Myles

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Work It

I got to the lace portion of Hedera and ran into a wee problem. My first time knitting a repeat was a mess. It just looked messy. I knew I had to put on my big girl pants and work it out. After ripping back and starting again I messed it up again. To be honest I was ready to throw in the towel and cast on something else, something easy. But after poking around on YouTube and rearranging the stitches on the needle and looking at a few finished projects online I was able to make it through an entire 4 row repeat without making a mistake. That was the small confidence boost I needed to carry on though 2 more repeats. Let’s see if I can make it through 2 entire socks.

Decisions

Sometimes the hardest part of knitting is picking out a pattern. Because I’m doing Loopy Academy Grad School I have parameters I have to follow. There are three options:

• A project with a Fish Lips Kiss Heel
• A project by Hunter Hammersen
• A project by Cookie A

And it has to be a sock pattern because as we know that is my major.

After considering the options, and boy there were a lot, I narrowed it down to three:

• Cleave by Hunter Hammersen, a cabled sock
• Monkey Socks (or the no purl version) by Cookie A, an iconic sock pattern
• Hedera by Cookie A, a lace sock pattern

While I really like Cleave I decided that since I already knit a cabled sock I would be better off choosing something else. Monkey socks are so tempting. Both versions are fantastic patterns. They’re quick to knit, comfortable to wear. But I’ve knit them like 4 times. That felt a little like cheating. So Hedera it is! I’ve had this pattern on my radar since it was first published in Knitty in 2006. I guess it’s time has come. Let’s hope the yarn cooperates.

FO On Tuesday: Afterthoughts On The Fine* Socks

I buckled down over the long (but not long enough) weekend and completed the socks. As you can see I did the heels and toes red thanks to Salpal‘s suggestion. It makes them something special I think.

The pattern is Afterthought Everything by Erica Kempf Broughton. The yarn is Cascade Heritage in gray and red. The pattern was one of those patterns I see and immediately think I have to try that-it’s just so crazy! Basically you knit a long tube starting with the cuff, leg and foot of one sock and continue right into the foot, leg and cuff of the second adding waste yarn at the appropriate points. I knit the 64 stitch size since that is normally my preferred sock size. I also did a 7 inch leg not the 5 inch called for in the pattern. I like a longer leg.

The pattern is well written though the instructions are for a stockinette sock not the ribbed sock shown in the pattern photograph. I could have knit ribbed socks but I went with the written pattern. I did my own thing when it came to the heels and toes. I’ve knit enough socks to know what to do so for the most part the pattern was just a jumping off point for me.

The yarn, which I’ve used many times, is nice. It’s sturdy and a bit stretchy which is fine. Unfortunately the socks ended up a tad bigger than I would normally knit. I don’t know why since it was my usual number of stitches on my usual needles. Maybe I was just extra relaxed knitting them.

Picking up the stitches for the toes and heels was fine though a little daunting before I got going. My brain was formulating a rather negative blog post as I picked up the stitches questioning my sanity and why anyone would want to deal with all those loose stitches. But in the end everything turned out fine.

This is the second of three projects for Loopy Academy Grad School. The requirement for this was to knit socks with afterthought heels.

*After I finished writing this post I realized the theme for this pattern and these socks is fine. That being said, I probably won’t knit socks again this way and I’m fine with that.

Sock It To Me Monday

I’m jumping on the bandwagon!

I’ve got three pair of socks in progress. Good grief! Two of these have been hanging around for months. I have one more pair to knit. That’s 4 pair I’d like to have done, soon. It would ease my knitters guilt to have the sock needles empty before I cast on something new.

Here is my pledge: I will complete 2 pair of socks before I cast on anything new. Really I mean it. No I do. Stop laughing…

Multiple Injuries

No. Not an accident. Some sort of sock incident. One sock has a pull and the other a hole! I have no idea what happened. I can probably fix them both but what happened?

Something New

When it came time to bind off the end of the sock tube I decided to have a look on YouTube for a loose bind off. I’ve tried quite a few and many seem to cause the ribbing to flare. I found Sheena’s Stretchy Sock Bind Off and I’m happy to say it was both easy to do and barely flares at all. I will use this bind off again. It works really well with 2X2 ribbing.