A couple of things :)

1.  I’m pulling closing time back to 11:00 PM rather than midnight.  A lot of you work and have to be up early and so forth - a slightly earlier closing time seems…erm…prudent?

2.  There is no 2.  I’m just messing with you :)

Bring your knitting and relax with pleasant, lively conversation.  Virtual refreshments will be served - no fat, no caloories, no guilt!

See you there :)

To my surprise (and probably to yours as well!), I did actually finish the first sock over the weekend.  It came out beautifully - in my quite biased opinion - and is just about perfect according to my definition of perfect socks :)  The ribbing keeps the sock up and un-slouched, but is not snug and is very flexible and soft.  The foot is plain with no patterning to cause problems between shoe uppers and foot tops.  Of course I make socks for myself, primarily and so I make them to suit my preferences.  If you decide to make these socks, by all means make them to your preferences.  Continue the patterning down onto the foot, substitute a short row or an after-thought heel or change the style of the toe to suit yourself.  Adaptation is half the fun here :)

The yarn I used was an odd lot purchased primariily for its dyeing potential but it turned out to be surprisingly springy and very nice to work with.  It is also washable, which doesn’t hurt a bit!  It’s a bit heavier than ordinary sock yarn - sport weight, perhaps?  I worked it on size 2 US (2.75 mm) needles which gave me a perfectly sized sock for my size 10 foot.  A smaller sock could be worked with fingering or sock weight yarn on size 1 US (2.25 mm) or even size 0 US (2.0 mm) needles.  In any case, this is what I came up with and you’re welcome to try it out and adapt it as you will.

Leaves and Vines Socks
(chart below)

Materials

Sport weight wool, around 350 yards
4 size 2 double pointed needles (or two circulars, or one long one - whatever suits you)
Tapestry needle

Terms

K - Knit
P - Purl
K-P-K - Knit 1, Purl 1, Knit 1 into next stitch (double increase)
SSK - Slip, slip, knit (or slip one, knit one, pass slipped stitch over)
K2tog - Knit 2 together
YO - Yarn over
CDD - Slip 2 stitches together, knitwise.  K1 and then pass the slipped stitches over (centered double decrease).

Cast on 60 stitches (20 stitches on each of three needles) and join, being careful not to twist.

Round 1:  *K2, P3; repeat from * around
Round 2:  *K2, P3; repeat from * around
Round 3:  *K2, P3; repeat from * around
Round 4:  *K2, P1, K-P-K into next stitch, P1, K2, P3; repeat from * around
Round 5:  *K2, P1, K3, P1, K2, P3; repeat from * around
Round 6:  *K2, P1, K1, YO, K1, YO, K1, P1, K2, P3; repeat from * around
Round 7:  *K2, P1, K5, P1, K2, P3; repeat from * around
Round 8:  *K2, P1, SSK, YO, K1, YO, K2tog, P1, K2, P3; repeat from * around
Round 9:  *K2, P1, K5, P1, K2, P3; repeat from * around
Round 10: *K2, P1, SSK, K1, K2tog, P1, K2, P1, K-P-K, P1; repeat from * around
Round 11: *K2, P1, K3, P1; repeat from * around
Round 12: *K2, P1, CDD, P1, K2, P1, K1, YO, K1, YO, K1, P1; repeat from * around
Round 13: *K2, P3, K2, P1, K5, P1; repeat from * around
Round 14: *K2, P3, K2, P1, SSK, YO, K1, YO, K2tog, P1; repeat from * around
Round 15: *K2, P3, K2, P1, K5, P1; repeat from * around
Round 16: *K2, P1, K-P-K, P1, K2, P1, SSK, K1, K2tog, P1; repeat from * around
Round 17: *K2, P1, K3, P1; repeat from * around
Round 18: *K2, P1, K1, YO, K1, YO, K1, P1, K2, P1, CDD, P1; repeat from * around
Round 19: *K2, P1, K5, P1, K2, P3; repeat from * around
Round 20: *K2, P1, SSK, YO, K1, YO, K2tog, P1, K2, P3; repeat from * around
Round 21: *K2, P1, K5, P1, K2, P3; repeat from * around
Round 22: *K2, P1, SSK, K1, K2tog, P1, K2, P1, K-P-K, P1; repeat from * around
Round 23: *K2, P1, K3, P1; repeat from * around

