Warning! Hazmat Suits Required

I refuse to answer any questions regarding the bobble yarn that so delicately rims the top of these socks. Suffice it to say that it's a long story involving Asherbanipal, a radish, two feemsters, and a Batmobile.

Mysterious Mutating Yarn!

I've knitted enough socks from variegated yarn that I can usually predict what the finished article will look like. But the socks I finished a few days ago proved that (1) appearances can be deceiving and (2) I don't know everything. I should have asked my neighbor, Nancy, about the yarn before I touched it with a needle. She knows everything!

Here's a candid photo of the leftovers--a pretty rainbow variegation.


And here's what happens when this lovely skein was knitted into socks (Warning! Sunglasses Alert!):






The heels and toes look charming. The rest of the sock bears an unearthly resemblance to this appalling cover of Knitter's magazine.

It's an interesting transformation, isn't it?

Note added later: These are my very own fleegle socks. You can find the basic pattern here.

And before you ask, the yarn in Yummy, from Miss Babs, in the Rainbow colorway. It's lovely yarn and I am sure Miss Babs would never have thought her gorgeous colorway would ever mutate into electric pink and fluorescent lime stripes.

Roy likes the socks, though--they match his recently purchased tuxedo--so all has ended well.

The current pair of socks is being knitted with Julia's amazingly priced yarn. So far, I have no complaints. It's soft, has very long color runs, and is a thoroughly pleasant knit. It's about the most cost-effective sock yarn you'll ever find.

Current and Future Knitting

What with all the swatching and illuminated yarn posts, I'll bet you guys thought I wasn't actually doing any knitting-related work. Well I have, and I also spent three days dying yarn for another project that I will talk about in another post.

Panache Sweater
I was rootling around in my yarn stash the other day and ran across 14 balls of KnitPicks Panache. It's a bulky yarn (40% baby alpaca, 20% cashmere, 20% silk, 20% extrafine merino) that they no longer carry. Too bad--it has a fabulously soft hand and excellent stitch definition.

It felt so nice that I yanked it out of my stash drawer (leaving a nice big hole to fill) and made this, with the design help of my KnitWare program:






The sweater is patterned after an old Annie Blatt design that I made 30 years ago. I never wore it--they yarn turned out to be too itchy for me--and I had to give it away. I made quite a few changes from the original--different gauge, yarn, ribbing, collar...but it's the same color and the puffed moss-stitch sleeves follow the original concept.

At 4.5 spi, it only took a week of pickup knitting to finish. I loved everything about the yarn except the quality control. Each ball of 68 yards had at least two knots. And these weren't your common tied variety either--the ends were glued together. Never encountered glue globs in yarn before.

Lyra
I reserve the early mornings for complicated knitting, and for the past month or so, have been working on Niebling's Lyra. This morning, I hit row 113. Of course, you can't see anything pretty in this red blob, but I assure you that it looks really cool when I hold it up to the light!


Socks
As always, I have a pair of plain socks for car knitting. These will be dress socks for Roy, which will go nicely with his tuxedo, assuming he gets around to buying one. The yarn is Adirondack Soxie--I don't remember what colorway.



Never Enough Nieblings
Finally, I started thinking about my next Niebling. Unfortunately, Harry is thinking about his next Niebling. This means that all the patterns are in a drawer under the waterbed, which Harry has fitted out as a luxury apartment, complete with an electronic lock that only responds to his legprint.

He emailed me a short list of choices and a long list of yarn that he wanted. As always, his choices are impeccable.

Lotus Flower

Adelaida

Pomegranate and Palm

Harry told me that he gets first choice, but I am welcome to choose one of his rejects and any yarn that he has tossed out of his apartment. How did this happen to me, reduced to groveling for patterns and knitting leftovers?

Fortunately, Harry knows nothing about the Princess shawl, as he has been immersed in decorating his apartment, ordering expensive food items from Balducci's, and scaring the figlets out of the UPS guy. Princess is mine, all mine!

No Sock Holes For You

Well, I have finished writing a new non-Harry fairy tale, but I have to wait for some strong sunshine to take the photos. Maybe tomorrow, if the weather cooperates.

In the meantime, I have a solution to a problem that has plagued me and like-minded footie folks since first the wad of algae crawled out of the primeval slime onto a snowbank and immediately began knitting warm socks for its pseudopodia.

The solution turned out to be so simple I whacked myself upside the head. So will you, after you finish reading this post.

This solution applies to my own Fleegle sock design, (worked on two circulars) but I imagine it can be applied to any heel that is knit back and forth, such as a short-row heel. I don't think the trick, if you can call it that, can be used for flap heels, but perhaps someone might be able to adapt the concept.

