Persistent Knitter

Anyone who has knit a few socks knows there are some basic parts to knitting a sock:

The more you knit socks, the more you realize how these parts fit together.  The ribbing & cuff are sometimes the same - there might not be a separate ribbing (like k2p2) to hold the sock up. In this example, there is a k2p2 ribbing that is different than the cuff pattern.  This sock also uses a heel flap, with a turned heel - and therefore has a gusset. FYI: This site gives good instructions on knitting some different heel styles.

When I come up with a sock design in my head, I decide if I want ribbing or not at the top, I get a general idea for the cuff pattern - this is usually extended down on the instep.  I’ve already stated my heel preference, and I prefer a rounded toe.  This pattern is usually some scribbles on a piece of paper; and may or may not get written up more formally when I’m done making the pair of socks.

When I buy a pattern for a sock, I sometimes follow the pattern exactly, but other times I am using different yarn, or the sock I want to make is a size not given.  I fudge, and alter, and generally scribble all over the pattern in question to get my desired result.  Sometimes I just really like the pattern used on the cuff and completely change the rest of the sock.

However, when test knitting a pattern, you need to follow the pattern exactly to see if what you end up with is really what the designer intended!  Every part of the sock pattern needs to be tested, from the number of stitches to cast on, how to turn the heel - and how to finish off the toe.  I’ve already mentioned I’m test knitting the march SOTM for theknitter.com. Another person is knitting the sock that will be used in the picture; so my purpose is only to test the instructions.  The sock she is knitting is the size small. I had originally started out with the small size, but realized that nobody was testing the large size instructions.

This is how I ended up with my Mutant Test Sock. :)

In order to expedite the process (and because I started this part late) I had to take a few shortcuts.  I started with the actual yarn in the pattern, and cast on for the larger size. This told me if the # of stitches, setup and chart was correct for the larger size.   About 2 inches in, with time running out, I had to hurry things along. 

Knowing I would be ripping out this stubby version of a sock, I decided to switch to an easier to rip out cotton yarn.   I immediately started the heel flap.  This pointed out a problem with where the pattern said to put the heel, made some notes for the designer and continuing on, I only knit about 6 rows of the heel flap.  I went to the heel turning directions, and then picked up the stitches for the gusset area.  I can continue the sock with a really short foot, and do the toe.  Voila - a tested sock! Not one you could wear, but all the instructions work out so that if I had spent the time to knit the rest of the cuff and a full length heel, it would be wearable.

For those interested in what the cuff of the sock really looks like, here’s my "small" size all started:

While this shows you the pattern very well, the real sock kits come with a pretty green yarn.

This weekend is the “Alpaca Extravaganza” at the local fairgrounds. Local breeders/farmers come and show their Alpacas, and bring Alpaca related products to sell. They also have demos and a lot of other things I’ve never seen because we’ve never managed to go at the right time. It’s good for about an hour of entertainment with the kids & there is yarn and spinning for us knitters/spinners to drool over and buy.

Last year I bought some variegated alpaca yarn; this year I swore I would only buy a solid, because I think it’ll be easier to knit. (For those keeping track, I’ve been using last year’s Alpaca purchase in Landra’s Gloves, which have been on hold for need of some design attention)

This year I bought two types of yarn:

Colors are pretty true in the pic. The yarn on the right is 8oz of a tweedy dark pink/dark burgandy yarn. I was thinking hat and glove set for Katie when I bought it (but reserve the right to totally change my mind). The other is 4oz of a custom dyed denimish blue. Still a bit tweedy when you look at it up close, but much more solid. The softness of this yarn is amazing.
I was thinking gloves or mittens with the blue for myself.

As we were driving home, my husband asked if I was sure I bought everything “I needed”. ha!

He also casually mentioned that he wouldn’t mind a sweater made out of Alpaca. Yeah, RIGHT.

Other acquisitions at the LYS from friday:

Yes, more needles. I’ve discovered the Brittany DPNs in the smaller sizes aren’t all evil. So, I had to get a ’set’ from 2.0mm up to 3.0mm. The book is one that has been around a while, but has great ideas in it. Stuff like doing short row shaping for shoulders, ways to setup your ribbing pattern so that it looks good once you seam, and so on.

I’ve been working on a baby blanket design for a little bit. I found a stitch pattern I liked, and then a blanket idea I liked (working from the center out) and put the two together.   Now I’ve done three repeats of the pattern, and wanted to see how it was going to look when not on the needle.  I’ve been concerned that some of the lace parts aren’t going to block out flat. 

Here is what it looks like blocking:

I slipped all the stitches onto some cotton yarn, and then sprayed some warm water on it while stretching it out.  According to the pattern as I’ve seen it in books and on other garments the edge will be scalloped, so I pinned it as it would sort of look once fully done.   I let it dry and poked at it a few times while it was on the blocking board. It seemed pretty flat and like blocking was doing the trick.

