Saturday 2 June 2007

Did I say the first sock was finished?

As you may recall, I proudly posted that the first sock was finished - toe grafted and all! Well, when I was about to do the toes on sock #2 (yes, I got that far without SSS*) WM told me that he thought the ribbing was a bit loose! On both socks!! Eeeeeeeeek!

Just before midnight on Thursday I finished ripping out both socks and rewinding the yarn. I cast on for the first sock (does that make it the third sock?) - this time in K2 P2 ribbing instead of the moss stitch ribbing given in the pattern.

Just to be sure, I knitted swatches in various ribs. K2 P2 is definitely the stretchiest and pulls in the most. K1 P1 looks more formal and is flatter. K3 P1 is a waste of time as far as stretchiness goes! Moss stitch ribbing is very pretty when done in a solid colour but is wasted on self-striping or patterned yarns . It has very little stretch or springiness.

I have completely altered the sock from the original pattern. Apart from the ribbing, I have done an hourglass heel (instructions from The Twisted Sisters' Sock Workbook) instead of a gusset heel (I can't pick up stitches without creating a ridge on the inside of the sock). I had to knit the heel three times and I still didn't get it quite right! Now I'm knitting the instep; it's in stocking stitch which is monotonous but socks knit up quickly so it's not too bad - the perfect television knitting once past the heel!

BTW, I'm looking for some plain purple yarn to knit myself some socks - preferably a wool/nylon blend. Has anybody seen some?

*SSK - second sock syndrome

4 comments:

  1. There is some lilac yarn here:

    http://beadopalwoolqueen.com.au/store.html#Anchor-37516

    Ah, the curse of the sock. I have been there too!

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  2. I love Lorna's Laces Shepherd sock yarn - I would recommend it.

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  3. Been there, done that too! After this happened to me a couple of times, I just ripped back a couple of rows at the top of the cuff, picked up the stitches, and cast-off as I would for a toe-up sock. Unless you're holding the sock right in front of your face, you really can't tell.

    One of my favourite cast-offs is from Queen Kahuna's Crazy Toes and Heels sock book, the "aloha" cast-off, which uses a crochet hook. If you don't have this book, I'm sure you could find tutorials on casting off for toe-up socks on the innernets. Good luck and happy knitting!

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  4. check out Purlyarns! they have some solid LL in blackberry which is a lovely deep purple. I wonder if you could have tried threading some knitting elastic into the ribbing instead of frogging the whole thing? too late now :)

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