Basically, the reason you get holes when connecting the heel to the instep is because (in the case of the Fleegle sock) the completed heel is one row taller than the instep. So the solution is to omit the final turn for this type of heel. I shall demonstrate.

I start by knitting across the heel needle 2 stitches past the center stitch, then K2tog, K1, turn, and slip the first stitch. Then I purl back to 2 stitches past the center again, P2 tog tbl, P1, turn, slip 1. Now I knit to the gap, knit the stitches before and after the gap together, K1, turn, slip 1 etc etc. [I actually don't turn and purl back. I knit backwards. Easier, I think.]

The first row of the heel.

Here's a picture of the heel midway through so you can see where this is going.


And here's a picture of the almost-completed heel. I have one more row to finish.There are 2 stitches on each side that have not been incorporated into the heel.



If, at this point, I knit across the heel needle and do the K2tog, K1, turn, slip 1 thing, well, the heel will be one row taller than the instep, so after I finish the purl side decrease and knit back, hello, there will be a gap waiting to be filled by picking up stitches between the heel and the instep needle.

So, instead of turning, I finish the last row of the knit side with K2 together, K1, and then continue on to the instep needle.

Look! No hole!

On the right, is the completed heel needle.
In the center, you can see five stitches of the instep needle worked.

I knit across the instep needle, then, when I get back around to the heel needle, I begin with a K1, K2 Together/Left Slant. (I knit in the front of the first stitch and the back of the second stitch to slant a decrease to the left, but you can use any other variation that pleases you.)

Here I am doing the final heel decrease
at the beginning of the heel needle.

In the case of the Fleegle heel, there are two more stitches on the heel needle than I started with, so I knit across to the end of the heel needle, do a decrease, knit across the instep needle, and do a counterpart decrease at the beginning of the heel needle.

And I am now ready to motor onwards to the top of the sock without bringing any holes with me. Here's a picture of the finished heel as we proceed onwards and upwards to the finish line.



Whack! Whack! Whack!

Yet Another Almost Pair of Socks

A thrill-a-minute they were not.

Current Knitting

Yes, despite all the to-ing and fro-ing going on here, I really am still knitting. I try to finish a row of Black Widow every day, although this past week's rows had so many P3 togethers--left slant (vicious!) I was lucky to get half-way around a single row in an hour.

I finished a pair of socks last week for Roy. Good airplane knitting.


The yarn is Cherry Tree Hill--I think the colorway is Green Mountain Madness. I love that yarn, but I swear the new stuff is heavier than the old stuff. I made a pair last year and that yarn looks to be about 25% finer than the newer skeins.

I bought the yarn shown below last year in Chiba. It isn't so wonderful, but it was apparently one of the only skeins of sock yarn in the entire country, so I snapped it up as a rarity.



It says it was made in Italy by a company named Diana, but it sure looks and feels like a Regia clone to me.

I have also been experimenting with seamless circular booties. Several experiments look fairly wearable and require no sewing, short rows, grafting or other painful contortions. I'll try to write out the patterns this week.

Speaking of this coming week, my friend Kyoko-san has organized a complex two-day yarn crawl across Tokyo. Between us, we located every yarn store in the entire city, and she has carefully mapped out our route to maximize in-store browsing time.

For such a large city, Tokyo has surprisingly few yarn stores. But I am really looking forward to Avril, which is the supplier for Habu. I promise to take pictures this time. Really.

Nicely Complex Sock Pattern

This pattern is just lovely. I haven't made it yet, but I thought I would share with those who might want a pattern a bit out of the ordinary.
It would look wonderful is a subtle colorway, too.




I am busily trying to finish Dragone today. There are seven edging repeats left, plus the final graft. I hope to have a picture for you tomorrow. I want to wear it, already!

Sock Interlude

This pair (there is mate to this one, really!) was knitted in feather and fan pattern using Handmaiden Silk/Cashmere Rose Garden on #0 needles. The pattern is my own toe-up, no-hassle sock. You can find the pattern here. I used a crocheted bind-off as an experiment. Meh.

Edible Sock Yarn

A Little Eye Candy to Sweeten the New Year!



Well, ok, it's only virtually edible. From left to right we have Raspberry Mocha (yum), Spicy Licorice (yum), and Rose Petals (not so yum except visually). All three skeins are 100% merino superwash and dyed with flair by the talented Roxanne of Zen Yarn Garden. Delicious! Soft! Perfect!

