Summertime, and the living is easy

I was pondering ease in Sock the First lately, and Deepa (one of my many -- well, 2 -- loyal readers) suggested this helpful podcast on ease: AutumnBreeze podcast 20.

Basically, according to my notes of the podcast, you want 10% negative ease for a sock or any garment you want "very snug" (a camisole or snug tank, perhaps), 5% negative ease for a tight but not form-fitting tee, 5% positive ease for a "fitted" garment, and 15% ease for something loose and flowing, such as a loose cardigan.

Look at the Picovoli pattern by Grumperina, a stickler for fit. It says in the notes: "This pattern is for a close-fitting garment – about 2 inches smaller around the bust than the wearer’s actual bust measurement. The negative ease produces a streamlined silhouette while compensating for cotton’s tendency to stretch during wear." That is generally not my style, but very helpful information nonetheless.

Also see this very informative post by Bonne Marie Burns on fit and ease. The charts she refers to don't use percentages, they use inches of ease -- the percentage ala Autumn Breeze seems to me to make a little more sense, it would depend on the size of the garment how much ease to add, yes?

[ETA: Here's another very helpful article on ease from Fuzzy Galore, talking about this very issue, percentage vs. inches of ease.]

I think that I read about knitting too much and knit too little, but I find this interesting and hopefully when I make my Rogue (that's still a long-term goal for me) it will fit me!

Meantime, we drove DD to music camp yesterday, and the view of the lake is fabulous:


Given the hours of driving, I made some progress on Sock the Second:

Darn the crappy light today, but here it is.

I used the Magic cast-on, which worked great, although I had to do it several times at Eweforia Friday night (too distracted by chatting to pay enough attention to the instructions), and then I had to re-do the whole darn thing in the car (but without much need at all of the instructions this time) because the increases were pretty random and sloppy. They're better now, although I'm not completely happy with them. Happy enough, though. I'm also doing Meg's jogless jog on the self-striping stripes when I can remember, which is clearly not consistent. Sock the First and Sock the Second are not going to be perfect matches because I am using them to try out different techniques. Sock the First has the cast-on from the free KnitPicks pattern for this yarn, and a double-wrapped short-row heel [ETA, this is from Wendy's generic toe-up sock pattern]. I want to try this YO short-row heel on Sock the Second. I'm not sure how visible all these differences will be, and I did make sure that the striping is starting in a similar place in the color sequence.

Check out the pix of Friday's Eweforia fun in the Eweforia blog!