Cabled Leg Warmers

So I was flipping through my sock books, looking for something to knit, when I cam across this great cabled sock pattern in worsted weight yarn. I was thinking I would do a pair for Salvbard to see if he ended up liking worsted socks. By the time I had finished the leg though, I thought I had run out of yarn based on my stash listed in Ravelry. Oh well, there was just enough to do some ribbing at the bottom and turn these into legwarmers for me.

Yarn: Järbo Garn Raggi Multi in color 1548

Yarn Supplier: Mind's Eye Yarns

Needles: US 5 - 3.75 mm

Pattern: Men's Cable Socks by Jenny Bellews

Pattern Source: Vogue Knitting on the Go: Socks Two

Size: Medium

Modifications: Rather than doing a foot, I reversed the increases after the ribbing in order to decrease for roughly equivalent ribbing at the bottom.

Of course I found a third ball after binding off and sewing all the ends in. I knew I had one more ball of this stuff! I should have trusted my instincts.

FO: Panel Rib Socks

Yay there is now officially one pair of these socks finished on Ravelry. And here they are!

Pattern: Rib and Panel Socks by Veronica Manno

Pattern Source: Vogue Knitting on the Go: Socks Two

Needles: US 1 / 2.25 mm

Yarn: Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock Multi in Purple Iris & Regia Solid 4-ply in color 1994

Yarn Supplies: Lakeside Fiber and Woolcott (now closed)

Modifications: see prior post

The seaming up was not nearly as painful as I feared, although it certainly helped that I had brought it along to work on while sitting around chatting with friends after brunch.

The yarn was leftover from a pair I knit Chiquita in 2010. But before that this was yarn I had bought in grad school while I was working in Madison, WI for a summer in 2009. I still have enough left that I might be able to squeak out a pair of anklets, although it would be close if I didn't use a contrast yarn for at heels and toes.

Flashing the Stash 2012

Unfortunately I was traveling on the official Flash Your Stash day (April 1st), but I did sit down on the following weekend to pull out and document the stash. Then it was just a matter of actually getting the pictures off of the camera and uploaded.

The right hand side is worsted weight, while the upper left side is sport and DK weight.

The two small piles on the lower right hand side are my novelty yarn and lace weight/crochet cotton stashes respectively. I actually was fairly surprised by how little lace weight I had left. Not to fear though I still have plenty of fingerweight if I get the urge to knit lace.

The top of the picture shows my handspun stash, while all the bottom is fingering weight. It includes both sock yarn and other fingering weights that are not as suitable for socks. A have a few different options of sweater quantities, and I still would really like to make myself a fingering weight sweater one of these days.

Not shown here is the yarn associated with WIPs, but I am hoping to get in gear documenting what is in progress. So you may be seeing those in a bit.

Panel Sock Construction

I have been poking around at my library, as I have been hoping to knit a bit more from patterns I already have. One of the patterns that jumped out at me are the Rib and Panel Socks from Vogue Knitting on the Go: Socks Two. This pattern has a bunch of odd things though as I worked on it.

The first thing that was odd about it was the gauge. In something that only has stockinette and rib, a 54 stitch circumference sock was... interesting. Particularly when the pattern claims that it it is for a fingering weight yarn. Granted, the pattern called for Koigu, which has a bit of a oddly heavy gauge. I tend to think about it more as a sport weight.

After a failed start trying to find something of a heavier gauge that I would be happy with, I scrapped the whole thing and restarted with a more true fingering weight and 60 stitches, which I accomplished by changing the panel to be 20 stitches wide rather than what was suggested. Note: I have small feet and 60 stitches is fine, but if you were knitting this as a larger size you could alternately widen the panel or by adding an extra set of ribs to either side, if you are going to be increasing by an increment of 10 stitches.

The second odd thing has to do with the way the pattern was written. It seems to suggest that you can do the (essentially intarsia) panels in the round, which isn't actually possible for this pattern. A quick search on Ravelry though, shows that there was errata which have you knit the leg flat. Here is what mine looked like:

The third weird thing is that there are no projects for this pattern on Ravelry... Let me say that again. No one on Ravelry has made this pattern. There was one person who had posted to the forums looking into help making them, and she was the one to find the errata. But in the end there were no projects. Of course that only made me want to make it all the more.

I was very intrigued by the heel detail. I have to say I was particularly pleased when Salvbard asked that wasn't it a dutch heel. Clearly he is coming along well. I was so proud.

It is sort of like the dutch heel that I put in his black winter socks, but it had a wider band down the bottom of the heel and the back of the heel is done in a rib. Neat!

I made one last modification to the pattern. Instead of knitting the top of the foot (with a rib to either side of the panel) and then the bottom of the foot (with the gusset decreases) separate and them sewing them together with two seams, I knit it flat after the heel with a rib, the panel, and then a larger area that included both the side rib and the bottom of the sock. This meant that I needed two less stitches on the side that would no longer have a seam, so that it would be as symmetrical as possible at this point with the side that would be. I decreased one stitch on the side of the rib, and the other I made sure happened at the beginning of the heel gusset "rounds." Then I could knit the full circumference of the foot flat as one piece until the toe.

Hopefully any of that made sense, but I wanted to document everything in case someone else ended up being interested in making these as well.

Amazing Knitting Gifts

I have been incredibly fortunate to have such generous and thoughtful people in my life. And through an interesting congruence of events, I have been the recipient of several gifts in the last few weeks that I wanted to recognize.

A friend brought me back a pair of knitting girl socks from Las Vegas, NV. They are so cute! And the "yarn" is fuzzy! Also I received a thank you skein of Malabrigo sock from a co-worker. And last but certainly not least I was given a skein of Handmaiden Fine Yarn Sea Sock from a friend who had just spent 2 weeks training for a new job in Santa Monica, CA. (I am so excited for her!)

Clearly I am terribly spoiled. Thank you!

Cozy Socks

Given how behind on the 26 pair plunge I am and how few socks I have knit for myself recently, I figured I would make a pair of cozy, soft, thick worsted weight socks for myself. I am under no illusions that I will make the plunge, but I did want to do a bit more in the sock department.

This yarn had been hanging out in the stash for long enough. Just over 3 years ago (!) I finished asweater for Chiquita from this same yarn. It is very soft and the colors are wonderful. It still had the same bleeding issues as when I worked with it last time, but as this project was so much smaller, it was much more manageable.

Yarn: Interlacements Oregon Worsted II in color 203 Submarine

Yarn Source: Somerville Yarn Swap (in 2008!)

Needle: US 5 - 3.75 mm

Pattern: Easy Peasy Socks for First-Timers by Stacey Trock

Pattern Source: Free Ravelry Download

Modifications: I made the cuff a little longer than the pattern per my preference. Also I did a 2X2 rib rather than a 1X1 and continued that patterning down the top of the foot. And I used an eye of the partridge heel rather than a plain stockinette one, for better wear.

You might well ask why I bothered with the pattern at all at this point. I admit to some laziness/brain fatigue. Work has been crazy, I didn't want to figure out numbers of stitches. But having said that I was impressed by the clarity and layout of this pattern. I think it would make an excellent primer for someone who was just trying to learn to knit socks for the first time (from written instructions).