Cotton Lycra sock experiments

I have hot feet, and rarely wear socks when I am in the United States. In Japan, though, shoes are never worn inside. Socks are a polite way of covering your feet and the Japanese shoe/sock custom is a perfect excuse for buying more sock yarn.

Most sock yarn is, of course, wool, but for hot-footers, cotton may be a better choice. Unfortunately, most of the cotton sock yarn is either very thick, like Cascade Fixation, or contains no lycra, so as soon as you put the sucker on your foot, it bags and sags. Meh.

Last year, I found two sources for a wonderful cotton/lycra socks yarn. It's quite fine, knitting up at maybe 10 stitches per inch. That't a bit deceptive, because it's not so teensy while you are knitting with it, but the yarn contracts into this sqooshy, velvety, springy fabric that is real luxury on your feet.

I've made several pairs with this yarn on #0 needles, and they are frankly my favorites. You need to put on a bit of tension on the yarn--don't stretch it too much while you are knitting with it. Because it's quite different than wool, swatching is always a good idea for the first sock.

You can purchase lovely colorways from Zen Yarn Garden and Greenwood Fibers. Both are Etsy stores and the owners are wonderful.

I made these socks with my generic sock pattern (the very first post in this blog). The upper section of the right sock is feather and fan; the left sock was some invented slip stitch pattern (not recommended for this kind of yarn--it prevents stretching and was extremely difficult to knit).

WIPS

I usually have three projects going at once--one for early morning coffee, one for after dinner and one for the car. I like to knit lace in the early morning when I can concentrate without anyone asking me for the, um, precise location some book nobody's read or mentioned for 20 years as in

"Darling, have you seen my junior high school math book? I need to review percentages again. Oh wait, can you just figure out what 17% of $87.45 is so I can send this off in the mail..."

This is my current morning endeavor (Peacock shawl from Fiddlesticks using Schaefer's Trenna in the Purple Violet Colorway. Trenna is only available from Little Knits. Link is in the sidebar).


Trenna is really a pleasant knit--not splitty, not slippery, with a nice, gloss to it. And it's very soft to touch.

After dinner I pick up a semi-mindless project like the Cheshire sweater. I did the cuffs in a variation of a twisted baby rib (knit in back of all knit stitches so they look neater). Such pretty yarn! The colors just flow back and forth in this lovely purple-green-blue wash.


Here's a close-up of the cuff:



Sock or some endless stockinette project are generally relegated to the car, waiting rooms, and places where instant interruptions will cause no great loss.

Here is an Adirondack Soxie sock...up the the gusset at this point. This stuff is just scrumptious to work with--tightly spun, springy, soft, and the colorway, Speckled Sea Mist, is nice and fresh. Ewe Need Yarn carries just about every color Adirondack offers (see the sidebar for the link) and I am embarrassed to admit that I ordered most of them.

I know it sounds a bit whiny, but Adirondack uses too much turquoise. I like turquoise, but it does see to find its way into almost every blend. More reds. Fewer turquoises.

International Sock Day

I have always loved to knit socks. A sock is a perfect project. It can be simple or complicated, practical or luxurious, silly or dignified. A sock is portable and is a neat little palette for experimentation. I knit about a pair a week--there's always at least one pair on the needles for someone. I keep a little list of everyone's favorite colors and then set aside yarn I know they will actually wear. Here's the current content of my Gift Socks workbasket:

From left to right:
Schaefer Anne in Moss, Gypsy Knits in Forest, Socks that Rock in Lemongrass, Fleece Artist in Glacier, and Jojoland Cashmere in C255. If you are wondering why four out of five are green, it's because the Japanese seem to adore this color. When I asked four Japanese friends what their favorite colors were, the answers were dark green, green tea, bright green, and pale green. Everyone has the same size feet as me, so I don't even have to wonder if they will fit. The Japanese even have conformal foot sizes :).

My father wants his pair made with blue cashmere, which was suprisingly difficult to locate. I ordered a skein of what looked like a medium blue from HipKnits. It turned out to be a hideous shade of dark gray and it had all the softness of cheap wool. I gave the skein away because I wasn't going to knit with it. Half the fun of knitting is the tactle feedback. If it doesn't feel good, I refuse to knit with it.

The Jojoland cashmere is lovely and their prices are excellent. Take a look at their entire line of yarn here: http://www.jojoland.com/

At some point, I'll order some of their cashmere merino sock yarn. I have one ball I picked up somewhere, but it's not enough for a pair of adult socks. Some lucky kid in a Croatian orphanage will get a really nice pair at some point, though.

