socks!: November 2005 Archives

      

Specs

Pattern Jaywalker. 84 stitch sock at 9 spi (pattern recommended just under 8 spi but I liked the yarn better at 9).
Yarn Tess Super Socks in an unknown coloway (if I had to guess I'd say Confetti). Is it just me or does Tess not mark the hanks with the colorway?
Yardage I used 80 grams which translates to approximately 360 yards.
Needles 2-2.5mm/US 1 Addi Turbos

Mods

I made several small mods to the pattern.

• I used a tubular cast-on and did a 1x1 rib instead of a 2x2 rib at the top.
• I used 2 circs instead of DPNs. The pattern adjusted to the circs just fine, but you did need to think about where to split between the 2 circs. Because of the way the pattern increases and decreases you need to split the circs right where 2 increases occur. In order to do this and still have the pattern look right you also need to do the first increase at the end of needle 2 (so the increases are right next to each other). I don't know if I'm explaining this well, but leave a comment if this doesn't make sense. It's not critical that you split the needles this way, but if you don't you'll have to reshuffle stitches every 7 or 8 rows.
• Garter stitch short row heel. I didn't follow any pattern for this so I'm not sure I did this correctly. I wrapped all but 9 sts for the 84 stitch sock. When going to pickup the wraps I had to pickup the WS wraps differently. This surprised me at first since it's garter st. On the WS rows I lifted the wraps off of the stitch that it wrapped. So from right to left my left-hand needle had 2 wraps and then the stitch itself. Then I did a sssk (knitted all 3 together). This formed the best-looking RS. If anyone knows of a better way to pickup wraps on the WS of garter stitch please let me know!
• Once I finished the heel I needed to decrease a bit. So I added in a 3-stitch gusset. The first 3 rows after I finished the heel included the double decreases at the sides. After that I did a SSK or K2tog just like the pattern says.

Thoughts on the yarn

This yarn is a dream to knit with! I can't believe I've had Tess sock yarn in my stash for a year! It is very stretchy and with 20% nylon I expect it will hold up well. There was a considerable difference in softness once I washed them. I washed the first sock as soon as I was done and you could really tell which one had been washed. The yarn did lose some magenta color when washing but I only knew that because of the color of the water. The yarn itself remained vivid.

I turned the heel last night. The change I made is pretty obvious, right?

I used a garter stitch short rowed heel. Christy showed me her mermaid sock over the weekend and I knew I had to try it. Thanks for the inspiration, Christy!

I also made a change to the way I normally do short row heels. I've been using Wendy's proportions for heels. That is, I've been leaving one fourth of the sock stitches at the heel as unworked stitches that I didn't wrap.

Well, last night I also got my copy of Folk Socks and noticed that Nancy suggested doing an afterthought heel until there was one inch of stitches left. Structurally the afterthought and short row heels are very similar so I thought I'd give it a try. This heel fits me much better!

added later One-fourth of the stitches is 21, and one inch of stitches is 9. So, this modification has made for a much deeper heel

I was a bit concerned that the garter ridges would be uncomfortable but at such a small gauge that doesn't seem to be a problem. I won't know for sure until I wear them, and at this rate I may be done before Thanksgiving!

I've had this Tess yarn wound up for 3 months now! At first I thought I'd make gauntlets, but that didn't take. Then I tried a few stitch patterns to use as a scarf but the colors were too bright and crayon-like for me to think I'd actually wear it as a scarf.

In the end I went back to my go-to project -- socks.

Do I really need to tell you the pattern?

In true grumperina form, I have made a couple changes. I prefered the way the yarn knitted up at 9 spi. I know it's really tiny but I just don't like loosey goosey knitted socks. They look bad and they wear worse. So, I cast on for the larger sock size and actually got a sock that matches the smaller size -- perfect.

The other change I made was to use a tubular cast on and a 1x1 rib. Why? The 1x1 tubular cast on is *so* much quicker. At 9 spi I figured I earned at least one short cut.

I do have one other change in mind. Christy you probably know what it is since I told you I liked your sock that used it this weekend.

The rest of you will have to wait a few days. I'm such a tease, aren't I?

This roositud business is definitely a learning process. I substituted yarn because Rauma yarn isn't avaialble locally for me and when it's Saturday afternoon and you really need to start a new project, well, mail order just won't do.

I missed one important thing in subbing yarn though. The roositud yarn is about twice as thick as the sock yarn! When I realized that I knew why I wasn't quite happy with my tension so far -- the yarn just had too much room to move around. I thought about it this morning and decided I had to fix it. Mary Beth summed up my thoughts best today.

Can you tell the difference with the second strand of yarn? See those first few rows and how they almost look diagonal? That's why -- they just have too much room to move around! The rest of the rows are doubled and it's much nicer. I still think I have some room for improvement, but it's definitely better.

BTW, this roositud is almost as finicky as intarsia. I'm untangling after each row -- nothing like knitting in the round to further twist things up. Especially when some rows use three colors and some rows use two.

I'm really not complaining though. As I knit each round I think about how much fun it'll be to wear these socks -- to hike up my jeans each time I walk by a mirror just to see the color peak out, or to bear my calves and show off share these with fellow knitters. I can't wait!

you have no idea how i had to contort myself to get this pic

Five inches of knitting at 8 spi doesn't go very quickly. But I finally got to the Roositud tonight! I'm only a few rows in but I'm really enjoying it. You don't ever knit with the contrast colors -- you're just weave them in and out. How you deal with the yarn being at the left at the end of the patterned area is really ingenious! I continue to be wowed by the creative problem solving of knitters of yesteryear.

  

In case you can't tell, here are the 3 colors of Baby Ull that I'm using. Click on the right pic for a bigger view of the first few rows of Roositud (and disregard the stubble...Paul's in Seattle this week so I got a little lazy!). I still need to work on the tension a bit but I'm pretty happy with this for my first go at it.

I'll try to get some step-by-step roositud pics this weekend when I'm knitting during daylight hours.

After reading Margene's post on Roositud I knew I had to try it out for myself. I had always thought it was simple embroidery, but now that I know it's a knitting technique, I'm all for it!

I'm doing Anu's Stockings from Folk Knitting in Estonia. I decided to do them cuff-down because I was feeling rather nostaligic. Never to leave a good pattern untouched though, I've decided to change up the colors and do something more fun. I have the other 2 colors picked out and I'll hopefully be able to show them to you by week's end (I don't get much knitting time during the week and I still have that birthday scarf to finish by Wednesday).

I have high hopes for these socks. I'll be teaching another sock knitting class in February and I'd love to wear them to the first class.