Repeat Rounds 12 - 23 for desired leg length (I did 5 leaves in each column).  When you’re ready to end the leg, following Round 15, work:

Round A:  *K2, P3, K2, P1, SSK, K1, K2tog, P1; repeat from * around
Round B:  *K2, P3, K2, P1, K3, P1; repeat from * around
Round C:  *K2, P3, K2, P1, CDD, P1; repeat from * around
Round D:  *K2, P3; repeat from * around
Round E:  *K2, P3; repeat from * around
Round F:  *K2, P3; repeat from * around

Knit the first stitch on needle 1 onto needle 3.  Move 11 stitches from the beginning of needle 2 onto the end of needle 1.  Move 6 stitches from the beginning of needle three onto the end of needle two.  You should now have the following:

Needle 1:  30 stitches
Needle 2:  15 stitches
Needle 3:  15 stitches

Heel Flap

We’ll be knitting back and forth on the 30 stitches on needle 1.

Row 1:  (RS) * Sl1, K1; repeat from * across.
Row 2:  (WS) * Sl1, Purl across

Repeat these two rows 14 more times for a total of 30 rows (adjust for your own heel length - this is just an average that works most of the time), ending with a WS (wrong side) row.

Turning the heel

Row 1:  K20, SSK, turn
Row 2:  Sl 1, P10, P2 tog, turn
Row 3:  Sl 1, K10, SSK, turn

Repeat rows 2 and 3 until all the side stitches have been accumulated.  You should be ready for a RS (right side) row and have 12 stitches on your needle.

Knit one row.

The Gusset

Pick up 15 stitches down the side of the heel flap.  With another needle, knit all the stitches from needles 2 and three onto one needle.  With another needle, pick up 15 stitches going up the other side of the heel flap and, with the same needle, knit 6 stitches off the end of needle one.

You should have the following:

Needle 1:  21 stitches
Needle 2:  30 stitches
Needle 3:  21 stitches

The beginning of your round is now the point between needle 3 and needle one.  Proceed this way:

Round 1:  Needle 1:  Knit to 3 stiches before end, K2 tog, K1.  Needle 2:  Knit across.  Needle 3:  K1, SSK, Knit to end.

Round 2:  Knit around on all needles.

Repeat rounds 1 and 2 until you are back to 15 stitches on needles 1 and 3 and a total of 60 stitches all around.

Foot

Knit the foot plain until the length is about 2.5” shorter than your actual foot.

As we’re coming up to Easter, Easter Egg dyes are back in the stores and I plan to lay in a serious stock of them before they disappear.  I have discovered, however, that all brands are not created equally.

Until now, I have been using PAAS tablet dyes and they have worked very well for me in all colors and color combinations.  This year I noticed another brand on the shelves - a slightly less expensive one - and since I like to save money as much as the next person, I checked it out.  A close reading of the directions on the box indicated that while vinegar should be used to dissolve the tablets for the brightest, most vibrant color, the red/pink (and sometimes violet) tablets should only be dissolved in water.  From previous experience with red pigments, I take this to mean the vinegar will neutralize most or all of the red tones.  For me, that makes this unsuitable for use as yarn dye.  The PAAS dyes all worked perfectly with vinegar, even the reds.

However, there was also some Easter Egg dye, packaged exclusively for Wal-Mart, that didn’t include that caveat.  Reading down the list of colors, I could see that the names were exactly the same as those of the PAAS colors (for example: Denim for blue) and conjectured that PAAS was doing a special packaging for WalMart corporation.  If these were the same dyes, they would be fine to use (all colors, even with vinegar) and they were much less expensive - about half the price of the regular PAAS dyeing kits.

