I finished my slippers in time to show them off at Thursday’s library knitting.
Overall I think this is an excellent first garment project. I think there are possibilities for customization either with yarn selection or by fancy knitting, and these could be done just on the one feature square.
I neglected to give a pointer to the original Finnish pattern: http://www.kaspaikka.fi/neulonta-A&O/asusteita_vaatteita/sukat-tossut/palatossut.html
I have finished, including the seaming (which was a bear), one slipper. I have finished the knitting on the second slipper. I have taken pictures. [As always, click on the picture to be taken to its home location where larger variants are visible. I apologize for the lack of borders, but they are really painful to add manually.]
Two pics of the same (finished) slipper:
The project status picture:
I have several hours of news to watch, so I should be able to finish the seaming.
You know what Ravelry really needs in its pattern search? The ability to OR availability options.
Frex, I want to have a list of all sock patterns from books I own, or that I have added to my Rav library individually (via Rav download, they still do not have the ability to inventory individual pattern purchases from external sources), or that are available free.
I can get any of those, but if I choose “free” then it will not list things I already own, even though they are free-to-me.
I circumvented the problem by doing 2 searches. In library NOT free to show me all the patterns I have paid for. Then favorited patterns + free. It still omits the one stand-alone sock pattern I have, but it was not all that exciting anyway.
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The thumbnails for sock patterns from the books I have bought are terrible, almost universally. It is rather shocking that anyone would look at the thumbnail and want to spend 60 hours making any of those. Sure if I put up a pattern as an amateur, my thumbnail might not be ideal. I probably do not want to make several instances of the same thing just to get a good image. But professionally published books should come with an example sock for each pattern knit in a solid color pictured in the thumbnail.
I have some “Winter Sky” Barefoot yarn by Mountain Colors. It really wants to become socks for me. It mewls in the nighttime out of loneliness. And I cannot find anything that suits it.
I am looking for something similar to the “Jigsaw Socks” which are pretty much the same thing as the “Zephyr Socks”. An all-over swirly type stitch-motif that does not require purling.
And, just for follow-up. I do like Wendy Johnson’s book, Socks From the Toe Up. It repeats some of the structural elements from Cat Bordhi’s method, like the modified short-row heel that uses a gusset to make up flanking stitches instead of k3tog or the no-wrap&M1 method. The book has all the methods that I use for casting on, Turkish Pocket, Magic Cast-on, it explains things I had to “invent” myself when I was struggling with provisional cast-ons. It has several examples of those hideously ugly reinforced heel-flap squares (they look like the ass-flap of a union suit to me and I would rather darn than wear anything like that, but personal preference.) And even better, these things are all collected together in the beginning of the book instead of scattered throughout as boxed asides in the midst of the pattern which introduces them. Best of all, fully half the patterns in Wendy Johnson’s book are no-purl. When a pair of socks has a similar number of stitches as a whole sweater, optimization becomes important. Basically, I feel like Wendy Johnson respects my time as a knitter and she does not need to send me rummaging through the whole book just to make one pattern. Each pattern is actually self-contained, unless you choose to swap in another toe or heel method. I am rather pleased for once.
But unfortunately for this particular yarn, none of the patterns in Wendy Johnson’s book are “swirly”. I think I might use the Labyrinth pattern for my brown-black sock yarn.
I turned the heel on my first sock from handspun yarn.
(This is a picture post, but you have to scoot down past my blather.)
I have started a second pair of socks concurrently. I wound up my handspun cable-plied yarn from the fiber club. (I still think the name sounds too sexualizable; seriously, “Fondle This!”? All it needs is an unwanted pregnancy and it could be a teenage “romance”.)
The yarn was originally PINK in various screamingly PINK shades from cotton candy to PeptoBismol (probably ™ or ® or © or whatever.) When spun and plied, it melded into something eye-searing, so I over-dyed it with “Spruce” Jacquard dye. The new color is beautiful. It has depth and vibrance. I should grab some pictures of just the yarn. done
I wanted something simpler than the dozen-row bias waves motif. So I am making ribbed socks. One of the benefits of thicker handspun yarn is that I needed vastly fewer stitches. The body of the foot is knit with 48 stitches on size #3 needles. This project will move in and live at my desk for when I am reading things online or watching podcasts. The more complicated project will move out to the sofa, next to the abacus for keeping track of the pattern. Stupid how mere placement of a very portable thing would keep me from working on it, but very true.
