twistedloops

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 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.

I know that posts of this sort are usually an update on what’s being knit, but this will be a bit more of an update on what’s been ripped out.

The listings over there to the left listing what’s on my needles.  It’s not accurate.  I’d cast on for the Little Child’s Sock [Ravelry Link] from Knitting Vintage socks.  I was using some Trekking XXL that I purchased a while back.  After knitting about 4 inches of the leg, I decided that I didn’t like the combination of yarn and pattern.  I ripped it out right then; I never even got a photo of it.  I determining now if I’ve got another yarn that will be appropriate for the pattern, because I’d become fairly excited about knitting it.

As for the Orenburg lace shawl in cobweb weight yarn, it too has been ripped.  I was working on it on size US0 (2.0mm) needle, but neither of the size 0s that I own seemed small enough or pointy enough to deal with the yarn.  It’s funny because one of the needles usually seems much too pointy to me for its usual duty of sock knitting.  With the fine lace, it just seemed as if I was trying to force huge, blunt ended needles through the knitting.  I was considering trying a smaller needle to see if my results were any more successful.  The idea of knitting with a 000 or 0000 is a bit daunting.

Even with the needle dilemma, I hadn’t planned to rip out the small piece of border I’d knit (about four inches).  However, fate intervened as I was knitting one evening. I’d been sitting in my chair, the one that I like to knit in.  I decided to get up and get a drink from the kitchen.  Somehow, in this process, the yarn got wrapped around my leg.  As I moved away from the chair, the fine yarn snapped under the tiniest bit of pressure.  Since I’ve got extra yardage on that yarn, I decided to put away the project and start the shawl over on the tinier needles.

That’s it.  There’s no photos or interesting knitting.  Hopefully the new yarn/pattern combination will work well for the Little Child’s Socks, and I’ll have knitting to talk about.