Getting Thing Done

Don't you just love getting things accomplished? Especially the small niggling things that have been on the To-Do list for ages. Like this stack of Tupperware with cracks that has sat on the pile of crap behind my computer monitor for at least a couple years. Lifetime warranty and all that, I could not find the address to return the items on their website. So I had to sit on hold for 30 minutes waiting for that nice polite young man with the thick Indian accent to provide it to me.

There's still a pile of crap behind my monitor (and next to it as well!) but every little bit helps.

In knitting, also some accomplishments. In the airplane heading east, I finished knitting two socks. All I needed to do afterwards was graft the toes. Anyone with experience carrying a tapestry needle on board? I didn't try. Neither did the two knitters I accosted en route. But you know, tapestry needles aren't sharp or anything. And they are pretty cheap, so losing it at security wouldn't have been the end of the world. Maybe I should acquire a plastic one, but I just don't fly very often. Regardless. They were both second socks, so after the grafting session in the hotel, I had two new pairs to wear. Alas, while Seattle weather has been in the wool sock territory for a month now, DC was still pretty warm.



BFL DK weight, hand-dyed by me. Top-down, garter rib leg and stockingette foot, US2 DPN, 48 stitches wide.



Knit Picks Fingering hand-dyed by me. Monkey Socks from knitting.com. Us2, pattern followed except I did a slip stitch heel flap.

More fun than socks that were too hot to wear, I finished a shawl in time to wear it to my niece's wedding. Zephyr wool silk lace, hand dyed by me. Luna Moth pattern (free on elann.com). US4 needles, who knows what gauge (I knit tightly in general). I did 7 full pattern repeats, plus the extra half a repeat to get the scallops on the end to point in the correct direction (following the pattern instructions). This blocked out to be almost 60 inches wide and 30 inches from top to bottom. It weighs exactly 50 grams, which means about 600 yards.

My blocking tools were limited, just my container of coil-less safety pins and a hotel carpet, so I didn't get the scallops as open and pretty as the ones on the elann site, but it still looked nice and I can always block it again.

Contest!

I thought I was going to have to blog about my dear departed chicken. The other night around 11 pm we heard her scream. I went out to her roost --- the rhododendron in front of the house --- and saw a raccoon hiding underneath. It ran off when I shined a flashlight on it, but no sign of Tasty. No signs of a struggle either, but it was dark. I searched again in the morning after it was light. Still no sign. An hour later, there she was on the back deck, perfectly fine! She's a tough old bird, she is. She did spend the day under the deck, except when I was outside she followed me around, sticking very close. I managed to lock her in the coop overnight. Will that work in the long run? Or will she seek out a new roost? Who knows.




Blog contest! I've been planning a contest to celebrate the opening of Yarn Forest, where Erika and I are selling our hand-dyed yarn. Tasty's escape gave me an idea of how to structure it. By far the most popular yarn for hand-painting and selling is sock yarn. By far the most common use for this yarn is knitting socks. What happens to those socks? How well do they hold up? We've been exploring base yarns and have our favorites, but by no means have we exhausted our search. So you tell us what you like.

Instructions: If you have hand-knit socks, tell me about the ones that survive the best. Which ones, after 6 months or 2 years of wearing and washing, do you still grab first to wear? Or which ones do you leave until it's almost laundry day and there's nothing else available? Leave your answer in a comment or send me an email (address is in my sidebar) and you will be entered in the contest.

If you don't have experience with the longevity of hand-knit socks, you can still be entered, just leave a comment about anything related to sock yarn or hand-dyeing.

One entry per person no matter how many comments you leave. Contest closes Monday September 17th at 11:00 PM my time (that's US Pacific Daylight Savings Time)

Two prizes! Two lucky winners will be chosen at random. One will receive a set of mini-skeins of our super soft merino we call Aurora 6.


The second winner will receive this skein of Aurora 6, one of a dyelot of two. Why? Because this yarn is prettier in person than we've been able to capture in a photograph. Frustrating but true. So while one of the skeins will be listed at Yarn Forest, the other is earmarked as a prize.

short post with pictures

Erika has listed some of my hand-dyed yarn in her etsy store. Go take a peek.

Here's some of my hand-dye that I kept:





One sock, BFL DK weight, shows the length of the color repeat using my jumbo niddy noddy. I love this sock and have been wearing it while I knit the second one. It's thicker than fingering, I knit this on US4s with 48 stitches.





Monkey Sock number one is also done. (Number two is almost at the toe.) This was some of my very first hand-dyed yarn. Cookie's Monkey sock pattern in knitty.com comes in only one size. I was worried that it would be too small for me, but it isn't. Close though. Knit-Picks Bare sock yarn, knit on US2s.


Look what Franz built. this has already been used, then dismantled to reuse the parts for winder version 2.

What about the Monkeys?

I realized too late that my last post's title was inaccurate, since monkeys never get mentioned. Here they are:



The net's latest viral sock. Cookie's Monkeys in knitpicks bare fingering, one of the first skeins I dyed last spring. Brittany US 2s. The pattern is easy and addicting.

There is no R in Warshington

And there's only one R in Kitchener! I was taken aback at Madrona how many people called it "kerchner." Susan, I am ready for tomorrow's fool-proof lesson in grafting.


See how well the stripes line up? Quite a lovely pair of matching socks, I must say.

Ready for a toe

I am caught up knitting the Seriatim sock, in fact, I have two socks waiting for tomorrow's Toe instructions. A pair of socks in less than a week. Before I show the pair, I need to explain.


