|
|
 |
|
Welcome to my knitting--no, fiber arts--no, artisan blog.
Other knitting blogs inspired me to start a knitting blog. But I also crochet, weave, and make jewelry, and I'm just learning
to make cheese. So I guess that makes this an artisan blog.
|
|
|
|
Monday, August 22, 2005
Sockapal2za Candidates
Two of the possibilities for Sockapal2za socks are halfway done. The ethnic pattern sock has a heel, and now I'll continue the foot in pink, too. This one's now a
walking sock:
I think this would also look good with teal substituting for pink.
The cuffed sock is also halfway and is now a walking sock. The cuff folds down twice, the way girls used to fold down bobby
socks:
 
You know the construction method, of course. Knit the ribbing and purl a turning ridge, knit the cuff and purl a turning ridge,
knit some more rounds, and then change direction. I'm doing the foot in the contrasting colors, partly because it looks cool
and partly because the purple isn't sock yarn and therefore isn't the best yarn to use for the heel and toe.
Even if these turn out not to go to my sock pal, I'm glad I'm knitting them because I've wanted to knit these socks for a
long time, and now I have the excuse.
link
Sunday, August 21, 2005
Sock Tables
Unless you're doing something fancy, you can knit socks just by following a formula. Many people follow
a formula, and German sock-knitting books give a table of stitch and row counts by shoe size. In fact, German sock patterns
tend to consist of specifications for yarn and gauge and charts for stitch patterns, and that's pretty much it, because they
expect you to follow the table. If the sock wearer has pretty normal feet and legs (not, for example, wide feet and very thin
ankles), all you have to know is the shoe size. I've knitted socks for people I've never met and they've fit perfectly.
I've finally gotten around to setting up a page about this. If you click on the "Patterns and Tips" link on the navigation
bar, then click on the "Sock Formula" link, you'll see a little discussion with a shoe size conversion table and a sock table
that's a composite of the sock tables in some of my German sock books.
link
Saturday, August 20, 2005
Sock Pal Socks in Progress
The pink-tangerine sideways sock is half grafted; I have to learn how to graft seed stitch so I can finish
grafting it and put on the toe. Meanwhile, I've started three more Sockapal2za socks, all in stranded patterns:
I'm doing the Ethnomuster socks in a third color variation: lavender, purple, blue, and pink:
I've also started a lavender, purple, and pink pair with some bead accents. It's a little hard to see the beads in the photo,
but they're on the front of the picots:
And I've combined the purple theme and the pink-tangerine theme in the foldover cuff socks:
link
Monday, August 15, 2005
Needles and Pins
Almost off the needles is the red NBaT. This should be finished tomorrow and on its way to my sister for
her birthday. Her birthday is in two months, but a cotton t-sweater isn't really the sort of thing you wear in October in
Annapolis. I'll take a photo before I take it to the post office.
My stepmother's birthday is also coming up, but it's in August. She likes jewelry, so I decided to make her a bead-and-wire
pin from a pattern in a book I have. Here are the beads and the finished pin:
 
One day I'll learn how to take a digital photo that's in focus.
I also ordered some Lorna's Laces yarn for the Sockapal2za socks. I got it from The Knitting Zone. The price was amazing ($9 a hank), and the service was good, too. When they noticed I'd ordered only one hank of each color,
Mary e-mailed me to make sure I knew Ineeded two hanks for a pair of socks. I told her I was combining the purple with one
of the variegateds; I think it was very sweet of them to check. I have four ideas for Sockapal2za socks, you'll recall, and
this yarn is for one of them. Top to bottom, they're Wisteria, Blackberry, and Valentine. I love them all, but I'll only use
one of the variegateds.
Tomorrow when the NBaT is finished, I'm going to start the other three pairs and put the toe on the sideways socks.
link
Sunday, August 14, 2005
Sock Discoveries
Friday was Conrad's birthday. Naturally he got some knitted things: the Corps of Discovery Hat and a pair
of socks. Here's the finished Corps of Discovery Hat:
Obviously you can follow the pattern and get a nice hat. My three variations -- joining the round at the beginning, knitting
some rounds after the turning ridge, and grafting the end -- don't change the hat, but they make my left hemisphere feel better.
The socks were harder than they should've been. I just don't like variegated yarn, so I spent a lot of time trying to figure
out something interesting to do with it. In the end I decided that Conrad likes the look of variegated yarn, so I'd just knit
the socks.
There's a story behind these socks. I knitted Conrad a pair from blue variegated Regia yarn,
and later he told me, "These are my favorite socks, and I'd like a pair in green." By that time, the world was full of self-patterning
yarn, and variegated sock yarn was hard to find. I spent a couple of years trying to find green variegated yarn with no success,
so he got some substitutes:
Then I found some Opal Handpaint at Carodan Farms. The green was pretty bright. At some point Conrad had also disabused me of my misconception that green is his favorite color;
his favorite color is actually orange. Carodan Farms also had the Opal Handpaint in a brown and orange colorway, so of course
I snapped up one of those, too. Unfortunately, the yarn was more brown than orange. Anyway, that's what became the birthday
socks. Because he wanted green variegated socks, I knitted those for him for Christmas:
I kind of like the swirly pattern in these.
Now here's where I have to explain that when I started knitting socks, I always worked them on 72 stitches. I don't remember
why, but I probably measured our feet and looked at the stitch gauge and decided 72 was the right number. Then I started following
the standard German formula, which you can get from Coats GmbH. Click on "Know How," then click on "Stricken," then click on "So geht's: Socken Stricken." There are downloadable PDF charts
for 3-ply, 4-ply, 6-ply, and 8-ply yarn. I'll put up translations of these. Anyway, you start with the Euro shoe size of the
sock wearer (I wear 39; Conrad wears 41) and then follow the numbers in that column for how many stitches to cast on, how
many rows to work for the heel flap, and so on. For sizes 36 to 39 you cast on 60. For sizes 40 to 43, you cast on 64. Obviously
I've been casting on way more than that. However, 72 was working for Conrad's socks, so I just continued to use 72 for his.
Now, when I started the orange socks, I noticed that I was getting the same kind of line-y pattern as I had for the green
socks:
And I also noticed that the funny line-y bits were 8 stitches long. It occurred to me that 8 is also the difference between
72 and 64, and because Opal is German yarn, and because I would expect a German yarn manufacturer to dye yarn so it looks
right on the standard German pattern, I ripped back to the ribbing and decreased to 64 for the stockinette part. This fabric
looks completely different:
So this is my sock discovery: For German variegated or self-patterning yarn, work the sock on the number of stitches specified
in the chart, because the manufacturer clearly dyes the yarn to look right in the standard pattern..
link
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Leave comments here. I can't set up comments for each entry, so put the blog entry date or title somewhere in your comment.
|
|
|
|
