Another Post about Socks

I kept my vow of knitting from stash for six months this year. Yes, it would have lasted longer had I not gone to Looped Yarn Works to get needles and stitch markers. However, I need blue socks to go with my blue shoes. I found a skein of Zitron XXL sans label and it’s hard to match colorways on the monitor so I’m out of luck. I didn’t want to match either the shoes or trousers I’d be wearing so I purchased a skein that is navy with blue-grey and turquoise in it.

My other purchase was a set of Knitter’s Pride Karbonz needles. They aren’t cheap, but they are light in hand and a dream to knit with.

I finally finished the Diagonal Rib socks. YaY!

Diagonal Rib Socks in Light Brown Hare Jackalope Kitten #2 colorway

In an effort to move out from plain vanilla socks, I settled on the Simple Skyp Socks pattern by Adrienne Ku. I am taking Shirley Paden’s advice: always use stitch markers to separate your pattern. Really loving the Clover XS Triangle Stitch markers for sock knitting. They are just the right size not to wobble around and the triangle shape means they don’t appear to create move space between stitches.

The shawl-knitting urge has passed, but with the sock knitting remnants, I’m thinking about a colorwork cowl.

Toupie spent the entire day—with his usual resettling moves and a few ventures to the food bowl and box—in bed yesterday. Got up this morning and ate an entire can of cat food. I gave him a hard look this morning. Does sleeping burn that many calories?

Sun-dappled paws

 

Sleeping Puss

 

 

The Goldilocks Dilemma or Size Matters

I have now changed the size 1 needles used to knit the Diagonal Rib Socks by Ann Budd. When knitting plain vanilla socks for myself, casting on 56 to 60 stitches usually works for me. 56 stitches in sock or fingering weight wool fit comfortably on the 4” Knit Picks wood dpns. Knitting with sport or dk weight wool where I am generally using 48 to 52 stitches works well on the ChiaoGoo or Knitter’s Pride Karbonz 6” dpns. I found myself struggling in the past 24 hours to find a length that works. Finally, last night I switched to the 5” no-name bamboo needles and the 65 stitches fit comfortably, enabling me finally to pick up some speed in working the pattern.

I ran into the same problem when knitting Little Things by Veera Välimäki. Started on size 2 KP nickel, ripped and switched to size four ChiaoGoo Bamboo; ripped and switched to size 5 ChiaoGoo Bamboo and finally got a looser but still firm fabric and my knitting speed returned to normal.

I am so far happy with both projects. For the Diagonal Rib Socks, I am using Light Brown Hare’s Jackalope in the Kitten 2 colorway. I chose the pattern, first because my 2014 goal is knitting socks with stitch patterns and colorwork; and second because I suspected, and it has proved true, that the stitch pattern would prevent noticeable pooling. The yarn is soft and not splitty without that cotton candy squishiness that sometimes happens with superwash Merino and the stitch definition is good. Light Brown Hare also sells nice stitch markers.

For Little Things, I am using Black Welsh Mountain yarn that I bought from Countrybyrd on Ravelry. A nice rustic yarn that is a little hard on the fingernails, but which blooms and softens nicely after soaking.