Earlier this month, I finished my first pair of socks for someone else. They were made for my husband so that he would have something with extra padding when he jumps through hoops on a tight rope. To the right is a photo of him trying them out on the wire the day I finished them. Of course, he's gotten so use to wearing shoes while on the wire, that the wire hurts when he's just in socks. We have talked about adding some suede to the bottom of the socks and turning them into pseudo-shoes.
He commented on how quickly this socks went compared to the last pair, the Ernies, that I made. Even though his feet are HUGE, these took less time because it was mostly straight knitting and look at how short they are! It looks like he's wearing slippers instead of socks. Of course, that could be because of their construction.I used a sock calculator to figure out the pattern or at least the base of the pattern. It's probably the only time that I've made a swatch sample for a pair of socks as I needed to figure out what my gauge was going to be. I ended up using a double strand of worsted weight yarn that I had taken at a yarn swap. I got it because it was pretty. This was back in January, before I had gotten spoiled with really, really nice, hand-dyed yarn from the Cookie A sock club. This yarn is a 70/30 acrylic/wool blend and it will work out for my husband who will most likely end up destroying them, but not out of malice. If the do end up with suede on the bottom, they'll take even more abuse than on the wire and end up being his ren fest shoes as well.
While working on the first sock, I decided it would be a good idea for him to try them on. I was about an inch away from doing the decrease for the toe and I'm glad I had him try them on. The top of the foot was perfect but the bottom...sagged. A lot. I did some searching on Ravelry and decided that I could either decrease the gusset to have fewer sole stitches than top of foot stitches or I could rib the sole. I decided to rib the sole because it would make it thicker and he wanted it to be thick for the jumping on the wire.
They did end up being perfect and fitting his feet. Even though they are "just socks", he does like that they are made to fit his feet. And once I finished them, I was able to move onto my next pair of socks.
Pirouette Socks: In progress and stuck
A couple of months ago, I found some lovely yarn that was being sold as 2 for 1. It had this lovely strip pattern to it where one strand stayed a consistent pattern while the second strand changed colors. Shortly after that, the second club shipment and patterns came and I realized that I must make the Pirouette socks with this yarn.
Baby blanket
I'm also working on a baby blanket. The original thought was for my cousin but my husband has a cousin who had a little girl about 6 months ago, so I feel like it should go to her first, if it ever gets finished. The fuzzy yarn is frustrating at times to knit and the needles are the size for the gauge shown on the yarn which are size 5 needles...which means that this blanket, with 160 stitches per row, is going to take forever! I've got 8 repeats of the pattern finished and need to do another 32 or so. At least it's looking nice. I just wish it would go faster. Last night I decided to try knitting continental style (I normally knit English style) to see if it was any faster. I honestly am not sure but at least I was a little bit less annoyed with the pattern and more annoyed with the new technique.
The Pirouette Socks are looking very lovely with the yarn you selected. If you need any help with them, I am monalee81 on Ravelry and I can do my best to help you. I'm almost finished my pair.
ReplyDeleteThanks. I think the biggest help I'm going to need is staying motivated. It seems like I'm never going to finish them!
Delete