Then I took it off the blocking board. Here it is, sitting next to my computer, wrong side up, looking a bit like one of the aliens on the original Star Trek series:

You can see the little mountains in it.  If you flip it over, they look a bit like small valleys.  These mountains/bumps were much more pronounced before blocking. This is what I hoped blocking would solve.

*sigh*
It doesn’t appear to have fully fixed the bumpiness in the lace.

Some thoughts on why this is happening:
1) The pattern needs more horizontal room to stretch out, more than being allowed by the way the blanket is constructed.
2) The blanket needs more severe full-wet blocking, rather than the slight dampness I applied today
3) It hates me

I’ll admit, #3 is a bit of a stretch, but it’s possible!

Now I’m faced with a dilemma.  Do I stop, assume it won’t fully block the way I want it to - and be flat at the end?  Do I pick a different pattern? Do I try a swatch knitting back and forth to see if my horizontal squished-ness theory is correct?  If that’s the case, and I still want to use this stitch pattern, do I make a more ‘normal’ blanket and not a center-out one?  I have until May to finish the blanket (or whip up a quick baby quilt in it’s place if I never come to a good solution).  More thought is needed. Suggestions are welcome!

My Brioche scarf is the easiest of all my projects right now. I save it for when I need really uber mindless knitting.  It would be done except for the fact that I try to not work on it too often because the yarn I’m using is super soft (Debbie Blish Cashmerino) I really want to enjoy knitting with it.

The brioche rib pattern makes this a super ultra squishy feeling scarf. I originally was making a slightly wider scarf, but didn’t think I’d like that much thickness around my neck. I re-cast on from the other end of the ball and left out 4 stitches. Now I think it’s just about right.  I’m about halfway into the 2nd ball, and for the perfect length I’ll probably end up using a tiny bit of a third ball. I have four balls total, so I should have enough to make a cute little hat to go along with it. I might do an all Brioche hat, or I might put a few cables in it - we’ll have to see how daring I feel, and how much yarn I really do have left.

I have the good luck to be a test knitter for a friend of mine with a sock of the month club.  This is a great club because there is a lot of variety in yarns & patterns.  The current sock I’m testing is a beautiful cabled sock with a twisted rib made with Alpaca.  SOoooo soft I can’t wait to wear them.  I’m still working on my sock to test the pattern (and it’s going very well). Here’s my progress:

One thing I’m learning through this is that I like using a cable needle even on a simple 2 over 1 cable.  I am also learning what needles are best for what yarns.  What "they" say is true, you might really like one kind of needle, but it might not work for all yarns.

Here are the results of my needle tryouts on this sock:

Skacel, Metal, 8" long: Points are great, not too sharp or blunt, but very slippery with the Alpaca. Esp at the beginning when you don’t have a stable sock yet

Crystal Palace, 6" long, Bamboo: Too pointy - splits the yarn a lot, but the grip of the bamboo is nice.  These have been my favorite sock DPNs up until I found the skacel ones. They tend to get bendy after a while, esp in the smaller sizes like I use for socks.

Pony Pearls, 6" long, plastic: Too pointy! This was a surprise to me, as I’ve always hated how blunt the ponies are. They were just as pointy as the Crystal Palace DPNs. They had good grip on the yarn though.

Brittany, 5" long, wood: They aren’t too pointy, so don’t split the yarn, and the wood grips the Alpaca pretty well. They are slightly shorter than all the others; but if you use all 5 (knit with one, 4 in the sock) then this isn’t really a problem.

I’m using a pony pearl needle as my cable needle, mainly because it’s bright yellow and easy to find. They don’t make "real" cable needles in a 2.0 mm or 2.25 mm size, can you believe it?

For the record, I have bought three sets of DPN needles for this sock. You’d think I would eventually NOT need more needles!!

One note to those in the club that may be reading this: The color shown here isn’t what is going out in the kits. The kits will contain a really pretty green color of the same yarn. I  started my test sock before the real color came in, so this is what I got.  I actually happen to like the blue, so it’s not really a disappointment for me :)

Forever ago, I got the yarn to make a baby blanket. Since I got my hands on it (two colors, one light, one dark of the same basic color) I have been contemplating what to do with it. 

My first thought was to do a cable and moss stitch blanket.  I had an idea that I would start the blanket from the center; and use some really fancy cables along each of the four corners.  I even started a swatch in the darker color for it:

While the cable was really pretty (I’m doing the smaller one on the left in the black and white picture), I decided that I was thoroughly sick of cables and moss stitch from TNS (which still isn’t done yet), I decided something else was in order.

