New Socks for the Mister

I’ve been stuck with my current knitting project. I can’t find the right needle for the sleeves of my current No. 9 sweater. It defies belief that I don’t have a 40cm 6.5mm needle, in all my stash of knitting needles, so I’m hunting through everything. Dollars to donuts, as soon as I decide I must not have one and buy one, I’ll find the one lurking in my projects. This is, after all, how one gathers a needle stash.

I actually made a spreadsheet a few years ago, inventorying all of my knitting needles for exactly this reason. At the time, I listed the project where the needles could be found, if they were being used. The spreadsheet is out of date, sadly, but it does not show that I have a needle in this size. Maybe I don’t. I’ll keep looking to be sure.

In the meantime, there was movie night and nothing to knit. I cast on a pair of socks for the mister, and now they’re done. (But I still haven’t found the needle.)

This yarn has been well aged in the stash: it’s Online Supersocke (6-fach) New Wave – Color, a sock yarn from Germany. That’s the Ravelry link for the yarn since it’s discontinued. The yarn was actually made in Italy. This colourway is 1091.

And yes, I really like that I was able to make them match. 🙂

This is a nice yarn, squishy but with a firm twist. I think it will wear well and the mister really likes the colours. It comes in big balls and I bought a few of them when they were on sale, once upon a time, since the colours appealed to him. Thanks to Ravelry, I know I don’t have any more of this specific yarn in the stash, but I should have one more big balls of Online Supersocke. Time for it to be knitted up!

Meanwhile, I’ll keep looking for that elusive 40cm circular needle…

Fleece Artist Socks

Things have been really busy writing-and-publishing-wise, which means my knitting and sewing projects have been getting less action. When I need to think, I need a simple project (or two.) So I finished a pair of new socks for myself which is always a good thing.

I managed to crop the toe of one of them in this picture, but the colour is pretty true. They’re knit of Fleece Artist Kiki in Twilight, a superwash and nylon blend that is put up in a big skein of 140g. (That’s a Ravelry link for the yarn.) This yarn is thick, so these socks are thick, and I used almost the whole skein.

This is just my usual sock pattern, the one I don’t have to think about too much, but this time, I added two six-stitch mirroring cables to the front.

After the 2/2 ribbing, I changed to 6/2 ribbing for the rest of the sock, turning cables on two adjacent knit bands. When I got to the heel, I positioned them at the center front. They go all the way down to the toe and make me happy.

It was the Halo that got me thinking about Fleece Artist yarn and missing (as usual) their Trail Socks yarn base. I no longer have a LYS with Fleece Artist yarn, which is sad, but Ravelry shows that Trail Socks isn’t discontinued. Good news. I haven’t seen it in so long that I assumed otherwise. (Let the hunt begin.) I found Kiki at Little Knits, because it’s discontinued. The colour saturation is great and the yarn is very squishy. I was surprised by the thickness, though. These are heavy socks.

Here’s my Ravelry project page.

I’ve also rescued my Spector from Sleeve Island and hope to have that to show you soon. I still don’t love it, but I’ll be glad to have it done.

Sewn Socks – and New Knitted Ones

I usually knit socks, but recently someone at my sewing group talked about sewing socks from leftover pieces of jersey knit. I was intrigued and had a look around the internet, then drafted my own pattern. Here’s a pair of my finished sewn socks:

These are sewn from a Dutch print on cotton jersey that I used for one of my Mirri dresses. It was expensive, so I kept every shred – plus I really like it.

The pattern for these is a tube, pieced from two long rectangles. One has darts for the heel so needs to be cut a bit longer. Originally, I measured the length of my foot for the pattern, but ended up shortening it by about 2″ – because of the stretch of the jersey knit. I first tried these with rounded toes but the fit wasn’t good, so I shaped the toes for left and right socks. Here’s my pattern now:

It’s 4.25″ wide, with a .25″ seam allowance on each side. I have skinny feet. 🙂 These end just above the ankle and things are getting snug – if I wanted to make taller socks or knee socks, I’d need to widen the pattern and maybe even shape it to fit the calf.

Here are the other two pair I made of scraps:

They don’t look like much when they’re laid flat, but they are quick to make. I serged the darts, then all around the perimeter. It literally took minutes to make three pair. I just used a zigzag to hem the tops, but could have used the twin needle instead.

They’re more like sock liners to me, but then I tend to wear thick socks when I wear socks. They’d be easy to make to match another garment and would be fun to wear with shoes that will only allow a thin sock. I might also wear them as sock liners this winter. The tan and black ones are made of a sweater knit and they’ll be the warmest of them all.

Have you ever sewn socks?

I also finished kniting a new pair of socks for myself in self-striping yarn.

This is Online Supersock 6-fach Stripe Color, which has been well-aged in the stash. I think I bought it originally to make socks for the mister, but he missed out this time. 🙂

New Blue Socks

Most of my socks are wearing out, so I’ve been knitting new ones for myself for the fall. Here’s my latest pair.