I bought a few to try out.  Of course I homed in on the reds because if there was going to be a problem, that’s where it would be.  The result was this:

This is Gypsy Rose and you can see the whole entry over at The Dye Pot.

I imagine a lot of the expense of the kits comes from the decorations usually included in the box - stickers, stands, various and sundry borders and so forth.  I would be absolutely thrilled if they would offer a straight packet of dye tablets with none of the other stuff included.

Though I have to admit, I did succumb to playing with the stickers:

I ripped the sock from Wednesday’s post because I just couldn’t work at sock gauge with the dark yarn.  IT will get saved for something else - likely something worked on larger needles :)  But I did re-start the socks in a yarn I could actually see to work with - Ibis.

I also went down a needle size, from 3s to 2s and the diameter is much better.  This isn’t a tight pattern and it has quite a bit of give in it so I didn’t want it to be too loose.  It is stretched a bit over the end of Myria’s DS case in the picture, to give you a better look at the pattern.  I hope to finish the first one this weekend.

We will both be nursing horrendous colds this weekend - oh joy :)  My sinuses have declared a state of emergency and poor Myria’s voice has fled for the hills.  So likely we will be staying put, staying warm and trying not to cough on each other too much!  Thank heavens for soup and soda crackers…

Have a good one :)

Our temperatures here in northern Massachusetts never got above 5ºF yesterday and with a 25-30 mph wind blowing, things were mighty brisk out there!  God bless Lily (my little white Accent) - she takes a licking and keeps on ticking - and she warms up fast too :)  This morning, last time I checked, the outside temp was already up to a whole 18ºF!  Time to open some windows?  Heheh…

This is a fancy scarf that I’m trying out :)  There’s a triple strand of lace weight yarns here being worked on size 6 US (4 mm) needles incorporating the ubiquitous Van Dyke panel (for me, anyway) between seed stitch borders.  I actually like the way this looks very much.  The yarns are Second Hand Rose (baby alpaca) and a double strand of lace weight rayon flake in a fuchsia/copper/purple/silver variegate.  The work is a bit slow going because the yarns are very slippery but the results are, I think, very pretty.  I do seem to be enjoying lacework these days - just not in the very fine gauges :)

I also started a sock yesterday…

...with some sport weight yarn I’ve had for quite a while now.  It’s an interesting yarn as the base (and main color) is a deep cranberry red but there is a small ply of yarn spun with it that runs from orange to green to strawberry to blue which lends a subtle striping effect when the yarn is knitted up.  It’s a fascinating stuff but I’m not sure this sock is the right project for it.

That said, I like how the leaf pattern is working out, though the 60 stitch cast on - size 3 US (3.25 mm) - is a little big.  Because the pattern repeats over 5 stitches and because I want an even number of repeats, I’ll have to see if this would work with a cast on of 50 stitches.  That’s if I was going to continue to use this yarn - which has another issue concerning relatively small work (for me) - it’s too damned dark.  When I was starting the sock yesterday morning, I was sitting in full, plentiful sunlight and even then noticed how deep a red this color was.  Last night, under the living room lights, I could barely discern one stitch from another.  While I love both the yarn and how the pattern seems to be evolving, they should probably not be used together.  So the other possibility, of course, is to use a different yarn and, maybe, a size 2 needle and see how that works.

Oh - the above photo had to be lightened to show the detail.  The true color is much deeper than that - even in direct sunlight :)

And (you knew this was coming - right?) there has been another swatch :)  This time in wool, which is what I want to make this shawl out of, and sampling another lace pattern.

This is Knitpicks Wool of the Andes in Cherry Blossom worked on a size 9 US (5.5 mm) circular.  The stitch pattern is from the 365 Knitting Stitches a Year calendar and is called Alternating Lace (found on July 31).  What I like about the pattern is that it’s simple, has a straight purl-back row and is pretty adaptable in terms of both height and width.  What I’m not so sure about yet is how well something as open as this works in blocks placed at right angles to each other.