I am wondering if I can finish two pair of socks in March… It would be really neat if my unwillingness to keep going on boring parts would be ameliorated by switching off.
Now for the eye candy. As usual, click any image to be taken to the Picasa page with the big version. I have to manually add the outlines to each picture with this blog theme and it gets tiresome very quickly. I should pick a new theme or actually pay WordPress.com so I can fix this one, but it is a very low priority for me. You might generally assume that you can click a picture. Worst case, nothing happens.
Lookingglass socks, toe done:
Sousa Tuesday socks, toe done; yarn was “Candy Butter”; yarn is now “Fat Tuesday Blues”):
I am working on my as-yet-nameless March socks.
I have learned to read and chart bias-knitting textures. I understand how to get sharp diagonals and how to get smoother arcs. I understand that I can substitute an M1 (or M1b, or the Bordhi variants therein) for YOs. Assuming this comes out even tolerably, I will not be hurting for textures ever again. I will definitely look into that “jigsaw” texture without the YOs.
I kept looking at those brocades done with purl stitches and dreading that. The transistion between knit and purl takes as much time as a whole stitch. Then looking at the end result, it was still mediocre.
The Schaefer Heather yarn in “Gertrude Ederl” is 3 colors and they form non-uniform stripes of about 1 row. This is giving me the effect of a self-striping yarn, so the motif should definitely skew the row height in some way, otherwise I might as well not bother since the colorway would overwhelm anything else. I think this yarn would look good in a ribbing, but I am not masochistic enough to voluntarily rib an entire sock without knowing what needs atonement.
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I am wearing my Raspberry Friday Socks today. They are very comfortable and attractive in my maryjane shoes.
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I spun some more of the silk thread I am planning to use for plying the llama from February’s fiber club shipment. Then I started spinning the llama. I am going to buy more of this baby llama fiber in future, it is really wondrous. I would like to have a blended llama+[soft sheep wool].
I am starting to suspect that I will be buying a drum carder.
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I could use some help on the naming of socks. (And yes, I do have that “Naming of Cats” poem in my head right now.) I think this is yarn is a “dark” variant on twilight. It reminds me, strangely, of Alice in Wonderland, only shadier.
I made a joke tonight, while chatting with a friend, she said that at least my socks do not need three different names… but that is why they all have the same surname, Socks. I was deliberately misunderstanding the reference.
I wonder if it will sound like I am mocking Indians (not from India) if I called this project, “Gertrude Looking Glass Socks”. I would like it to have a dark equating adjective without sounding actually evil (since I am going to wear these and I do not need to jinx myself.) Maybe like Marjorie? The villain from “Bernice Bobs Her Hair”. Frankly I am thinking this is getting too weird for most people.
On the plus side, I am no longer a photo slacker. I have tolerable pictures of everything I bought. I posted the photos of my completed socks. I even avoided making the joke about being caught flat-footed. If you want to see more of the completed Raspberry Friday Socks, the thumbnail here links to the full-size image in the album. Or you can look at the previous post.
Today’s project was to pick the new sock yarn and choose a pattern. I know I want to make the “Nagini
” socks from the Knitpicks “Essential” yarn. Unfortunately, I knew right away which yarn I wanted to use next— because I am suckered in by the shiny just like everyone else. But hey, I bought that Schaefer Heather yarn for a reason.
So I did some looking to see if I was attracted to anything particularly. The new yarn is a bit stiff and holds stitch definition well, but I am easily dissuaded by complicated projects. I even spent some time reading the textures/motifs book I borrowed from the library. Nothing seems perfect. I did a swatch in the quilted lattice stitch and would pull out all my hair if I had to do it for a whole sock. (I have the perfect 8sts/inch gauge though.)
Before 90 people jump in and recommend “Monkey“, I really dislike that pattern. The alternate versions are somewhat better, “No Purl Monkeys“, “Staggering Monkeys“, and “Los Monos Locos“. But it starts to look like work… like I would be creating my own texture because I would prefer no yarn-overs, I know it will go faster without purling, and I want to go toe-up, and I prefer the ovals to the inverted-Y shapes.
I have come to no conclusions tonight.
Today also had the over-dyeing of the January fiber club yarn. The color is vastly improved from the sickeningly bismuth pink color. Pictures are waiting on the yarn to dry.
Pictures of Stitches West purchases later this week.