When I first started knitting socks, there was no such thing as sock yarn. I wrote to Elizabeth Zimmerman, who recommended her Shetland 2-ply and loaned me her book on Turkish socks. Here is the result of that consultation. Alas, it's totally unwearable--the yarn is so itchy that I can hardly bear to pick it up. They look cool in the sock drawer, though.

Not to be discouraged, I purchased some alpaca, and made a pair of Norwegian socks. These aren't terrifically wearable either. Alpaca has no stretch and it's really difficult to get my feet in place. Another decorative addition to the sock drawer.

The First and the Last

Starting a blog is a bit awkward, I mean, where do you really begin?

The first post was the much-requested no-hassle sock pattern, which was why I started the blog in the first place. I was tired of sending it out by email and private messages.

I am a book compositor by profession, and it just so happens that one of the books I am currently laying out is about blogs. It's one of the few books that I actually started reading (usually I just look at the layout and ignore the content). I had to stop compositing and finish reading, because the text was getting kinda raggedy.

But the book was so interesting that I began following the author's directions. I tried a few of his recommended blogging sites, and decided Blogger was the easiest to use.

I am sure that after a few months or so, the posts will die down to a trickle, but there is a good amount of backlog here, and many people have requested pictures and tutorials from me. So I set up my camera on a tripod, and will try to fill everyone's wish list (even Laura, who wants some pictures that belong in the late--and-much-lamented You Knit What!).

So, for the first real post, I present a wildly condensed knitting history, featuring only my earliest and latest finished objects.

I learned to knit when I was two years old. We lived in New York City and getting around in those days meant using the subway. Whenever my mother took me down into that appalling, noisy, black hole, I would start to scream. She, being an impatient person, decided that all the little brat needed was a distraction. So out came the knitting needles and some red yarn, and I apparently spent two years knitting a pot holder.

"Apparently," because no pot holder was ever produced that I could recall. About ten years ago I asked her about it, and she told me that she unravelled the darn thing after each knitting session, seeing as how (a) she had no use for a woolen potholder and (b) if I finished it, I'd probably start the screaming bit all over again.

At some point, we became affluent enough to take taxis, so the pot holder remains my first unfinished object. I have no desire to recreate it. RIP.

After that, we progressed to scarves (long since disintegrated) and other forgotten knitware. However, at the age of eight, I made my first sweater. I still have it and I still wear it, as she had me make it in a lady's size Small, so that I wouldn't outgrow it (all the women in my family are tiny).

Here it is:

Here;s a close-up--hard to believe that I was knitting with one color in each hand at that age.





And here's a close-up of the inside. Not bad, even 50 years later.




As she always was, she was correct about the sizing. It still fits, 50 years later. She purchased the yarn and pattern from a shop in Denmark. It was knitted entirely in the round up to the armholes on a ghastly circular needle, then the front and back were knit back and forth on even more ghastly straight needles. The shoulders were seamed and the sleeve stitches were picked up around the armholes and knitted down to the cuffs. A daring design for 1958, when almost everything was knitted flat and tediously seamed together.

I can still see her face when I cast off the last stitch and the sweater fell to the floor. Mother wasn't much on verbal expression, and her praise was rare. She picked up the sweater and turned it inside out, then showed me how to weave in the ends. Never did she block anything, so a little while later, I found myself outside in the snow wearing my brand-new sweater, which at that point, came down below my knees. Nice and warm.

When I came back inside, she had piles of Workbasket Magazine ready for me to choose my next project. I have no idea what it was, though. When I get around to going through my drawers, I will post pictures of some other antique FO's that I kept.

In the meantime, here is my latest FO: Little Devil Kissy Socks. The yarn is Lisa Souza's lucious Merino Sock Little Devil colorway. Pattern is the No-Hassle sock from the last post. DH (size 12) loves them and as worn them constantly for the last few weeks. I had to fish them out of the laundry bag to take a picture, so they look a bit rumpled.


Close-up of the buttons:



The buttons came from here:

http://www.craftconn.com/Main.asp?Task=Custom&Step=Notion+Category&StartAt=25&CategoryId=255.

The JHB buttons are just sweet. I bought some of the cheshire cats to use on a sweater that is currently almost in progress (still swatching).

The yarn is Lisa Souza's Alpaca Silk in the Wild Things colorway, also lucious. Lisa Lucious Souza, that's her. Check her out via the link in the sidebar on the right of this blog page.


Sometime during the next few weeks I will add lots of pictures to my sock tutorial. it's not so easy to take pictures of knitting-in-progress, so bear with me for a bit.

