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March 31, 2007: I gots da BLUES (or current WIP's)
One of the things I notice about my knitting is that I go in phases. I have been stuck on socks since about April or May of last year. Hence the need to dispell myths and prove I can knit Not-Socks. Before that, everything was lace. I can't think of a pattern I did other than the occasional gift knitting project that did not have masses of YO's involved. Right now, what is taking over my brain (and gladly NOT replacing socks completely) is tank tops. Yes, summer is here or at least obviously on the way - sun is shining after weeks of rain, temps are well out of sweater ranges by midafternoon, and I need a new tank top in a bad way. So bad I bought yarn for two... :) Here's the progress so far:
The tank top in progress is highly fitted to reward me for a sucessful diet aka lifestyle change (35 pounds down, about 15 to go), tho instructions will be included to make the waist less dramatic. It starts with Fan Lace from Barbara Walker #1, decreases 3 inches each side to the waist, then back up 3 inches on each side to the bust. I'll then do a short triangle in the front, bind off in an i-cord all the way around and do 3-4 i-cord straps on each side along the front from center to arms, crossing in back. Seamless, knit in round, totally my kind of knitting. The yarn is DK weight combed cotton, Cotton Patine by Elsebeth Lavold, 50 g = 110m and its knitting up with decent drape and no see-thru issues at 5.5 SPI (shock horror, I'm KNITTING AT A GAGE DESCRIBED ON A LABEL. Hell must be having some mighty cold weather...). I'll also knit a matching wrap in the lace at some point.
Future tank top will be knit in a nice cheap flecked cotton blend, Tatamy Tweed from Kraemer Yarns. $17 tank top. Soft fun yarn. What more can ya ask for?
My current Sock-In-Progress (yes, just 1 for the time being) is the set being knit up for Schaeffer yarns. My mission, and I chose to accept it: Use up all the yarn. Why did I get this honor? Well, when I finished Spring Garden I weighed my HUGE ball of leftovers and found out that I had enough of the stuff left to knit a whole 3rd sock. Now, I don't have 3 feet so this is kinda useless. So I got to thinking, if only Anne came in solids, I could have a mosaic sock. So I wrote the Schaeffer comapny to ask, "Hey do you sell solid yarn, or even undyed hanks of Anne?" Apparently they CAN offer up hanks of undyed Anne, but they LOVED the idea of a mosaic sock so much they sent me 4 hanks of Anne to try it out. The assignment is to have minimal leftovers - either 3 pairs (1 plain of each skein and 1 combined mosaic) or 2 mosaic socks, 1 knee and one regular/short length. I'm in a color mood, so I chose option 2. Also it breaks my heart less to send off 2 pairs, even tho its jsut as mugh knitting. Go figure. Here is the mosaic knee-sock so far:
Both socks will be toe up socks, because I want people to be able to use as much yarn as possible, and also because I wasn't ready to think my way thru calf increases when I started - wanted to know the sock FIT first. The other sock will be yellow toed, heeled and cuffed, and will have a totally different mosaic, something a bit more celtic looking, I guess. Haven't picked the pattern yet, have a few in mind.
In honor of creating knee socks, and in a vain effort to make the pattern fit people other than me, I am conducting a survey of calf sizes. I will post results somewhere on this website and update them as needed because knee socks are cool and I bet more of us would design them if we knew how to make them fit real people! If you want to aprticipate, please e-mail me the following information:
Shoe size:
Length of foot:
Width (circumference) of foot around ball of foot:
Width of ankle:
Width of leg where your sock cuff normally sits:
Width of calf at widest point:
Width of leg just below knee (crease of knee):
Height of leg, from floor to just below knee (crease of knee):
Of course, if you don't participate... :-P the knee socks will fit me perfectly and its anybody's guess if they'll fit the calves of anyone who hasn't been in ballet for most of their childhood and a good part of their adulthood too. So far a few replies I got from the socknitters list indicate that calves vary a lot less than I thought, which is a major relief.
March 28, 2007: Dispelling false beliefs
It has come to my attention that through constant posting on the sock knitters list and never having been seen without a sock in my hand at a social knitting event, that people out there beleive I can't knit with needles larger than toothpicks. While I readily admit to being a sock obsessive knitter, I do on occasion need a break from 8-10 SPI knitting! Here are 2 of my recent NOT-SOCK projects:
The tissue fish!
One of my local hangouts, Yarndogs, carries these really cool kits. They're very similar to the fibertrends felted fish, only with bright Noro yarn and some splashy novelty yarn thrown in for good measure. They are stuffed with old grocery bags and look extremely cute with the little mouths. And I thought to myself "Perfect... but not quite big enough... I'll never get a whole boxful of tissues in there!" Being a designer I of course skipped the whole buying the kit thing, chose a color of Noro, bought a few tiny scrap balls of eyelash and shiny ribbon yarn from the "Knitters for Knockers" cancer charity bin and set to with size 11 home made dowel DPN's for the tissue dispenser FISH!
