The Sock Report

Hey--a whole sock report, all by itself. Been a while.

FInished the Gemma socks (out of Socks For Sandals And Clogs, by Anna Zilborg) yesterday while at work. Nice fit, wonderful texture marching up the back of the sock. I think I did a good job of re-working the pattern for my gauge--I don't care for the fact that all the socks in this book are knit with worsted weight yarn. Too coarse. But DK weight and #2's made for a decent sock, but still on 50 stitches, so it went pretty fast.

Odd construction, sort of a Western style-Eastern style hybrid: toe up until where the heel join would usually be, cut the yarn, put that on stitch holders and set it aside. Start the heel, just like the toe, with the texture pattern on one side and smooth stockingette on the other (sole side, of course). Toe and heel shaping both worked as for standard Turkish toe-up socks. Work the heel for about 2 1/2", put on stitch holders, graft the sole pieces together, then take up the unused sts on foot part and heel part, and use those to work the leg. The grafting wasn't as bad as I was afraid it might be, I don't think you can see the graft line on the outside of the socks. You can on the inside, because the purl bumps don't line up. The leg, of course, flies--use the texture pattern to match length, a bit of ribbing on top, done.

So, now that I've tried this method, I think this is how I'll do the sox with the goddess cable up the back; it would put the all the cable crosses on the right side, and I would have been cabling on the back side if the sox were done the regular way. May work on that chart some today.

Also contemplating re-charting a cabled peace sign I found online, so it's small enough to fit on the back of the sock. That'd be cool.

Today's at-work knitting will be the Greco-Turkish sox....I'd really like to finish those and get them delivered before we leave for the holidays. Okay, the delivery might not be possible, but the "done" part is.



Not much news, otherwise. Very slow day at work yesterday. I snuck out early, to drop some things off for By and Robyn at the bead stringer's, was home by 4pm. I could get used to that.

Only big news at work was that The Other Dave's wife is expecting again, so he's grumpy about having to buy a bigger house and a mini-van ("can't fit 2 car seats and an 8-yr old in the Neon"). Due in August, so I have a while to get the obligatory baby afghan done.

The Sock Report, part 2

Just finished the first of the Greco-Turkish sox. Okay, mostly finished, but I want to wait and do the heels on both socks at once--easier to make them match that way.

Spent part of this afternoon surfing--found some neato-keen websites with Russian stitch patterns, diagrammed, which is good since the translation program badly garbled the knitting instructions, and I would never figure these out from the pictures. Lovely textural stuff, some of which might find its way into sox.

Swiped from classics_cat

( Haiku meme )

The Sock Report, part 2.1

Can't start the second sock, because, dummy me, I brought the wrong graph (it jsut has the leg part, and not the toe), and I just can't remember how I did the toe increases (and lookig at the toe of the first one doesn't help, it's too small). Arrrgh.

On the bright side, I have doodled a rather nice, 10 x 10 st key pattern that would be lovely on a black and white sock......