Of course as autumn progresses and temperature drops, I find my thoughts turning more and more to socks and slippers. I am determined that this is the year I’m going to make both of us pairs of wool slippers - I just have to decide on what pattern. The socks are a more immediate fascination and yesterday, I succumbed again.
Have you all seen this list from Socknitters? Just about every type, style and material you could possibly want. I’m still pretty rough around the edges as a sock knitter, but with resources like this I could probably knit a sock for Paul Bunyan if necessary.
I have tentatively decided to go with Woolease as a sock yarn, Yes, I know the wear will probably not be the same as with some of the legitimate sock yarns - but I can’t afford to pay $12 for the privilege of using them. They are lovely, bright and colorful and almost entirely out of my “reasonable” range. The above list had patterns for many socks made with Woolease which is inexpensive and easy to find (and of which I also had an acceptable color in the stash) so Woolease it was :)
Cranberry Woolease
I have made stockinette-leg socks and have finally decided that I don’t care for them. I like my socks to be ribbed over all of the leg length (ribbed for my pleasure?) rather than just at the top, so that was something I played with. The sock starts with the standard K2 P2 ribbing over 48 stitches. Good enough for the top couple of inches but too boring for the rest of the leg so I switched over to K6 P2 ribbing after the cuff. I hadn’t gone very far before I decided that was pretty dull too, so I added a bobble in the center of each rib, every 6 rows to make things more interesting - a little awkward on DPNs but do-able so long as I only had to worry about it every 6 rows :)
Then came the heel flap and the heel turn. They went just fine but I never go through this part of a sock without experiencing a feeling, almost, of awe of the person (or, over time, persons) who figured out how to do this in the first place - bend the tube at a right angle). My head knows how the knitting works - but my heart thinks it’s magic :)
Most of a sock
This is a weird thing to me. I’m not a tight knitter by any means. If I have to adjust needle size to get gauge, it’s usually to go down. But, apparently, put fine DPNs in my hands and I turn into cramp-knitter. I find myself knitting so tightly that the yarn practically bleeds. And of course my fingers, wrists and shoulders all complain, sometimes quite loudly, as well. I guess I just need more practice knitting socks - so I can relax. That’s probably exactly it too - I know I can successfully cast on to DPNs and I know I can turn a heel; I’ve done both things before. But both those things also give me trouble from time to time so I never think about “socking” without worrying...a little anyway.
And yet, it’s fun. I just need to relax about it :)
Morning nap-time
No trackbacks yet.
goldie looks so relaxed that he’s making me sleepy-
knitting socks is fun but i am glad that i can do it for fun rather than because it is the only way to keep everyone in socks- i do prefer using dpn to circular needle methods but i’ve promised that i will try to master that someday- using the fancy sock yarns does make a pair of socks an expensive thing, but i prefer to think of them as ‘foot adornments’ then to justify the expense- the woolease is probably going to be extremely warm and comfy and the cranberry (it looks like that on my monitor) will be so good for fall/winter- it’s a ‘robbyn neutral’!
stay happy-
Barb - I’ve tried the two-circular method and found it very clunky - for me. I prefer working with the DPNs. “Foot adornment” is a nice term for it - maybe, if I get proficient and comfortable with this, that might be a way to get myself to splurge on real sock yarn, once in a great while :) And yes, it looks like cranberry to me too.
How goes your knitting recovery?
Have you tried Lion Brand magic stripes for socks. They have some cool colorways & it is relatively inexpensive for sock yarn. 7.50 to 9.99 for a ball that makes 2 socks. I am knitting my first pair of socks with the purple stripe colorway & dpns. I am using the broadripple pattern from Knitty. It is working very well so far.
Rachel - Funny you should mention that :) I have a couple of balls of that exact colorway that I will get around to eventually. FOr the time being though, I wanted to see how well the Woolease would work and, after that, how well it would wear. If I can get a pair out of one ball of the stuff, that would be pretty economical :)
