My Three Socks

I currently have three pair of socks on the needles all in various states of doneness and all in different yarn weights. So I thought I would post about my progress a little bit.

1. Don't tread[mill] on me

 

These are my Sport Weight socks and I have knit them largely while walking on the tread mill. I knit heels and toes when I am sitting comfortably somewhere with good light and Internet access. I still need directions for the afterthought heel and suspect I always will. I am finished with sock one and am inserting the heel on sock two at this point. It looks a hot mess - but I have a system. Since I cast on the heel before I do the toe, I take the working yarn (on the toe end) and ball it into the sock and hold it there with my working double point. Then I work the heel with a circular needle using magic loop. This works really well for me. So once I finish the heel I will try it on for length, and then knit the few more rows I suspect I will need to do and then I can try and duplicate the very odd toe decrease I did on the first sock. 

2. Socks Appeal

This is knit with fingering weight yarn and, just like the last sock, I had a standard heel in it and ended up ripping back and going with an afterthought heel. When I did the frogging on this sock I ended up keeping the circular needle in it and have been knitting this magic loop ever since. I am getting close to where the toe needs to be placed, so I will need to insert the heel so I can get the toe placement right. I know I need to be about 5½ inches past my life line in order to get the toe right, but I never trust my measurements and prefer to knit to fit (try on try on try on) to be sure. I think partly because I am knitting so many socks in different weights and I am still fairly new to sock knitting. 

This is still sock 1 and I have been knitting this on the treadmill as well. At this point I think I have done all I can on the treadmill with this - so I really need to insert the heel and measure so I can finish it up and move on to sock 2. 

3. Tropical Feet Wave

And this is my worsted weight sock. Singular. As in - one down one to go. I have to say I am super in love with this sock and am anxious to finish these up. This is the first time I have knit socks with a contrast color for the toe/heel/cuff and I really like it. I like the look and I like the yarn I chose. The only bugger was more ends to sew in, but small price to pay. I think these will really keep me warm this winter. 

So that is my sock status. I make progress on one or more every day right now as I am hitting the treadmill every day. I thought I would have plenty of time at time for heel and toe additions, but I am backing up in that department. I am thinking rather seriously about casting on another pair. I am almost done with the blue socks, I have a lot of toe/heel work to do on the green ones, and I am not really keen on knitting the worsted weight socks on the treadmill for some reason. I knit those while couch surfing and while grilling in the yard - so it seems wrong to get them involved with the treadmill for some reason. 

Stay tuned!

Don't tread[mill] on me - UPDATE

 

 I thought I would talk about the progress I have made on my "Don't tread[mill] on me" socks. And by progress I really mean I want to talk about how to rip out a heel! Yes. I decided to rip out my heel on these socks and go with an afterthought heel. 

Part of the reason for this is that I am knitting these socks in Sport weight yarn rather than Fingering weight yarn, so I cast on 56 stitches rather than 64 stitches. All fine and dandy, but when I got to the heel area I got a little confused about counts, took poor notes as I went, and realized after I finished the heel that duplicating a "lets just wing it!" heel on a second sock a week or two later would be a bit of a challenge. Especially if I want the fit and look to be similar. So here is my journey to Frog Town. 

Above is the heel completed. I went with eye of partridge for the heel - which I think is very pretty and I like the weight of it. I also think the eye of partridge heel is a bit easier to pick of stitches with. 

 

I grabbed a circular needle one size smaller than my working needle (a size 1 in this case) and a couple of rows below the heel I went around the entire sock picking up the right leg of each stitch.

 

And here you see all stitches picked up on the circular needle. It looks a bit messy with the double points still in, the circular needle, and the line of yarn, but it will look a lot neater in a minute! 

 

Here is a close up of the picked up stitches before the frogging. The legs on the needle are right slanting and there were no gaps. If you see a gap in the stitches as you pick up you want to make sure you didn't miss a stitch. I also count all the stitches when I am done to make sure I have the correct amount. It should match your cast on count unless you increase or decrease for fit or a pattern.

 

Here we see the Double Point needles have been pulled out and the frogging has begun!

 

 And here is my frog pond (pile of ripped out yarn) and my frogging stopped at the stitches I picked up on my circular needle, which acted as a life-line. You will see I use the plastic clip from a bread bag as a bobbin for my yarn left over from my cast on. This keeps the yarn from tangling and fuzzing up while I am knitting my sock, and when I am finished I have a nice length to weave in.

 

At this point I measured the length of my stockinette section to see if I was at a distance that would be easy to duplicate on the second sock. I was at a nice even four inches, so I was good to insert waste yarn for the afterthought heel.

