I’ve finished the Little Child’s Socks.  Overall, I’m pleased with this sock pattern, and made very few modifications to it.  Most of the modifications that I did make were due to my fear of running out of yarn.  The pattern called for two skeins of Lorna’s Laces Shepard Sock which is 430 yards of yarn.  My Cherry Tree Hill had only 360 yards.  I was hoping that the pattern didn’t use the entire yardage from the Lorna’s, so I tried anyway.  I managed to finish the socks with this yardage, but I only have a tiny bit of yarn left over.  If I wore a bigger shoe size, I might have been out of luck.

I’ve got one main complaint with the fit of the socks.  I really wish that I’d started the decreases along the seam stitch sooner.  The sock is baggy through the lower calf area.  If I had it to do over, I probably would have started the decreases along with the pattern stitches, not wait until having knit twenty rows of the patterning.

I am still amazed at just how bright these socks are.  The colorway was named Golden, but it’s a much more vibrant yellow-orange than anything else. 

Pattern: Little Child’s Socks
Designer: Nancy Bush
Source: Knitting Vintage Socks
Yarn: Cherry Tree Hill Supersock
Quantity: 1 skeins (360 yards)
Color: Golden
Needles: KnitPicks US0 (2.0 mm) 32″

Started: January 18, 2008
Completed: February 5, 2008

Pattern modifications:

• I only knit six of the eight detail rows between the ribbing.  On the first sock it was a mistake that I didn’t notice until I had already turned the heel.  As the saying goes, make the error once and it’s a mistake, the second time it becomes a design feature.
• I decreased the number of rows of ribbing both above and below the pattern section of the cuff.
• I added an additional four rows of the pattern just above the heel.  I just felt the sock needed to be a little longer.
• I added an additional set of decrease rounds at the toe to lengthen the sock.

Yarn review

I suspect this yarn may have been one of the potluck or seconds. There are a lot of strange, dark color streaks that make the sock look dirty. The streaks are the most noticeable on the stockinette portions of the sock, and it doesn’t show all that well in the photos. However, if you look closely at the pictures and see some odd dark horizontal bands, that’s the discoloration.  It’s really odd, because I didn’t notice when the yarn was still in the skein.

The yarn was pleasant to work with, but I didn’t find the process of knitting with it much different from most sock yarns, like Lorna’s or Opal.  I was really surprised at how it became very soft and developed the tiniest of halos after a trip through the wash.  It’s soft enough now to make me consider stashing some more of this sock yarn.  It will be interesting to see how it continues to hold up to wear and washing.

I’ve been working on the William Street Socks.  It’s a fairly simple cable pattern to remember, and as I suspected in my last post, much easier to complete when using a cable needle.

The pattern is written toe-up.  So, as I reached the end of the cable pattern and began the ribbing for the cuff, my inner knitter knew that the directions couldn’t make sense, but I followed them anyway.  I know that cables pull-in the width of knitting, so logically, the cabled section of the sock should have more stitches than non-cabled sections.  However, when changing from cables to ribbing, the pattern actually calls for increasing stitches.  I did as instructed, and knit until I ran out of yarn.  When I tried on the sock, the ribbing was way too loose.  The ribbed stitches hardly stretched at all.

After a big sigh, I ripped back to the start of the ribbing.  This time, I decreased to eliminate one repeat of the ribbing, and knit the sock to the end.  Again, the inner knitter wondered about the number of stitches on the needle, but I forged ahead.  I knit until I ran out of yarn, and the ribbing is too loose, again.

I should have listened to my inner knitter, the math didn’t make sense.  Typically, for a fingering weight sock, I knit ribbing in the 60-something stitch range.  Why, then, would I want a DK weight sock with 70-stitches in ribbing, as the pattern originally called for?  Was decreasing to 65-stitches really going to solve the problem of the sock being too loose?

I really like the cabled section of this sock, and I determined to make the sock fit.  So off I go to rip out the ribbing again, and this time find a suitable number of stitches.

I did find another yarn in the stash that is appropriate for knitting the Little Child’s Sock.  It’s some Cherry Tree Hill Supersock Merino in Golden (a yellow-orange) that I picked up during a destashing this past summer.  As you can see in the photo, it does appear to have been knit and unraveled before the destashing.  My concern now is that there are dark spots in the yarn as I knit with it.  I can’t tell if this is just a side-effect of the dye process or if the yarn is dirty.  I’m really hoping that it’s just dye.  The whole experience with this destashed yarn is a little less than pleasant.

Since the yardage on the Supersock Yarn is significantly shorter than the pattern calls for, I’m eliminating some of the pattern rounds.  I’ve got about eight rounds left on the second sock and then they’ll be done.  Somehow, even with that few rounds left (and they’re toe rounds - so short!), I just can bring myself to finish them.  I don’t know what’s wrong with me. 

Instead, on the first of February, I cast on for the William Street Socks [Ravelry Link] from Interweave Knits.  I decided that I needed a quick project, and since the socks are knit in a DK weight yarn, this should fit the bill.  I had the yarn called for by this pattern, but only two balls.  The pattern calls for three, but states if you make a smaller shoe size (I will) and do not do the larger ankle increases/size, that it should be ok with just the two.  Since it is a toe up sock pattern, I’ll just knit until I run out of yarn.  The project is going well so far.  While I’ve switched most of my cable knitting projects to cabling without a cable needle, I may dig one back out for this project.  The 10-stitch cable crossings are a bit awkward, and take a little longer than I’d expect.  I’m hoping they’ll be faster with the cable needle.

In other project news, I’ve put the yarn for the Orenburg lace shawl back into the stash.  I just didn’t have the patience for it right now.

I’m hoping to have some project photos soon.  My photo-shooting area has been a disaster because we painted the living and dining rooms.  We’ve been moving furniture, books, and other items all over the house.  It’s amazing how much stuff can be stored in one room, especially when said room has floor to ceiling bookshelves.