got sidelined by other projects. But it kept niggling away at me saying 'you've got to fix that heel, you know'. And I'm saying, 'Yes, yes, but the ishbel/albem/beret is nearly finished and I'm on a roll, etc....' And so it went on:-)

But it got to a point where the drip, drip, drip got to me! So out the socks came and what do you know? In about one evening they were past the heel, up the leg, being ribbed and cast off! One evening! I had been sitting with the weight of this unfinished WIP all that time for one evenings work?! Seriously, a big lesson learned!

But they are nice, aren't they? Perfect stripey socks that now match all the way up ;-) I may have to knit the rib on a smaller needle size as they feel a little loose on me but I'll try that on the next pair. Remembering not to experiment with alterations on the second sock so I don't end up having to take it all back to match the first!!

Next up on the sock front? I think the Wendy happy that was going to be stripey gloves may have to revert to socks again. The stripes are so wide that the gloves look very sad and not funky at all. But if the stripes insist on being that wide, I could easily get a very funky pair of knee highs out of the two balls I have of it. That would mean shaping up the calf of the sock - a new thing to learn and master:-))

And the gloves? I do have some Harry Potter Opal 'Tonks' that is much more stripey that would do very well indeed. Well, that's my TV knitting sorted for the next wee while!

Now, where to start? Shawls, gloves, socks, sunflower scarf, unfinished pink beret.....

And then there were two...

At last there are two socks complete! The heel gave me a little trouble - one side didn't want to play ball and insisted on leaving a hole whatever I tried so I had to get stroppy and force the issue:-) They've been good practice and a quick knit in DK but I can't say I love this 'print' yarn. I appreciate the pattern the print gives although it is a bit in your face with the colour combinations and the heavy bands of patterning. I thought the bold colours would be zingy and bright but they aren't quite what I had in mind.

But it's all a good lesson in how yarns look like one thing on the ball and quite another when they are knitted up - sigh. But I have some lovely sock yarn still to knit up so I can console myself in their yumminess :-)

The last of my roving has arrived from Fibreoptics - yum! - and now I can have a play at spinning. It looks just too yummy to start with so I'll have to find some scrap fleece to experiment with first before using the good stuff. But it's been too dull and dismal to take any decent photos of any of the fibres as yet.

Vivian is now on the needles - granted, just the cast on row but it's a start. Hopefully I'll have some progress to show you later on this week. And I am also seriously considering starting Ishbel, Ysolda's new scarf and she is designing a beret to go with it - very excited! I just have to hunt for some yarn first....

Finished!

Well, here are the Black opal socks all finished and on the feet. I do think the rib stands out well, don't you? The yarn is a lovely subtle mix so it balances the rib well. They also colour match jeans very well too! When I was knitting these I thought they were more of a purpley blue but they look a more pronounced blue now when they're on. I do like these subtle yarns. They can be nicely individual but not too garish as socks. I think I may try and dye up some subtle yarns to try and capture this effect.

I did try to start a pair of socks in the plum/green yarn I dyed but in a much finer guage, I found the figure of eight cast on too difficult. Easy when you have 8 or 10 stitches per needle but not so easy when there are 20+. There isn't enough give on the needle to stretch to the end. Maybe I'll try again or try the 'magic cast on' on Knitty.com. I think Cat Bordhi has done a video for this too so that should be easy to follow. If I find it I'll keep the links for you for the next sock post.

The cabled habitat hat is finished and there will be more pics tomorrow for that. It did knit up quick! I'm thinking that socks take so long as there are always two and the hat was a much chunkier knit so moved a lot faster. And, yes, I did watch the Scarlet Pimpernel and the miss marple and actually managed to cable throughout! So I finished sewing in the ends just after midnight.

But now I have a few new projects to plan for. Some crocheted mary jane slippers, some snuggly mittens and 'Vivian' the cabled hoodie top by Ysolda. That will be a longer project though and will be worked on in-between everything else. So I'll keep you posted. Vivian does make me think I haven't watched Pretty Woman in a while....... :-)