See this? Genuine Bawneen Knitting wool. Genuine Fisherman's wool that is at least 40 years old. The label says it was spun for Merino Wool Co, 1140 Broadway, New York. No Zip Code. I have over two pounds of this wool, a craigslist purchase. While the photo shows some of the yarn still in its original package, much of it had been knit and unknit. Oh the stories it could tell. How many knitters have owned this lot? The woman I purchased it from had gotten it from Craigslist herself, so the provenance is unknown.

What to do with it? I haven't decided yet. The other day when Nancy suggested we resurrect our dyeing adventures, I grabbed a couple 2 ounce skeins of the Bawneen just to see how it would dye. I painted them boldly and separately. It was only afterwards that I thought about Susan's sock pattern. 4 ounces, just enough for a pair of socks. A Fraternal pair.

Seriatim

A little late, I started Susan's knit-along in honor of her remodeled blog: a serial pattern. Pattern calls for worsted weight yarn that knits to 5 stitches per inch. I am using a bit heftier yarn, some vintage báinín --- authentic Irish fisherman's wool--- I found on craiglist and dyed. It knits up nicely to 4 stitches per inch on US9s. Without a swatch or a care, I started these on US4s. This will be a thick, scratchy, stiff sock, just what I want to keep my feet warm while puttering around at home. Perhaps the tropical colors will add to the warmth factor.

I started the sock last night and expected to get caught up this afternoon. Alas, the problem with reading a pattern on-line: what to do when the power goes out? We lost power for just an hour or so, but it was that 'free' hour between running errands and starting dinner. So I'll have to knit the heel flap and pick up the gusset tonight.

socks

Socks custom knit for me by me! I learned a lot knitting these. Mostly I learned that understanding socks doesn't have to be so hard, so why don't knit designers explain this better? Lots of folks talk about knitting socks to custom fit, but I haven't found a source that explains how.

Perhaps I just haven't found the right source. Sockknitters club, knitty.com, random other internet places? Nothing that really explained to me how all the pieces interacted and how I can adjust to fit. Everyone just assumes some proportions are a given and don't suggest you could change them to fit your foot.

Yarn: my hand-dyed aurora 6 100% merino
Needles: Brittany US 3 DPNs

My details:

Cast on 64 stitches and work k2p2 rib for 42 rows = 5 inches.
Decrease to 54 stitches and work 18 rows (2 inches) in stockinette.
Examine the sock so far. Pooling? Striping? Choose a front and maneuver so that 24 stitches for the heel are on one needle, the 30 for the instep are evenly divided on two needles.

Yes! Use any number of stitches you want for the flap. Half is arbitrary. Does any sock designer tell you that? Not that I can tell. Neighbor Nancy gave me this suggestion. My ankles are kinda pointy and skinny in the back and this worked.

Choose a flap stitch. I have found three. All three have you slip the first stitch of each row.

• Regular stockinette, slipping the first stitch every row
  
• Slips on RS rows. With even number of stitches, (RS: *[Sl1 k1] WS: Sl1 p to end)
  
• Slips every row. With even number of stitches, (RS: *[sl1 k1] WS: *[sl1 p1])

the second two flaps pull in narrower and are, of course, thicker. I chose the third one.

Choose how long to make the flap. Up to you. The number of rows will depend on which heel flap stitch pattern, how wide or narrow the flap and how tall the instep. I did 30 rows for 2 inches. That slip stitch really shrinks up the row gauge.

Choose a short-row method for turning the heel. This includes choosing how many stitches to leave in the center. Neighbor Nancy said traditionally there are 4. For different stitch gauges, wider or pointier heels, change this accordingly. (here's something that irked me about Vintage Socks. Nancy Bush describes six different heels, but all except one have the exact same heel flap. The differences are in the short row heel turning instructions. So much wasted space given to duplicating the heel flap instructions over and over again and so much wasted space on the vintage photos that don't demonstrate the short row differences.)

What I did:
RS row 1: k14 (ie, half the heel flap stitches plus 2), k2tog, k1 turn
WS row 2: sl1, p5 (ie, til one stitch before the gap), p2tog, p1 turn
continue appropriately til all stitches are worked.

On my second sock I did all the k2togs through the back loop. My p2togs were fine, except that last p2tog was done TBL to cinch it down.

Pick up gussets.

Here, those slipped stitches on the heel flap become the pick-up spots. So you wind up picking up half the number of rows of the heel flap, plus one or two at the ends to tighten it up and avoid holes. I picked up 17 stitches on each side. Some of them I was having a challenge picking up without leaving holes. In these spots I twisted the stitch.

Choose decrease rate. Another item that you get to decide. Fine yarn and high insteps? Decrease every third round (or fourth?). Since my row gauge on the stockinette was 9 stitches per inch (where something like Koigu can have 15 to 18 stitches per inch), I decreased every other round.

Choose when to stop decreasing. The patterns all say to decrease til you have the same number of stitches you started with at the ankle. Why? Is everyone's foot the same width as their ankle? What about differences in arches?

I have a highish arch so my foot circumference gets small, but the ball of my foot is wide. So, I did the gusset decreases til there were 50 stitches on the needles, then worked straight for 20 rows, then increased four stitches for the wider part of my foot.

This also had the effect of providing a stitch count divisible by 3. I knit the French toe from Vintage Socks, because this decreases fast and results in a wide toe, to fit my feet.

Voila! Finally, I understand how to make socks that fit.