I really like this colourway. I used a little bit more than two balls, and needed to join from a third ball for the toes. I ran out with each ball after about 3/4″ of the turquoise band that begins the toe. You can see that I added more turquoise when knitting the right one, which means less purple on the toe. I’ll survive that. 🙂 Fortunately, I’d found that third ball in the mill ends at Spinrite, so it only cost $1. I have a lot of it left for my sock afghan or maybe another knitted dress for Barbie.

And yes, I already have another pair of socks on my needles….

More Kroy Socks

I’m due for some new socks so took on that project for my summer knitting. After all the sock yarns I’ve tried, I keep coming back to Patons Kroy Socks. The colours aren’t as unique as hand-painted yarns, but the socks always wear well. (My other fave yarn was Fleece Artist Trail Socks, which was both pretty and durable, but they don’t use that yarn base anymore.)

Kroy Socks (that link goes to the Yarnspirations site) is a thicker version of this yarn, with four plies instead of three, so it has less yardage. There’s 166 yards per ball. Usually, I buy three then have close to half a ball left over. This time, I decided to use just two balls.

The first pair is a blue colourway called Magic Stripes. (It’s the last colourway on the Yarnspirations site.)

I used my usual sock pattern, casting on 72 stitches, working in 2/2 rib for about 12 rows, then switching to 6/2 ribbing to the heel. I usually knit a total of 72 rows before starting the heel (because it’s easy to remember) but this time I worked only 56 in the hope of making each sock out of one ball. As you can see, I ran out and had to make the toes black.

For the next pair, I followed the same strategy, accepting the fate of black toes. This colourway is called Mexicala Stripes (it’s the second colour in the third row of swatches on the Yarnspirations site). I’m always up for some bright socks and these are definitely bright. The colourway has a really long repeat: there were only two repeats in the skein. You can see that the yellow from the top of the cuff starts again at the end of the heel flap.

This time, I worked 55 rows to the heel flap, then only 18 RS rows on the heel flap. (There were 19 on the blue pair above.) I was surprised by how much difference this made – I not only finished the first sock from one ball but had 3g of wool left over. The second sock is still on the needles, but it will match exactly.

How do you make socks match exactly and effortlessly? This strategy only works when you shop in-person and can look at the skeins. Choose two that start at the same point in the repeat of the colourway. My second ball of Mexicala Stripes starts with the same yellow band, so the socks will match without any trouble at all. When you order online, of course, the person filling the order will usually just grab the next two balls, so this plan won’t work.

My next lot of Kroy Socks is three balls in the colour Blue Raspberry. I’ll make taller socks and have some left over for my sock afghan. I’ve been adding to the one made of mitred squares. Hmm. I talked about those in this post, although they don’t have a post of their own. I’ll write a post about that for Friday.

Have you knit any socks lately?

Green Socks

This past weekend was Thanksgiving in Canada. After cleaning and cooking and cleaning, I’m behind on everything after the holiday. It was a really good dinner, though, and everyone went home with some leftovers.

My completed knitting project today isn’t very exciting—it’s a new pair of socks for me. I like them, though, and given that I’m behind on everything, a new pair of socks suits me just fine. I knit these from stash yarn—Rowan Fine Art is discontinued. (That’s a Ravelry link because it’s not on the Rowan website anymore.) I liked this yarn a lot even though it was comparatively expensive when it was new. When it was discontinued, I stashed quite a lot of it. The colours are rich and it’s handpainted—they did the colour variations in a very regular manner, though, which means it makes patterns in the knitting like a variagated yarn.

Here are my new socks, knit in Lapwing:

They took 76g or about 3/4 of a skein.

This is the pattern I have memorized that varies slightly as I knit. I cast on 72 stitches on 2.5mm needles—I wrote up this pattern for my niece a while back and you can find it here. Since this yarn is thinner, I could have used 2.25mm or even 2.0mm needles.

When you look at the skein, there are four colours in the handpaint: a light almost-lime green, a medium green, a dark olive green, and a blue-green. It’s kind of interesting how they end up pairing off and making spirals of pooling. I like the efect in socks but would be less happy with this pooling in a sweater. You might remember that I made a shawl in Rowan Fine Art in a reddish-brown colourway called the Starling Wrap. You can see that there were four colours in that colourway and they paired off into repeating stripes, too. That’s something I’ll need to keep in mind as I use my stash of this yarn.

And here’s an interesting project with Rowan Fine Art Aran – the same yarn in a heavier weight – by DayanaKnits, using planned pooling. This project is possible because of the regularity of the colour repeat, and I find it fascinating. Have a scroll through Dayana’s projects while you’re on her blog. She’s a prolific and talented knitter.

I’m off to a knitting fair this weekend for the first time in years. I have a little list and am hoping to find some graduated dying by local knitters. It’ll be great to have the chance to smell the yarn fumes and squish the skeins again!

Pink Socks

The problem with finishing big projects is that I haven’t had much to show you. You’ve seen enough in-progress pictures of everything currently on my needles.

