twistedloops

I finished the William Street Socks a week or two ago, but I haven’t gotten around to posting about it.  I’ve worn them once, and they’ve been through a washing.

I knit this pair as part of the Ravelry Sock Knitters Anonymous’ February Sockdown challenge.  The challenge for February was to try a new heel.  Since I’m strictly a top-down, heel-flap sock knitter, I tried this pair of toe-up, short-row heel socks.  I think that I’ll stick to top-down heel flaps.  While I like this pair of socks overall, I’m still not sold on the short-row heel.

Pattern: William Street Socks
Designer: Lisa Shroyer
Source: Interweave Knits, Fall 2007
(also available free online from IK)
Yarn: Schachenmayr Regia Tweed 6-Fadig (136 yards/50g)
Quantity: 2 skeins (272 yards/100g)
Color: Gray
Needles: Addi Turbo 3.25mm

Started: February 1, 2008
Completed: March 12, 2008

Pattern modifications:

• I changed the ribbing section of the pattern.  When I knit the ribbing per the pattern, the sock ended up much too loose.  To remedy this, I decreased the last round before the ribbing.  Starting with the cabled section of the sock, I K1, (K3, K2Tog) — this knit together the first and last stitch of each 5 stitch section of cable.  On the back of the sock, I did two decreases, one on each side of the center of the back.  On finishing the round, I slipped the last stitch of the back of the sock to the front needle, and did a P2Tog with the K1 from the cabled section.   This gave me 56-stitches on the needle.  I did P2, K2 ribbing around until I ran out of yarn.
• I used the magic cast-on for toe-up socks from Knitty instead of the specified cast on.
• I only used 2 balls of yarn.  While I wish the socks were a tiny bit longer, the length is acceptable.

Yarn oveview:

I do not knit socks with sport weight yarn very often, so it was interesting when the socks seemed to be progressing very slowly.  As for the yarn, I was surprised by the tweedy-quality of the yarn.  The little tweed bits seemed to be loosely added to the yarn, some even fell out of the yarn as I was knitting the sock.  Most all of the bits that can be seen in the Feb. 8th post on this pair of socks are gone now that they’ve been washed.  Overall, the sock has developed a slight halo of fuzziness from being washed, but otherwise is ok.

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.

For Christmas, I was the lucky recipient of three skeins of Socks that Rock Lightweight, including two of the Ravens.  Jim described his color choices as two he liked, and one he thought was hideous – so of course I’d like it.  If the man had his way, I’d only knit with black yarn (and maybe some charcoal gray).

First up is Grawk, one of the Ravens.  It’s a bit of purple and olive-y green mixed with the black (or, as described by Blue Moon – raspberries and pond scum drowned in black).

Next up is Corvid, another Raven.  It is shades of purple and greenish-blue mixed with the black.

Finally is Sun Stone.  This is one of the shaded solids, and I’m really excited about it.  Jim was right, I love the color.

Of the three, I think that the Corvid is my favorite. Not sure what any of them will become, so they’re all headed into the big sock yarn stash bag for now.  Jim purchased sock yarn for me for all of my major gift events this year, my birthday, our anniversary (which featured 5 unblogged skeins of Socks that Rock), and Christmas.  If he keeps this up in future years, I may never need to purchase sock yarn again!

With the holiday schedule, I have been knitting much faster than I’ve been posting.  I cast-on and finished a Sunflower Tam from Knitting Nature without posting about it, but I’ll give it it’s own finished project post soon.  My current project is the Embossed Leaves Socks.  I’m using the Interweave Knits Winter 2005 issue, but it’s also available in the Favorite Socks book.  I’ve been using the Knit Picks Risata in Cocoa that Jim got me for my birthday.  I flew through the first sock and have started on the second.  The only major modification that I made was that I used a slip-stitch pattern on the heel.  I kept the garter-stitch border, I just didn’t like the plain stockinette heel flap.  I’m not sure if I’ll finish these before heading back to work, but I’m going to try.