I guess it’s not too bad and my even have a certain maze-like appeal :)  But it seems really busy to my eye.  I suppose if I, for some reason, fall distractedly in love with it I could find something plainer to alternate with it - either by block or by row so that the busyness wouldn’t immediately and permanently cross the eyes of anyone viewing the finished shawl.

On the other hand, the pattern of the scarf above - differes only from the pattern of the first large swatch (see this post, about two-thirds of the way down) in that the borders are done in seed stitch rather than stockinette - and I think I like it better :)

I feel another swatch coming on…

Notes

Thanks to Rob at robknits for letting me know about a problem with the smilies in the comment section and for including the error code she received.  In this way, we learned that our hosting company had changed some things that we hadn’t known about.  That problem has been fixed.

Also regarding the comments page:  The buttons above the comments box have been removed because of an issue that also came about because of the host company’s changes.  However, the functionality remains so if you want, say, italicize something, you would use the standard html code.  For example, to get this: Yikes, you would type this: <i>Yikes</i>.  Same for b (bold), u (underline) and strike (strike out).

Susan - Please let me know if you continue to have problems viewing images?

A pleasant weekend here - a little shopping, a lot of sunshine and fresh air and most of the snow accumulation melting down.  It was in the 50s here on Saturday - gorgeous day :)  Of course the temperatures are going right back to arctic levels tomorrow.  With the wind chill figured in, the temps should hover around 0 F for most of the day.

With the warmer temperatures making a stab at returning, I discovered the need for something a bit lighter than a chunky wool hat so I made this:

It was done with two Classic Elite yarns, Spotlight and Flash, both cotton, worsted weight yarns on a size 6 US (4 mm) circular needle.  I cast on 108 stitches and that turned out to be a little big - 100 stitches should do the trick.  It was also just a bit shorter from top to bottom than I would have preferred so a few more rows on subsequent versions are definitely in order as well.  The stranding was off the top of my head and while I like the look, it was a pain in the butt to do:)  However, that’s only because I don’t have a lot of practice stranding and I’m pretty sure if I did it more often it wouldn’t be nearly so annoying.  While it is a bit loose (the hat, not the stranding), it’s wearable so I’m not going to rip it out.  I’m just going to take the lessons learned and apply them to future models.

Another washcloth - staggered seed stitch with a double-crochet edging.  I love this cheerful raspberry color though I seem to have an issue with making two washcloths the same.  My brain seems to prefer an assortment to a set :)  I’ll probably make one more of these and that should get me through.  I’ve been enjoying making them though so perhaps I’ll just go on making one every now and again and put them away for future purposes - last minute gifts, etc.  Any excuse to keep playing!

I’ve also been playing with the entrelac shawl thing,  I decided to see how it would work if I started with the traditional triangles rather than blocks.  Actually it works out nicely as you can see in the above photos.  The swatch at the top left was cast on with size 6 US (4 mm) needles - also the size needle all the swatches were worked in.  The cast on was too tight and my feeling is that even severe blocking would only partially alleviate this.  The swatch at the top right was cast on with size 8 US (5 mm) needles) and then worked with the size 6.  This is much better.  While there’s still some pull along the upper edge, it’s really only a function of the stitch configuration and would block out perfectly.  The bottom swatch, really done for comparison purposes, is all garter stitch.  I don’t much like it but I felt I had to execute at least one swatch in this fashion in order to make an informed decision.  I think the stockinette has it :)

The good news is that the triangles work for starting the piece - they look decent and alleviate the problems of a big, saw-tooth edge (sabre-tooth entrelac?).  The bad news is that its going to require casting on a lot of stitches to begin with since this would be worked from the top down.  For example, using the lace pattern from Friday’s post   (which is 25 stitches across) and extrapolating from the swatch that there should probably be 8 starting triangles (given a similar weight yarn and the same size needles).  That would require casting on 200 stitches.  Actually, that doesn’t sound so bad, does it?  Some shawls I’ve seen require casting on 400 or more stitches.  Okay, I’ll stop whining;  200 stitches I can live with :)

Of course, there will have to be an edging too.  The sides are going to be slightly uneven and a nice edging would be a tremendous help towards smoothing that out.  Right now I’m thinking that’s going to require picking up all the edge stitches - something I have seriously avoided doing until now.  Still, maybe it’s about time to just swallow my trepidation and go for it.  After all, I don’t have any trouble with sock gussets…

And entrelac is all about picking up stitches anyway - right?