I did make a pair of socks, though. There’s something particularly cheerful about self-striping yarn in bright colours, isn’t there?

Of course, I had to make them match. 🙂

The yarn was in my stash – it’s Online Supersocke Comedy Color, and the colourway is 1280. The yarn is discontinued, so that’s a Ravelry link.

New Socks

I’ve been finishing a book lately, which means I need to some mindless knitting in the evenings. Socks are the perfect choice. I just finished this pair in Fleece Artist Trail Socks, which appears to be discontinued. Hmm. That explains why I haven’t seen any for a while. (That’s a Ravelry link.) The colourway is Nightshade:

I used my usual memorized pattern for these, casting on 72 stitches, working the ribbing for a while (12R of 1×1 in this case), then looser ribbing to the heel for 72R total. I did 6×2 ribbing this time, and worked a cable twist every 12R, which made counting the rows easier. It does make the socks a little more snug to pull on. I have 12g of yarn left, which will probably make one mitred square for my leftover-sock-yarn afghan.

I’ll have something more interesting to show you next week. 🙂

Toe-Up and Cuff-Down Socks

Things have been quiet here, and I apologize for that. I’ve been finishing a book (one that doesn’t want to end) and trying to complete some knitting projects, too.

I finished these socks, finally, but still don’t like the feel of the yarn. It’s Estelle Sock Twins, which comes in two balls, each with the same gradient. (That’s a Ravelry link.) I found the yarn splitty.

It looks like a gradient, but the colour transitions are quick: I think it’s more like steps of colour instead of a steady gradation. You can see the change from the last blue bit to the dark orange in the third stripe from the top on the right: the blue/orange just ends. The finished socks look the same, so I’ll just use the old picture:I knit them toe-up because I wanted to use up all the yarn in the gradient. This time I used the Ann Budd tutorial from Interweave Knits. It took me forever to get around to knitting the second one, because I still don’t like knitting toe-up socks. This is about the tenth pair I’ve made and I just don’t enjoy the process, no matter which pattern I use. It’s probably because I have to check the instructions all the time, while I’ve knit so many cuff-down socks that I just knit away. At any rate, they’re finally done and that’s a good thing because I got my needles back.

I cast on a new pair of cuff-down socks in Fleece Artist Trail Socks, a yummy yummy yarn, in a delicious colourway—Nightshade. (That’s a Ravelry link.) The colour hovers between brown and purple, with a few flashes of other colours that end up making a stripe.

I’m just doing my usual sock thing, casting on 72 stitches, working 72 rows, turning the heel etc. This time I did 6×2 ribbing and added a cable twist every 12th row. It makes the counting easier to the heel, although I hadn’t planned it that way. I just wanted to mix it up a bit.

I also worked on the sleeves for my Juicy Gloss cardigan, but discovered once I’d knit one to the elbow that the sleeves would be too wide. I frogged it back and recalculated, taking an addition 8 stitches out of the sleeve at the underarm, then decreasing more rapidly than the pattern specifies. I’m reaching the elbow now and am much happier with the fit. I’ll show it to you once the first sleeve is completed.

Snowshoe Socks

After mending socks, reclaiming a lot of my Kidsilk Haze last week and updating my stash on Ravelry, I had a look at my bits and ends of sock yarn. Knitting a pair of socks never takes all of the yarn in the skein, even when I knit a pair for the mister. There’s always some left over. I have two afghans in progress with these bits – the older one is with sock yarn hexagons:

You can find the pattern for knitting these hexagons right here on my blog.

The second is with mitred squares, like this:

Sometimes I have a lot leftover – for example, knitting socks for the mister often takes part of a third 50g ball, leaving most of it when they’re done. I have some sock yarns that I loved in the skein but find less thrilling knit up. And there’s the issue of the mister walking through his heavier socks, which he wears in the house in the winter instead of slippers.

The Snowshoe socks look like a good answer. Here’s a link to the pattern on Ravelry. These socks are knit with two strands of sock yarn held together. Even better, part of the fun of the pattern is mixing more than two yarns together. If you haven’t looked at this book, btw, you really should – Knits About Winter is truly lovely, with many great patterns. (That’s a Ravelry link, where you can see all the patterns in the book.)

I added one more twist to this combination – I once knit a pair of bedsocks out of Kidsilk Haze with two strands of that yarn held together. They are the lightest, softest and warmest socks ever. I decided to add a strand of KSH to the two strands of sock yarn in these socks for the mister.

Here’s my first yarn combination:

Left to right, 78g of Viola Sock in Blot, 45g of Regia 4-ply sock yarn, 31g of Regia 4-ply sock yarn in a different colourway, 16g of Crazy Zauberball, 55g of Lichen and Lace Sock in Huckleberry, and 50g of Sugarbush Drizzle (which is like KSH).

In the end, I used all of the Viola Sock, 43 g of the purple Regia, 43 g of the Lichen & Lace and 40 g of the Drizzle. Here are his finished socks:

They’re wonderfully thick, soft and squishy. Now I need to make myself a pair!