forgetgutenberg

Now that I’m back to living in colder climes, knitting socks is entirely practical. Yeah, I could go out and buy socks, but I’ve looked at the prices for good warm wool socks and frankly it’s cheaper and a whole lot more fun to make them myself. My feet get incredibly cold, so I’ve got to have wool socks, or I spend the entire winter whining about how my toes are cold and it hurts, and that’s irritating for everybody.

So I’ve been making socks again. It’s nearly fall, more or less, and I want to have a decent supply laid in before the first frost.

I’ve come to a whole bunch of fairly obvious conclusions that make for an excellent sock-knitting experience when they’re all put together.

First off, I can’t knit on 1s. Nope. It screws up my wrists for days, my fingers get stiff, and I get cranky about how long the foot is taking. 1.5s it is, then. And not circulars, either. I tried that, and it’s a really nifty technique, but more frustrating than it’s worth with sock yarn. Now, if I ever decide to make something larger and round, a set of nice long circs is definitely the way to go.

Second, I need to stop making socks that are just slightly too small. I thought for a while that 56 stitches around was enough. It’s not. Adding another eight stitches is not going to ruin my life. Also, the socks’ll actually fit. Related to this is the matter of ribbing: for a while there, I was ending up with socks that were just barely better than ankle socks after getting bored with the ribbing and stopping. I’d like to have warm ankles, too, if I’m going to all the effort of making socks. So, hey, the cuff has to be at least six inches long. That, I can handle.

Also, good yarn is worth some extra money. The stuff Lucy dyes may cost twenty bucks a skein, but that’s a whole pair of socks and a lace something-or-other. (It’s a swatch. I’m not knitting doilies. Really.) That’s still less than a good pair of commercial wool socks. I’m not kidding. (Not to mention, there’s this amazing, horrifying purple and green yarn that I desperately want to use, but it would be tacky on levels even I can’t deal with for anything other than socks.)

Learning a picot cast-off is also a durn good idea, ’cause otherwise the cuff is just too tight… Did I mention that learning the toe-up sock changed my outlook on things dramatically? It’s great. Especially if you’re not quite sure how much yarn you really have … Not that I’ve ever done that or anything. The only problem with toe-up socks was how silly I think a flap heel looks on them, but someone kindly fixed that for me by explaining short-row heels. I think I might be getting the hang of making them with only a few holes, even. (Short-row heels also take a whole lot less attention than flap heels, in my case. The more mindless the knitting can be, the better.)

I’ve got three pairs done. The one that’s still on needles might be nearly perfect – toe-up, short-row heel, ribbing all the way up the foot, and a picot cast-off. Also, it’s the right number of stitches. (60 in Lorna’s Laces Shepherd Sport on 1.5s.) Wish me luck in not freezing my toes off this winter …

(And I have to add, even though this has nothing to do with socks, that the blue jellyfish monstrosity is not only actually flat, but the end really is in sight. It’s going to need to be blocked to within an inch of its life when it’s off needles. At least there’s hope that it might be done by the end of the year.)

Procrastinating, I think. It’s a failing, but at least I’m good at it.

I came across a picture of a piece of jewelry by Anni Albers (the Bauhaus textile designer; every time I look at her work, I really want to learn how to weave.) It was this thing with eye-hooks and pearls, and it looked fabulous, so I decided to do something based on it. I didn’t get pearls, because the ones they had at the store I tried were sort of small and ridiculous for the price, so I got dark red beads instead. I also added washers, because I have a necklace from Finland with wooden beads and washers that I’m quite fond of. This is what I came up with:

It’s not much like the original, but I like it, and there’s got to be something I can do with it.

The Madame Defarge comments I get when knitting in public finally got to me, and I decided to do something I’ve been toying with for ages. I’ve knitted the first couplet of Alexander Pope’s Iliad, translated into Morse code, with purl stitches for the code and knit as the background. I’m not sure whether I should continue with the text and make it into a scarf, or stop now and call it a wall-hanging. Apologies for the terrible picture, but it’s very difficult to photograph terra-cotta colored yarn without natural light, and it’s nigh-impossible to get a good picture of knitting that depends on tiny differences in texture for the design with a digital camera. I think it’s an idea with some real potential, so I’m charting out several lines and designing a wrap. I need a different yarn for that, though – the silky wool I used for this first bit gets expensive, as it comes in fairly small skeins and I’ll need huge quantities for a wrap.