Will be doing a mix of German twisted and long tail CO. My video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFjun4l0qKM

In this case it is 1x1 ribbing, so alternating one of each. The first two my regular long tail no-knot start though.

28/07

I swatched some weeks ago with 2.75 mm needles as recommended, which was a mistake. I got gauge back then but my gauge varies wildly with my mood and yesterday was much looser. Knitting with 2.75 mm the stitches look messy, I hope that will block out (the swatch is blocked). I tried it on and it does fit at calf length, but I changed to 2.25 mm needles after the second plain-knitting stripe. I nearly always need smaller needles than recommended, shouldn’t have attempted, anyway :) if they still turn out too big, they’ll be for my dad!

Got to 5.5 stripes yesterday evening, nice! :)
The ribbing stripes have the same amount of rows but get a lot more bunched up… also vertically (?), so next time I would like to add more rows there. Due to the type of CO the first stripe also looks slightly longer than the second, so the second should be one row longer than the first as well.

29/07

… nah! frogged! way too big. Could use as knee socks and still the stitches look too loose and I don’t like it. Would be too big for my dad too. I am switching to size S (CO 56 sts) and 2mm needles.

1st stripe (rib) 10 rnds, 2nd stripe (rib) 11 rnds.
Every other stripe: 8 rnds.

Knitted on and off the entire day, got to turn the heel and a little more! And also started weaving in ends… don’t like to do them all at once!

The instructions for the heel (being my first) were just a little vague I think. I had to rip and start it over. I added the reinforcement yarn to the entire heel as I knitted.

In order to keep the changes of colour at the back of the sock, I didn’t start the heel at the beginning of row, but 14 sts forward. Once the heel was finished, I returned to the same point to continue to keep the beginning of row on the underside of the sock.

I was also annoyed by turning all the time (plus this seemed to make some sts on the sides looser) so I started knitting the purls backwards without turning. The first rows turned out too tight as is visible, but I got the hang of it by the second half of the heel I think. I do much better if I change the yarn to my right hand for this.

29/07

I continued knitting stripes, then thought it would be too big at the tip since my foot is quite slim. I decreased 8 sts in total. Decreased 2 per rnd on rnds 4, 6 and 8th of the last white stripe, and on row 2 of the next red “stripe” (just 4 plain rows with single yarn before starting the toe itself, which will be red also).
I decreased as such:

k1, k2tog, k to last 3 sts, ssk, k1.

It makes a tiny “belly” on the underside but this actually fits very nicely over the ball of my foot. I have now put the sts on two DPNs and put the sock aside, started the second. I don’t know if I will have enough reinforcement yarn for the toes so I want to knit both heels first, then weigh it. I will be knitting the toe on the upper 24 sts (I have 48 left now) so that the Kitchener St is on the underside.

2/08

Finished! Knitted both toes. I divided the remainder of the reinforcement yarn in two and it was enough to go over and under the toes a bit. Grafted on the underside. Had a few pictures taken but the lightning is abysmal. Washed and hung them to dry, dunno if they’ll be dry for more pics tomorrow…