I couldn’t tell you where it is that new ideas sleet in from - but I’m grateful for them :)  Not that this concept is particularly new - just new to me and a playground of possibilities.  And it does seem to have broken up my what-do-I-knit-now block pretty nicely :)

Some time ago, barb-in-east-texas had mentioned Knitty’s Argosy scarf to me.  I had seen it when Knitty’s last issue came out and went back yesterday to have another look at it - in particular, I was curious about the construction.  With the pattern in front of me, I picked up some needles and yarn and cast on.

It is knit by casting on extra stitches at the beginning and end of a row when another horizontal pattern repeat is desired.  I have seen this technique before; Nancie Wiseman uses it for her Textured Squares Mohair Shawl in her book Knitted Shawls, Stoles & Scarves.  It’s a useful technique because it allows for adding on pattern repeats in a kind of stair-step fashion.

Somehow, though, it didn’t trip my trigger.  In a way, it produced a kind of entrelac effect without actually resorting to the entrelac technique.

Well, I thought, what about that?  Entrelac?

I had been wondering for some time if it would be possible to do a triangular shawl in entrelac without jumping through too many hoops to make it work.  So that was the next step:

And what do you know!  It turns out to be pretty simple after all.  You just bind off the last block of the row when you finish it which takes care of the edge (with no filler triangle to mess with) and puts you where you need to be to pick up for the next block.  Nifty!

So, what can we do with this?

Sorry about the curling edges.  I washed and blocked this yesterday but as the yarn is cotton/acrylic, the blocking only partially took :)  Still, I think there are real possibilities here :)

I used this particular lace pattern because I can do it in my sleep and don’t need to look at a chart or written-out instructions.  Ergo: fast and easy.  I don’t see any reason why any other lace pattern couldn’t be used although maybe one that creates a very wavy top/bottom/edge should be thought about carefully.

Things I still need to work out:

1.  Since stockinette stitches are taller than they are wide, a piece 25 sts across and 50 rows long (as in these lace blocks) creates a serious rectangle.  A squarer shape would give a more symmetrical look.  So I want to see if this lace pattern will work in garter stitch.  That would pretty much solve that problem.  The down side to that is that I love using the

knitting backwards technique for entrelac as it speeds things up considerably.  If this is worked in garter stitch, knitting backwards won’t be possible.

2.  I started with blocks rather than the traditional triangles off of which the blocks are then, generally, built.  However, the gaps along the top of the piece are substantial and I find I don’t like them.  So I am either going to have to start with triangles after all or do some kind of fill in pattern afterwards.

3.  This works from the top down, so that first line of blocks is going to be a real pip :)  Still, since they are worked one at a time, I suppose it really isn’t a big deal and because each block is worked in its entirety as you go along, the possibility exists to incorporate many colors from row to row of blocks - or even from block to block.

4.  My last consideration for making a shawl this way is to find a different material than the one I did the swatch with.  I used Sirdar Primavera, 65% cotton/35% Acrylic, Double Knitting weight on size 8 US (5 mm) needles and while it was easy enough to work with and gave the lace pattern a nice look, the resulting swatch is very limp and has no body whatsoever - not what I want in a shawl.  Right now, I’m thinking that Knitpicks Merino Style might be appropriate.  I’d have to try a ball, but their new Cotlin, a 70% cotton, 30% linen blend looks nice too - especially that mouthwatering Moroccan red!  Zowie!

All I need to figure out now is how much do I need?

Have a great weekend, everyone :)