Tissue Fish instructions: I cast on 6 stitches, increase at start and middle of each needle every other row until I had 4X the stitches, then every 3rd row for 3 more increases. I switched to denise circs at some point. I threw in the first novelty yarn for colorful scales about half way thru this, then the fur yarn in the "every 3rd row" stage. I knit about 5-6 plain rounds. Then I decreased back down to about half the widest point, throwing in my final novelty scraps, did a few plain rows, and did some tail increases (1 at each tail end, and a triple increase at center of tail) for I didn't count how many rows. Ran out of yarn, had to raid my Children in Common bin for 100% wool that kinda matched. Its Noro, no one will care. :) Everything matches Noro. I of course did NOT bind the tail together - I loosely bound off leaving it OPEN.
I then picked up 2 parallel lines of 6 stitches at the top and 1/3 around for each fin. The top fin I knit 2 rounds plain, then added the second color at the 1st front stitch, next round 2nd color was front 2 stitches on both sides. Then each round thereafter was knit with color 1 until 1 color 1 stitch remains, knit 1 with color 2, K2tog, (other side) SSK, K1, back to color 1 til end of row. Until it was just 4 stitches of color 2, thread end thru all 4 and cut it. The fins were similar - 2 rounds of plain blue, then I increased every round to 12 stitches, then I added in the yellow on BOTH sides, one stitch at a time, and decreases at BOTH sides every round until only 4 stitches remained. Then I threw him in the wash on sanitary for a cycle, took him out, cut off felted ends, and sewed some snaps into his tail at the narrowest point. Ripped open a box of tissues, stuffed them in, and snapped his fishy butt closed. Viola! Utterly frivilous knitting, a good weekend project.
Tune in later for the other non-sock project: The I can't believe its finally spring tank top!
March 22, 2007: Why I hate my new socks
So I swore I'd never blog. The world really doesn't need my innermost ramblings in print for forever. Well the shop now has a blog because I seriously need to rant. I found this new yarn, Ditto by Universal Yarns, in my LYS and loved it. It was a self striping yarn with colors that blend so the stripes aren't so dramatic. A self striping you can DO stuff with besides knit plain socks!!! It made me very happy. Until I started knitting it up...
First off, the stuff is sticky. Sticky like it knots up every few yards when you try to pull from the center of the ball. Sticky like its still doing this at the toe of your sock. Second, BOTH of my balls had oddities. One had a knot. No biggie, we all get a knot now and then, right? WRONG. Ball #2 had a strand about 10 yards long knotted into the main strand. A whole speaprate ball of yarn, about ping pong ball sized. A totally useless scrap, balled up and sold to me with my yarn. I wrote others on the socknitters list at yahoo, and found out over half the people that had used this yarn had knots, and lots of them. One knot was ping pong ball sized and not untanglable. One ball had *5* knots. So I was thinking "oh a few QC issues, write the company and try the yarn again in a year"
WRONG again. I doggedly move on, because I'm working these socks up on a deadline for Knitty submission. I finish sock #2 bleary eyed at about midnight, and put them on the next day, eager to show off at social knitting night at Purlescence, one of my many yarn hangouts. I take off my shoes, I proudly display my socks, and the first thing I hear, from someone FULLY across the room is "but those socks don't match!" I look at my feet. I double take, I look again. They don't match. They don't match in indoor lighting. They really don't match in outdoor lighting. I inwardly groan. I think "Did I forget to check dyelots again? No I'm sure I remembered to check dyelots, oh I can't beleive I was so stupid..."
So I go home after knitting my hands sore on second socks (only 3 mateless socks left!) and I race right upstairs to the scrap bin. I check, I double check. Dyelot 06.092. On both balls. Very clear. Same dyelot. Different socks. I'm sorry, a few knots is a QC problem I can trust a company to fix, but a match THAT POOR in a dyelot? That's a company that can't figure out how to make yarn. Even at K-mart the yarn dyelots match.
So as much as I love the colors, I simply cannot advocate you knit up these socks in this yarn. Unless you really like weaving in ends. I'd suggest you switch BALLS every color repeat if you use this yarn. Or better yet, knit Rhapsody socks with a yarn you know, love and trust. Not Ditto. Not Universal Yarns. I didn't "knit, relax, smile, repeat" (their cutsey slogan) I knitted, grumbled, ranted on line, and I'm sorry, I will NOT repeat. Not with this yarn...
Later the same day:
So of course my first step was to e-mail the company. They replied back reminding me that they offered to replace the yarn when I found the knots... and yes its my fault, I was 4 inches into a sock and didn't want to start over I just wanted to tell them they had knots, because how can they fix it if they don't know?. I also talked to my LYS, who called their rep and put me in touch with (cathy? Cindy? her name slipped my brain) who appologized profusely and offered to send me a prototype ball of the new sock yarn they are developing. I guess she grasped that I'm a tad burned on the ditto for now, but there's something about a sock yarn NO ONE ELSE HAS SEEN that is just irresistable... :) So look forward to reviews of that yarn when it arrives in Commuknity for my sampling pleasure. I was warned that as a prototype it may have some minor oddities, so the first thing I'll be doing is putting it up to a skein to look it over. Besides, I prefer to get to know my yarns in a skein - you can see how long the repeats are and really feel the hand of the fiber. Hopefully I'll forgive them. :) A girl needs to rant, but lets face it mistakes happen and we have to move on.
Oh, and the reason the yarn didn't match? Apparently its all computer matched dyes and well, we all know how reliable computers are. Again, I'm wishing they'd visually scanned the balls in really good light and didn't trust the computers so much. I'm guessing they run the fab on Windows... :-P So I'm gonna blame my mismatched socks on Microsoft.
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