Fleegle's Toe-Up No-Flap, No-Hassle Sock Pattern

Directions are for toe-up on two circulars.The example is given for 48 stitches, but you can use any number you like.

To work this sock from the top down, reverse the directions. That is, cast on 48 st, knit until it is the desired length to where your leg meets the top of the foot.

Work the gusset, work the heel, knit the foot until you get to the toe area. Work decreases instead of increases until you have 8 stitches left on each needle.

Weave the toe together with Kitchener stitch.

And the French translation is here.

General Directions

The increase I use is called the Lifted Increase and goes something like this:

1. Insert your right hand needle from front to back into the top of the stitch below the next one to be knitted. Knit the stitch in the usual way.
2. Then, knit the next stitch on your left hand needle.

See http://www.knitting.co.nz/site/page_affix/toaffix_learntoknit6/ for pictures.

After I developed this method, I subsequently discovered a way to avoid gusset holes. Please see this post and follow the directions when you finish turning the heel.

Toe

Cast on 8 stitches on each of two needles. You can use 10 for larger feet or 12 for really, really big feet.

I use the Turkish cast on. See this link for excellent directions.

http://fluffyknitterdeb.blogspot.com/2005/10/knitting-made-easier-turkish-cast-on.html

Round 1

Knit

Round 2

On each needle: k2, inc1, knit to second-to-last stitch, inc1, k2.

Repeat these two rounds, increasing four stitches per round, until you have a total of 48 stitches (24 on each needle). Or, as my emailers keep reminding me, 48 is just the sample. Increase to whatever number of stitches fits your foot as described next.

TRY IT ON. The toe should just slip over your, um, ring toe. Don’t make the mistake of increasing to fit your entire foot. Trust me on this. If it’s too small, add some more stitches. We are not assembling a Swiss watch. It’s a sock! Try it on!

Continue stockinette stitch on 48 stitches (or whatever number you have decided upon) until the sock reaches the point where your leg connects to your foot.

Begin Gusset

Decide which needle will be the gusset/heel needle.

Round 1

Gusset needle: k2, inc1, knit to second-to-last stitch, inc1, k2.

Instep needle: Knit.

Round 2

Knit

Repeat these two rounds until the heel/gusset needle contains 46 stitches. (Or two less than your total number of stitches. For 54 stitches, you would repeat until you had 52 stitches on the needle). Added in edit: there's a chart at the end of this post so you don't have to do the math.

Turn Heel

Place a marker at the center of the heel/gusset needle. You should have 23 stitches on each side (46 total).

Calculations:

23 stitches is 2 less than the total number of stitches (48) divided by 2. That is, 48-2 is the total number of stitches that will be on the Gusset needle to turn the heel.

If you are using 54 stitches, then you would have (54-2)/2=26 stitches on each side of the marker or 52 total.

Knit to 2 stitches beyond the marker. k2tog, k1, turn. Pull the yarn tight.

Slip 1 purlwise. Purl to 2 stitches beyond the marker, SSP, p1, turn. Pull the yarn tight.

SSP: Slip 2 stitches knitwise. Move them back to the LH needle and purl them together through the back loop. Or just work a P2 together if you would rather.

*Turn. Slip 1, knit back to the gap, knit the stitch before and after the gap together. Knit 1.

Turn. Slip 1, purl back to the gap, purl the stitch before and after the gap together. Purl 1.*

Repeat these two rows until you have one stitch left on each side. Then, if you haven't already done so, please see this post to avoid gusset holes.

Note that you will have two more stitches on the heel/gusset needle than you started with.

Resume knitting around both needles and decrease away the excess stitches to bring the total back to 48 stitches (or whatever your magic number of stitches is). I usually decrease 1 stitch at each end of both needles and one stitch on each side of heel center marker, which makes the heel nip in a tiny bit for the little hollow back there.

Top of Sock

As this is a generic sock pattern, you can do whatever you like.

Bind Off

I use Elizabeth Zimmerman's Sewn Cast off from Knitting Without Tears.

Break yarn, leaving a tail about 4 times as long as the circumference of the sock. Thread a tapestry needle.

* sew forward (right to left) through two stitches as if to purl, leave the stitches on. Sew backward (left to right) through one stitch as if to knit and remove the stitch.

Repeat from * until you run out of stitches. Work in tail on the inside of the sock and trim any excess.

Chart for Heel/Gusset

If your final number of stitches is	Increase to this number of stitches for gusset for EACH side of the center marker
48	23
50	24
52	25
54	26
56	27
58	28
60	29
62	30
64	31
66	32
68	33
70	34
72	35