Sock Saga
So I resisted the urge to title this “Freaking Aurgh II”. There are, I suppose, enough unintended upsides to strive for a tone of optimism.
I love to start socks, but I have a real problem finishing them. In fact, I only knit socks two-at-a-time, because if I knit one there is approximately zero chance I will ever finish the second. But then I’ve noticed that when I do knit two-at-a-time, I peter out after the heel turn on both socks… Which would seem to imply that I have some sort of mystical inner sock threshold, an attention span of One Sock Equivalent. I can knit one whole sock, or two half socks. Perhaps even four quarter socks–maybe I should knit baby booties.
Instead, I decided to cast on a new pair, even though, at last count, I had 4 pairs already on needles. One pair has been on the needles for well over a year:
I hate that pair. I should really just frog it, but I’m through the heel turn, so what’s my problem? Austermann Step in some self-striping colorway that I figured I should knit in a wavy pattern to make more interesting. But the main interest is that knitting fan-and-feather on this this yarn makes me wants to stab myself.
Then there’s this pair:
This is Lorna’s Laces Shepherd Sport in Bittersweet (the first sock yarn I ever bought, nearly two years ago–which I promptly knit into one sock, which I then eventually frogged), in a pattern of my own devising which I am super-stoked about. But apparently no amount of stoking can really motivate me much past the heel turn. Incidentally, I was knitting these using one of Cat Bordhi’s freakishly ingenious heal gussets (riverbed), which I love for its fit. But that made me realize that what I really hate about flashing in hand-dyed yarns is when they start to flash differently–typically when you increase stitches over the heels. So I frogged back to do a short-row instead, and kept this issue in mind on the following two pairs:
This is a pair of men’s socks knit with two strands–one of Lanett baby wool (black) and another of some hand-dyed fingering weight ebay purchase. I wanted a thick sock. Though looking at this picture I am starting to worry that they may not look hetero enough for the intended recipient. ack! Too pastel??? These also stalled because I am unhappy with the heel.
And finally:
Ah, my ambitious “Legoland” socks, knit while standing in line at Legolandwith my family. I love the yarn (STR Medium) and especially the colorway (Fire on the Mountain). I wanted a pattern to show that off, so I used a variety of slip-stitches on the toe and heel gusset (another Cat Bordhi sockitecture–Ridgeline?) and then went into a ribbed entrelac pattern after the ankle:
It was, sadly, just too busy. So I frogged it, which made me sad because I didn’t want to undo all of my Legoland effort.
But frogging them made me feel slightly justified in casting on a new pair (Broken rule #1: Too many UFO’s). And my daughter was going to be at the dentist getting a filling (poor baby) so I reasoned that I should just cast on one (Broken rule #2: Courting Second Sock Syndrome) in the interest of simplicity and portability. And to make sure I could knit while making eye contact as needed with my daughter, I decided to knit a plain stockinette (Broken rule #3: Boring, see rule #2 above) sock.
Um, I’d never done that before. With plain stockinette, which in larger garments I find distressingly repetitive, the sock seemed to fly off my needles. I knit this in one day:
And ended up having to cast on the second sock for the dentist visit.
I also made a strategic decision. Back to that flashing issue:
I liked the way the colors were spiraling up the sock, but I really didn’t want a big column of pooling as I turned the heel. So I thought about doing a short-row heel, but then figured that an afterthought heel would be even less disruptive. So I knit the entire tube, knitting one row across half the sock in waste yarn. The pic above shows it after the waste yarn was removed and I picked up the live stitches.
Then I knit ”another toe,” which the Yarn Harlot insists is anatomically identical to a heel. Hmmm. Verdict: I’d do it again, though I need to refine my decreases slightly.
In fact, I did do it again, right away, feeling positively Phelpsian in my sock-knitting personal-record-breaking. But then, as I knit the second sock last night while watching the DNC (and, later, Jon Stewart’s send-up of same), something insidious began to happen. Same ball of yarn, same needles…
Different gauge. Way different. Freaking aurgh. The colors are spiraling differently… eh. So I put them down, went to bed, and tried, this morning to loosen the tension a little.
Here we see last night’s tension in the lower half of the picture (way tighter than the first sock), then the blue waste yarn where the afterthought heel will go, then this morning’s tension, which is looser than last night’s tension–so much looser, in fact, that it’s EVEN LOOSER THAN THE FIRST SOCK.
Wah.
Yet I knit on.
Tags: afterthought heel, austermann step, bittersweet, cat bordhi, circular knitting, fire on the mountain, knit, Knitting, lorna's laces, magic loop, shepherd sport, sock knitting, socks that rock, stockinette, yarn harlot
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