Hey, it's Friday!

While I have not been blogging so much, I have been doing some knitting and plying. I've been working on the third pattern from Sock Madness, and am on to the leg of the second sock.

This yarn has been in my stash for at least the length of Devil's life, so I'm glad to have finally found a project that seems to be working well. I think this is the third or fourth pattern I've tried with it...

There has also been plying. I've now got five bobbins full of two ply, and am midway through bobbin #6. My prediction is nine total bobbins-ful, but I have no real logic to this. The first bobbin, I managed to fit two bobbins worth of singles on to one with only a few yards difference between the two (!), so I'm winging it here.

Plying this has been nice because it is totally mindless. I get the wheel going, let the singles run through my fingers at a particular speed, and there they are, ready to go. Thank goodness, because after all the trouble spinning the singles, mindless is a very, very good thing!

FO: Cool beans

As previously mentioned, I am "participating" in Sock Madness IV (if by participating, you mean lurking on the forums, oooing and aaahing over everyone's socks and occasionally knitting one of the patterns). While the true contestents are now at the beginning of Sock #4 (ribbed and cabled knee highs!), I've finally finished Sock #2.

Pattern: Cool Beans by Heatherly Walker, Round 2 of Sock Madness IV
Yarn: Knit Picks Essential in Bare and Pumpkin (overdyed brown), approximately one 50 gr ball of each
Needles: US 2/2.75 mm and US 1/2.25 mm
Start/finish: 29 March - 27 April 2010 (clearly I will not be making it to the later rounds of the next Sock Madness, so I'd better submit another sock design so I can get all the patterns!)
Comments/mods: This was a really fun, and surprisingly quick pattern to knit. For the first sock, I only did four beans on the leg instead of the required six beans - I was a bit worried about having enough yarn to finish both. I also got completely confused by the directions for the colors on the heel turn, so I just kept the stripes in pattern (which ended up being the right thing to do). The first sock used 21 gr of each color.

For sock 2, I decided that, while sock #1 fit me just fine, I wasn't very happy with the fabric. It seemed too loose to wear well, so I went down one whole needle size for the second sock, and used US 1/2.25 mm needles. Same number of beans and everything, and I liked the fabric much better, but the second sock was a bit small for my gargantuan tootsies.

You can see the stitches straining on the right sock - poor things!

So my dilemma is this: at least one sock will have to be frogged and reknit, so do I a) frog the big one, knit it again on US 1 needles, and hope I can find some coffee lover with feet the right size or 2) frog them both, and use US 1.5/2.5 mm needles in the hopes that I'll get a sock that is just right for meeeeee! I do love the coffee, but I know a number of smaller footed coffee lovers as well. Hmmmm...I might even be able to knit the correct number of beans on the leg if I do the smaller size.

Decisions, decisions. In the meantime, I'll leave you with the wrong side of a heel flap to look at.

Looks kind of cool, doesn't it?

FF: Okey dokey

That birthday post was kind of hanging over my head, but now that it's out of the way, I can get back to the actual knitting/spinning content.

These are my new socks, and are appropriate for a Fiber Friday post because a) I spun the yarn and b) um, I spun the yarn. The yarn was my first "real" fingering weight, discussed in some detail here, and the socks are the first pattern for Sock Madness IV. I'm not participating in Sock Madness, which is a truly diabolical knit-along/caffeine-fueled knitting group hallucination in which the first knitters to finish the newly released pattern advance to the next round and ultimately the winners get some fabulous prizes. However, I did have a sock I designed accepted for the competition, and as a bonus, I get copies of all the patterns.

OK, the details...

Pattern: Simple Side to Side socks by Deborah Swift
Yarn: Fingering weight handspun Corriedale, colorway "Lantern Moon", dyed by the fabulous Adrian.
Needles: US 1.5/2.5 mm circulars (I seem to be doing everything magic loop these days. What's up with that?)
Gauge: ~8 stitches/11 rows per inch)
Start/finish: 17 March - 25 March 2010 (hooray for fast sock patterns!)
Comments/mods: I found the construction of this sock interesting. The top of the foot/front of the leg are knit first as a single panel, and then you split the stitches as needed (depending on size of your foot) and knit two separate sections for the sole and the back of the leg. After finishing these, the sock is grafted together along the length and you pick up stiches for toe, heel and cuffs from the appropriate places.