Combing through my Barbara Walker books, I happened upon a gorgeous lace pattern called Ostrich Plumes.  I still wanted to do the blanket from the center so I didn’t have to stress about how many stitches to cast on, a particular gauge or anything like that.   This also has the added advantage of allowing me to not turn, but just keep working ’round and ’round and ’round.

The only problem with this is that as the blanket gets bigger, it’ll take longer and longer to get around each time.  I am starting with the lighter color and will most likely do a border in the darker color.

At this point it looks like a kind of mutant hat. The red in the center is the provisional cast on.  When I’m feeling brave enough I’ll pull that out and run the tail through the center stitches to close up the hole.  It’s hard to see the lace pattern because it’s all scrunched onto a needle, but I tried to stretch out the part where I’m currently knitting, at the top of the picture.

I’m very pleased with how the fabric feels and looks so far. The only decision I need to make now is do I finish it at dolly sized and do the washing/blocking test? Or do I have faith and just keep trucking along? The baby isn’t due until May.  If I were doing this "right" i would think I’ll do a dolly sized one first.  Still contemplating this question :)

My nanny has been working on learning how to crochet. I’m not teaching her, she knew how from somewhere before.  She picked up a book that is re-teaching her the basics.  I think seeing me knit more things than we can count (and finishing a few of them occasionally) has inspired her (or at least I like to think it has!).  She crocheted my daughter’s doll a great little blanket:

This is actually her second project, she knit my daughter’s little kitty a blanket too (much smaller, and only one color).

The doll’s name is Charlie, and according to my daughter, is a boy. (Nevermind that it came with a pink outfit and was named Shelly or something like that by the store).  To see my nanny talk about being able to use whatever colors she wanted (notice the white and blue in the center, and the yellow around the edge?), I know she’s hooked. It’s only a matter of time before she wants to learn to knit, and when she does - I’ll be there!

Can you believe I actually won a blog contest!??!  I’m amazed, especially as there was voting involved and everything.  Here’s what I won:

My friend Marta’s great new book (for sale here), and two skeins of Peace Fleece! I’ve never used this yarn before, and it’s a really great shade of purple. It’s not solid, but has different hues in it so a lot of depth.  It feels a bit scratchy in the skein, but Marta assures me that’s because it has minimal processing when being spun, and that it softens up nicely when washed. There is more than enough to make a project plus some from her book.

Oh, so you want to know how I won it? By writing a totally cheesy beatnik style poem.  My entry reminds me more of dr. suess gone crazy over knitting; but I can’t argue with the prize, now can I?  Here’s my entry, and you can see the others at Marta’s blog (and a picture of me holding my prize when she gets it on there):

Rewards of Knitting

Knit a sock
a hat or shawl
a sweater with pockets
or none at all

wind wind wind
the swift does spin
to make a skein
into a ball

knit a sock
to give away
hugs and kisses
not too small!

http://business.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2005/02/10/cnwool10.xml&menuId=242&sSheet=/money/2005/02/10/ixcity.html

I finished both fronts of TNS; and did a 3 needle bind off with the back.  In order to see how long I need to make the sleeves, I need to block it. From my swatch, I know that it will grow width wise a bit and was counting on this fact when planning the size.  Here it is all laid out on my fab blocking board:

I decided to do a full wet blocking. That’s how I did my swatch too.  This is also the washing method I would expect to be used once it’s finished.  I filled my sink with enough water to cover the sweater (can I call it a sweater even though it doesn’t have sleeves? It looks a bit like a mutant vest right now), swirled a bit of Eucalan in to make it smell pretty and the just laid the sweater in, pushing it down into the water.  Drained the water from the sink and gently squeezed out the water from the sweater using a few towels.

Then I took it to the blocking board. I did some pre blocking measurements and post blocking measurements.  Now, while it’s drying, here are my findings:

The width grew just as I expected it to. My measurements for the number of stitches to cast on were right on target.  It grew in length more than I expected. I didn’t measure my swatch before and after, but for some reason made the (stupid?) assumption that the width was growing because of the cable pattern, and it didn’t really change lengthwise.  That’ll teach me to go by gut feel!

I tried to be very careful when handling it to not stretch it in any way, but somehow it must have happened a bit. When I first laid it out, the fronts were at 28" and the back was only 26" in length.  I’m so glad I measured it before leaving it to dry. I pulled on the back a little bit to make it match the length of the fronts.  I’m hoping I haven’t commited some horrible blocking error in doing this.  Worst case scenario, I get it wet again and re-block it, eh?

So I’m hoping that you’ll share your blocking experiences with me. Do you block before sewing the pieces together? (on Hardangervidda I didn’t)  What method of blocking do you prefer? Steam? Wet? Light spray mist?