Won 2nd place in the From a Pattern Category at the June 2010 Adjudicated Show put on by the KW Knitters’ Guild.

Thrilled to win for these. They were considerable effort and I’m happy with the comfort of them! Even though I’d been wearing them, they still held up to judging. phew

20090910

Tubular cast on with 60 stitches wields an opening that is 20cm in circumference.

Long-tailed cast on with 60 stitches wields an opening that is 22cm in circumference.

The ball of my foot is 24cm in circumference.

The heel of my foot, collapsed to put on a sock, is 33cm in circumference.

8” up my leg from the heel has a circumference of 36cm.

So.

Casting on 60 isn’t going to work with this yarn and my foot.

later

This yarn is lovely to look at, lovely to hold, but a little splitty on the needles. Two ply.

20090910

Attempting to cast on 70 stitches (extra lace repeat) with Estonian Cast On for Sock Knitting.

Okay, lol, maybe this is too much! This cast on with the extra 10 stitches is 37cm in circumference stretched to its maximum…

Ha!

sigh

Okay, I’m going to leave it as is for now. We’ll see what we get out of it. Worst comes to worst, I’ll start over, won’t be the first time, and the Estonian Cast on is dead simple.

later

Cast on both socks, one row of ribbing on both socks, done.

20090919

Argh, and begorrah, lands alive.

Cannot do the Vikkel Braid with two at a time socks on one needle using Magic Loop. You can/I can do three quarters of the braid (1.5 socks), but not the second half of the second sock, as I cannot move the stitch over. Bugger.

So I have moved sock one onto DPNs while I try to understand Clue #2 (most likely obvious to sock knitters, but totally flummoxing to me, this adjusting the stitches thing).

The Vikkel Braid itself is very easy, quite lovely, and very stretchy, yay!

20090925

I have finished one lace repeat on each sock, and finally moved all the markers around so they make sense (A, B, C, D to indicate which side of which sock is done in what order).

Teresa pointed out how I can move stitches while doing two socks on one circ (put them on a lockable stitch marker), and Johanna said anything will do, cable needles, other needles. as long as the stitches are taken off the one needle to wait for their time on the other side. Brilliant.

So that’s resolved.

I have a mistake in one sock that I’d have to fix by dropping down and knitting up but I think the yarn overs would be on the wrong row, so perhaps I’d have to unknit a large chunk. Have decided to live with it.

Apparently I dropped a stitch at some point, but it stopped at the Vikkel Braid. I picked it up but it didn’t pick up well. Also living with it.

On the whole doing well, though. I didn’t really knit at Knit Night with the Uptown Knit Mob. It wasn’t that I couldn’t, I just felt the need to keep the conversation going and moving smoothly because there were 14 people (including me) and a pile of new folks, and that seems to be a good role for me. I can’t wait for the yarn to arrive for my sister’s sweater, as it’s large bits of stockinette, which should help with the talking and knitting.

20090927

Finished two full repeats last night. I had to drop down one section to fix a missing YO that shoved everything off by one, but it worked up easily, no extra yarn, so it was doable.

One more repeat until the stockinette part. I think the next pair of socks I do should be just stockinette, so they don’t take forever. I love the look of the fancy socks, but egads, the time commitment. Maybe when I’m less newbie at socks it won’t be so bad.

20091206

Put into stasis until I have space again to work on it.

20100104

I picked this up over the holidays only to find it was easy and lovely and I’m working on it again. I don’t know what was causing me so much grief before, so I suppose “something happened here” and now I have the wits to work on this.

Almost two repeats into the stockinette portion, coming on up to 12cm of the needed 20cm (yikes) before the heel turn. Will probably take another look at the pattern after this repeat to be certain I’ve read that right!

20100114

The socks are moving right along, I’ve almost finished the 7th lace repeat, and it’s a good repeat short of the required 20cm. I’m not certain if I should leave it short or do an extra repeat.

20100115

Decided not to do the repeat, just continue on with the pattern. The heel is coming along really nicely!

20100118

Finished the heels on the 16th, I think, happily have everything back on one circular needle and am finished the gusset (very short?) and am knitting the foot part now. I don’t think I’ll stop at 4 repeats, but rather 5 to get closer to the toe? We’ll see.

It’s really coming along nicely now! Like actual socks.

The next socks I do will NOT BE LACE! Geez. Just some plain knitting, with a short-row heel. :P

20100122

Finished 10 repeats (of 12 in the pattern). Still feel like it’ll never end.

I can see the final product, a ghost foot, just sitting there taunting me. It’s kind of magic, watching the socks appear from string.

20100125

I think I’ll have to add another 4 sets of repeats to this, as it’s just past the widest part of my foot now. Hmmm. Otherwise that’s a LOT of stockinette for the foot section.

Stretched around my foot each repeat is .75in instead of 1in.

So I have time to add ribbing to the underside of the foot. Clearly. Starting now. Will do it for the next 2 repeats.

20100205

Tried it on again, I don’t think I need 16 repeats. I just finished the 13th, and it’s almost at the ball of my foot. I could do one more repeat, then stockinette? I don’t know.

At Knit Night last night, Mandy said, “are you STILL working on those socks?!” which I am! :D I’d like to finish them, but so much has been taking precedent of late.

20100220

Started the toes yesterday, will finish these tonight! Hurrah!

later

It’s technically 20100221 but they are done! And one my feet. I should have done a little more in the toes, but they are quite lovely. Photos tomorrow. (Not undoing the toes).

20100221

Apparently these took less than half a skein of the Dizzy Blonde sock yarn. Whoa.