Sock Love

As promised, I finally got around to taking some pics of the socks I've been knitting. The first are the Angler's Loop Socks I knitted for J. He likes wearing them and seems to enjoy modeling them even more. I didn't get all the shots on here, but he was a regular foot model for about five minutes today.

My cables are really messy and I think that's because I accidentally twisted most of them. I'm still new to cable knitting...cut me some slack.

The second pair isn't actually a pair yet, but I'm so close to finishing the second one that I figured I'd save an upload and just post about them now. These are the Jaywalkers that I'm knitting for my youngest BIL. J modeled the one I had finished, which just leaves me hoping that the second one fits as well (let's keep our fingers crossed since I had to frog the first one of these I knit because the pattern made it way to small to fit on anyone's foot).

Socks have become one of my favorite things to knit and I think I'm getting better at them. I use the magic loop technique but someday I might get crazy and try out the dpn method. In the meantime, if anyone wants socks, let me know. I don't promise a timely delivery, but I'd love to have a reason to knit more.

ALF

A Tale of Two Socks

I finally finished the first of J's Angler Loop Socks and we're both pretty happy with how it turned out. I really love the cabling on this one and I love the texture of the yarn. I did make a few mistakes, including reverting to the heel flap pattern of the Jaywalkers instead of following the pattern and a few wrong twists in the cabling itself. J says the heel is a little too low, which means I didn't quite make the heel flap long enough. But he still thinks they're comfortable, and since he generally hates socks, this is a plus.

The Jaywalkers are coming a little bit slower. I'm finding that after the softness of the other socks, the Felici yarn almost feels rough. That doesn't actually deter me, but the roughness seems to make the knitting go slower. Also, since I have the Jaywalker pattern memorized, I consider those my "travel" socks while I keep the Anglers at home to make pattern reading easier. (Once I finish that part though, they're both coming with me to GenCon so I can work on them at random moments of knittery).

I shortened the cuff but not too much. The BIL wanted a long cuff but I'm hoping these will work for him. I think they're going to be really cool socks once they're done.

The Sock That Never Was

I'm going to focus on the positive of the situation, and that is that I haven't thrown anything across the room (namely yarn and needle) and I'm not crying, so temper and dramatic nature are both in check.

The sock I was working one was done finally, for all of five minutes. I completely misjudged what the pattern would do to the size, and that's even after I read the comments of other knitters who'd had the same problem. J and the BIL have the same size foot, so J was the tester for the FO, but he couldn't even get it on half his foot. Then I tried it on and it wouldn't fit me either. Sure, we're both wide footed people, but I'm pretty sure there was no way it was going to fit the person it was being made for.

So, it's being frogged and reknit at the same time, this time using the directions for the largest size. Who knows? Maybe that one will turn out to be too big, but better too big than too small, and considering the size difference the increases and decreases made, I think the big size just might work.

I've always hated the feeling of having wasted so many hours/days/etc. on something only to have to redo it, but I'm keeping calm about this. It's the process and a finished object that fits will be infinitely better than one that doesn't. Common sense, yeah...but I was really tempted just to keep it and try to find someone with a small foot.

So here we go again...back to the cast on.

ALF

Off the Needles: Progress Socks

You may notice in the picture below that these socks don’t actually match. The colors are the same, but one looks like a nice stockinette sock while the other one looks like its mutant counterpart. I’ve named these the Progress Socks because I actually feel like I learned something from one sock to the other.

I really like magic loop sock knitting, but when I first started, I was concentrating more on getting the pattern right than I was in using my common sense. I believe the reverse stockinette in the Mutant started because I did the heel flap in the middle of a round instead of waiting to finish the round like I should have. Whether that really was the case or not, the second sock came out really well and I have no officially knitted my first pair of socks.

Despite the fact that they’re merino wool (mostly) and the weather has been warm, I wore them to work today. They’re soft and comfortable and didn’t match my outfit at all, so probably looked kind of goofy, but it’s not as if I’m the fashion guru of the office anyway.

The verdict on socks: I’ll definitely be making more and already have a new pattern to cast-on for, possibly later tonight.

ALF