Hooray for stripey heels! There was much discussion on the Ravelry Forum about the fit of these socks, with those gifted with high arches having some serious trouble actually getting them on their feet. The designer has plans to release the pattern to the general public and will probably incorporate some modifications to make them fit better. Since I've got lovely flat feet, I can get them on (although it's a tight squeeze over the heel!). They're perfectly comfortable once they're on, so the pattern works for me.

As always, it was a thrill to knit with yarn I'd made myself. I used up maybe two thirds of the skein, so I've got plenty left for a girl pair or part of the Sock Yarn Blanket. I'm hoping they will wear okay too - my biggest concern with handspun socks is the possibility of it wearing out instantaneously.

I've started the second sock of Sock Madness, which pays homage to The Nectar of the Gods*. And I'm thinking that it would be fun to actually compete next year.

Using only handspun. Tee hee!

* For the uninitiated, that would be coffee.

Straw into gold

Or in this case, yarn into socks.

Pattern: Rumpled! by Alice Yu, for the Knit Love Sock Club 2010, Installment #1
Yarn: Alchemy Yarns of Transformation Juniper in Rumplestiltskein
Needles: US 1.5/2.5 mm circulars
Gauge: 9 sts/12 rows per inch
Start/finish: 26 January - 15 March 2010
Comments/mods: I loved this yarn colorwise - it was the perfect thing for a grey January in the UK. As previously mentioned, the yarn was a bit splitty, but it wasn't too bad, and it has such gorgeous sproing, that it made up for the splitty-ness. Wearing them is like have wooly elastic on my feet.

I did modify a couple of things. The pattern repeat is 24 rows long, and the pattern as written has you knit 1.3 repeats before starting the heel. I am impatient enough to want socks to be on the shorter side, but that seemed way short for me, so I wanted a longer leg. But since they're knit from the top down, I was paranoid about running out of yarn. So I carefully weighed the yarn I had, knit half a repeat, weighed again, weighed at the end of the heel flap, etc, etc. I worked another half repeat on the leg, and could have done a full repeat, since I ended up getting a sock and a half out of one skein. And I have big feet.

The only other thing I did a bit differently was to use a large needle for the long-tail cast on edge to make sure it was stretchy enough. The stitch pattern was great fun to knit, but easy to remember, so I didn't have to carry the chart around with me obsessively. The first sock took about a week, and then the olympics happened and all other knitting was put on hold. Now they're done, just in time for warmer weather, some sun and daffodils!

Oh well, they'll be very welcome when it gets cold again next fall. Or June...or next week. I guess it could be any time actually!

FO: Crazy pink double knit socks

I've posted about the process of knitting these socks already here, but I'm happy to say I've finally finished them.

The poor things were going back and forth from London Bridge on a daily basis with no toes for several weeks before the Olympics started, and when I finally accepted defeat, I whipped out a couple of toes in time to finish them for February's sock of the month. Here's the specs:

Pattern: plain stockinette socks with 1x1 ribbing at the cuff, both knit at the same time one inside the other, as directed by Kory Stamper.
Yarn: Random bits and pieces from the Sock Yarn Blanket
Needles: US 1/2.25 mm circular
Start/finish: 28/12/09-26/2/10 - almost two months. For a pair of kid's socks. Yee gawds...must have been more then several weeks delay there.
Gauge: ~8 sts/inch.
Comments: I knit the cuffs individually before loading them all on one needle with alternating stitches. Devil had picked out four wee pink balls of yarn she wanted to use, so I split each one in half by weight, and used two for the leg and two for the foot. Details of knitting the heels are in my previous post, and by the time I got to the toes, I was ready to be done.

Getting the socks apart was a bit like watching a snake molt. First I got all the stitches separated onto two needles.

Then they were pulled apart.

Almost there,

Ta da!

Then the toes and weaving in of ends. New socks for Devil!

PS - Tomorrow is Steek Day!