Trish Knits.com

Tag: sock

  • Back from the Frog Pond

    sock toe redo
    sock toe redo

    Looks better, doesn’t it?

    Last night when I posted about my unhappiness with my sock toe, it generated more comments and feedback than I have ever received in the blog comments. Thank you all for your advice and support!

    Most of you suggested that I should frog the sock and start over. I hate frogging. With a passion. But I’m glad I did it.

    At the suggestion of several commenters I started by casting on more stitches to begin with to get a more square, neater toe. I also took care to pull my stitches very tight as I was knitting into the cast on row. This helped a lot!

    Then a couple of other people actually suggested that when I was pulling my edge stitches to make them tight, that I was actually pulling them too tight. Who knew? I relaxed on the edges and pulled tighter on the second and third stitches from each edge, and that helped a lot!

    I’m not quite to where I was before the frogging began, but I think it won’t be long. I’m feeling better after restarting the sock, and I think it’s actually causing me to knit faster.

    Thanks to everyone for your help!

  • So… I Have a Sock Question

    I’ve started a pair of socks.

    Ok, now that you’ve recovered from that bit of shocking news, let me tell you about my sock knitting experience so far. If I’m gonna knit socks, they’re probably going to be a big ol’ pile of the craziest socks you could imagine. But I didn’t quite know what that meant. Then I saw a YouTube video of Brian Kohler knitting a week’s worth of socks all at once, and I “had” to find the yarn for the American flag socks he was making. The yarn is Schoeller Fortissima/Socka in colorway 1776 Stars & Stripes. Crazy socks? here I come. See? This is what I have so far:

    The beginnings of my toe-up sock
    The beginnings of my toe-up sock

    Actually this photo was from two days ago. Today, it looks like this:

    Sock toe in progess
    Sock toe in progess

    Which leads me to my question. I did a figure-8 cast on and I’m doing toe up on Magic Loop. I do four increases every other round, one stitch in from the edge stitch on each edge. Try as I might to pull the edge stitches tight, they look all big and loose and wonky. How do I avoid this so that they look all nice and even? I’d appreciate the practical tips from all you who have knitted a thousand pairs before.

    Thanks for the help! I eagerly wait your wisdom.

    Yours in Knitting,

    The Sock Knitting Knoob.

  • The Return of the Sock Toe

    sock toe in progress
    sock toe in progress

    After last week’s fiasco with my cabled baby sweater, I decided to put it down for a few days. So I re-cast on my toe up sock on Sunday, and look how far I’ve gotten already! I’ve decided that I don’t like knitting on size zero needles. I’m going to have to try my next pair on something slightly larger. But for this pair, I think I do need the 0’s, so the yarn overs won’t be any bigger than they already are.

    Hopefully I can make some good progress on this sock this week. It would be nice to say that I made something for myself that I can wear. Here it is, almost August, and I’m still working on the toe of my first sock for Summer of Socks 08. Told you… I’m the slowest knitter in the world.

  • Knittin’ on Some Stuff

    me, knitting a purple sock
    me, knitting a purple sock

    Just a Monday night at Trish’s place. I’m tired tonight, so we all had something simple for dinner, then I sat down to do some knitting… and then blog about it! I frogged my purple sock last week, and restarted it on size 0 needles. This time, on smaller needles, 56 stitches around seems to fit me just right. I forget sometimes that my feet are so smal, because I tend to wear shoes two sizes bigger because of my brace.

    I kinda gave up on the idea of doing toe-up monkey socks for now, too, because the stitch repeat is so long that getting the right amount of stitches for my size is a bit of a challenge. So for now, I’m doing Wendy Johnson’s sock pattern that she designed for Summer of Socks, 2008. Well, sort of. I’m doing her stitch pattern, but my own heel and my own toe.

    And here’s a shot of the baby sweater:

    baby sweater in progress
    baby sweater in progress

    Half an inch til I put the sleeve stitches on holders. I’m finally starting to feel the progress. Yay!

  • A Last Look Before Frogging…

    sock toe in progress with one pattern repeat

    I came to a sad realization last night. My lowly little sock, at even only 56 stitches around, is still too loose for my foot. I think the fabric needs to be firmer, too. So I’m going to frog and try again, this time with the dreaded size 0 needles that I had been oh so desperately hoping to avoid.

    Am I just too loose a knitter to make socks? The prospect of size 0 needles is daunting. I think I might lose my mind…

  • Knitting Roulette

    baby sweater in progress

    Today I had an unexpected day off, caring for a sick, toothless 6-year-old, who, it turns out, has the strep buggers. So we had a Spongebob marathon, and watched Cars, I got some progress done on my purple sock. Not enough to show you though, so I thought I would talk tonight about my baby sweater. Again.

    I played around with a couple of stitch patterns for the front panels, and I think I’m going with a simple plaited cable with vertical eyelets on either side. The entire rest of the sweater will be done in stockinete stitch, but I haven’t yet decided whether to do a garter stitch border at the bottom and cuffs, or some sort of ribbing. I’ll decide when I get there. I also have inserted one eyelet button hole, but it is so tiny you can’t even really see it in the photo. So I need to decide quick how to do the buttons. Maybe I’ll skip the whole thing and just do an i-cord tie. We’ll see.

    I also decided to put the sleeve stitches on holders when I get to them and do them in the round at the end. That is what makes the most sense to me at the moment. I’m already wondering if this sweater is ever going to get done. The stitches are so tiny! Next time I use this yarn for such things I think I am going to double it.

    Note to self: I stopped on the sock tonight ready to do round 5 of the second pattern repeat. But before I do any more work on it I want to put it on my foot again and make sure I wasn’t kidding myself about the size. It’s small. But I have a teeny foot (size 5, narrow). I often get away with wearing 6’s but I never wear open toe-d shoes so I forget how ridiculously big they really are.

    All for now…