I found a contrasting color of yarn in the same weight (there is no yellow in this sock) and knit on half the length of the stitches (cast on 56 / 2 = 28 stitches) and then I started knitting at the same spot I picked up the first yellow stitch from with the sock yarn as though I never knit that yellow line. 

 

This picture is a little blurry, but you can see the blue line of stitches I knit right over the top of the yellow stitches. You just keep knitting like normal from this point until you reach your toe decreases. Which means I have several inches of stockinette to knit on the treadmill! Yay!

I think afterthought heels are the way to go for treadmill knitting - as you just have to insert a piece of waste yarn at the spot you want the heel, and the bulk of the knitting is stockinette - no messy picking up stitches. I can knit like a crazed beast, and then do the toe decreases and the afterthought heel at night before bed for my "down time". I also really like how afterthought heels look with striped yarn. 

I did place the yarn back on the double point needles I was using since I wanted my sock to be the same tension throughout the sock, and since I used a circular needle one size down from my double points to pick of the stitches. 

Now I am ready for the tread mill!

 

 

Rainbow! Rainbow!

Project Name: Rainbow! Rainbow!
Pattern Name: AfterThought Heel Socks by Laura Linneman
Yarn: Knit Picks Felici Sport Self Striping 1.4 skeins = 229.6 yards (209.9m)
Needle: US 2 - 2.75 mm (double points and a circular for the heel and toe)
Size: Knit the smaller size and fits my US 7.5 foot
Love: ♥♥♥♥♥

You can find my Ravelry Project Notes HERE.

I finished my Rainbow! Rainbow! socks in JUST under a month. I love them like crazy!

The pattern was easy enough to follow for a newbie sock knitter to have wonderful success. The video links in the pattern really helped me work through the picking up stitches and the afterthought heel was very easy to do. I love that the stripes don't match. It makes me happy to look down and see a different pattern on each foot.

I am sad that this yarn was discontinued. It was a little splity, but overall a joy to work with. Happily I have a stash of this yarn, and I know I get 8 stitches per inch on size 2 needles, so I can work with this stitch knowing my gauge pretty well.

So happy with this project and pleased to have finished a knitting project! It's been too long!

http://tamisamis.blogspot.com/

Getting there is half the fun

We had a family picnic yesterday and I was able to spend about 5 hours knitting on my sock. A lot of progress this weekend! The white colored thread is where the heel will be going in. I will probably be doing that pretty soon so I can try it on and see how the fit is before I start the toe decrease. I am really excited to almost have these done!

OH We are half way there.....

 

My first afterthought heel sock is off the needles and done! 

WOOT!

I am knitting this with a Knit Picks Felici Sport Self-Striping yarn on size 2 (2.75) needles. Cuff down and double points except for the heel and the toe which I knit magic loop. I think it's ♥!

 

The heel is knit almost exactly the same as the toe. It looks really weird when you are making it, but the fit is really nice actually. I still had the problem of holes where I picked up stitches, but I just wove ends into them. (You can only master so many things at a time, right?)

I am really happy with how my first sock turned out and am anxious to get cranking on sock #2. I tried casting on Magic Loop for sock number 2 already and found my gauge is much different with magic loop - so I will be sticking with double point needles again.

The yarn is really nice. Pity Knit Picks discontinued it, but I got a bunch on clearance super cheap, so I guess it's a win! 

Sock ♥

I guess I cannot kid myself anymore. I have become just a little bit bonkers for Sock Knitting. I knew it was just a matter of time before it happened. About two years ago I found myself going to the sock yarn display before any other section of the store. Flirting if you will. Balls started to find there way home with me. No big deal. You can knit sock yarn into things that are not socks. But soon I found myself spending hours on Ravelry looking at sock patterns. Flirty little half-assed attempts at slipper socks on bulky yarn started happening. And then finally, I cast on a pair of beginner socks.

My first attempt left a sinister taste in my mouth and I set them down for over a month after turning my first heel. Then something caused me to finish the first sock and plow through the second. 24 hours later I was casting on these socks. These are the AfterThought Heel Socks by Laura Linneman.  You pretty much knit a tube with some waste yarn in the heel position as a place holder. Then after you finish the sock you go back and pick up stitches on either side of the waste yarn, and add the heel. This makes so much sense to me as it's awfully close to how you make a mitten. 

So I have been working like a crazed squirrel on these socks. Last night I placed my heel  waste yarn and figured out how much further I needed to knit before decreasing for the toe. Knit knit knit!

 

For more details on this project go to my Ravelry project page. I need to go knit!