socks!: November 2006 Archives

Last year I finished a pair of socks over Thanksgiving weekend.

This year, I finished one really long knee high.

I learned a few things about STR Medium weight. The ball band suggests 8 SPI. 8 stitches per inch made for a very thick, very stiff sock. After knitting the foot at 8 SPI I considered selling off my STR stash because it was that bad.

Then I was over at Margene's, and she mentioned the same thing. Well, the next day she wrote that many people suggested going up a couple needle sizes. I gave it a try. much better

It's knit at 6 SPI but it's plenty dense, and wonderfully springy too. I am really curious if the 8 SPI is a typo. I don't see how that could be the recommended gauge.

I split the hank so I could use up every inch of yarn. When I finished the STR, I switched to a complimentary color of Koigu and 1x1 rib, and finished off with a tubular bind-off. It's the biggest sock I've ever made and I love it.

For scale, here's the full shot.

If you've been reading this blog for a while, then you know that I really have a hard time using a yarn that pools or flashes.

So imagine my delight when I re-tried the yarn with a slightly smaller stitch count (52 sts) and a plain stockinette foot.

NO POOLING

To compare the difference, here's the old sock in the diagonal rib with a few extra sts. I think there were 60 sts in the sock ( the stitch pattern made for a smaller sock). The pooling was just about as much as I could handle.

But this? This is behaving like Koigu, with its short color changes.

I'm not getting overly confident though -- I know this could change at any moment.

Toe-Up Cast-On

Debi asked in the comments which cast on I used.

I've been using Judy's Magic Cast-On since the article came out this past spring. I've tried lots of different cast-ons: provisional for a short row toe, figure 8, the rectangle method (don't know what that's called), Turkish, and a few others that aren't coming to mind.

I first tried knitting socks on DPNs. I preferred the short row toe then, because the other methods were a lot harder for me to execute with the DPNs. Once I switched to circs, I quickly became a fan of the Figure 8. It was quick, and after knitting the toe it was easy to go back and tighten it up.

When Meg Swanson's article came out in last fall's Vogue Knitting, I gave the Turkish cast on a try. I know a lot of toe-up knitters like it, but it didn't seem as smooth to me as the Figure 8. Everyone knits differently though, so don't discount that cast-on because of me. I think I'm in the minority. If you're curious how to do the Turkish cast-on, Debi did a great tutorial for it.

So, back to Judy's magic cast-on. It's become my favorite because (like the Figure 8) it's not fiddly, and (unlike the Figure 8) you don't have to go back and tighten anything up. It's as tight as it should be from the very beginning.

Just like I promised, I started knitting a pair of socks with the fest yarn. It's STR in Rocktober.

I always obsess over a pattern when I'm using variegated. I tried several and then remembered the Diagonal Rib socks on the Interweave Subscriber-only section.

I gave it a whirl and it looked good. I've been working on them on and off all week.

I modified them to be toe-up, and decreased a couple stitches on the instep. I don't think I have narrow feet (they're 8.5 inches around the ball of my foot) but I always seem to need to make socks narrower around my foot than the pattern says.

But guess what? As much as I love how it looks, I hate knitting it. All the twisty knitting to get those lovely diagonal lines? Pure torture.

So last night I finally admitted how I felt about them.

So. Much. Better.

Life's too short. Knit what you love, and love what you're knitting.