Embossed Leaves Socks

I wrote before about the cast-on and cuffs and needle sizes for the Embossed Leaves Socks I was making for Lorri to give her as a gift.

Well, done and done, and now they can be shown.



I happened to have this lovely green ribbon, and presented them thusly. She seemed pleased.




The drinking glass models the leg of the first sock.




I'm trying to show off the cool cast-on for this sock, but I'm afraid this photo only gets part-way there.




Here are the heels. This is probably closer to the true color, also. I only just noticed that hole by the gusset and heel flap. Oops! This is not the pattern heel, BTW.




On Lorri's feet.




And those cool toes.


Details:

Yarn by All Things Heather. A bit underspun, it seemed to me. Nicely dyed if you like green, which fortunately Lorri does.

Needles: KnitPicks 2.5 mm, 2.75 mm, and 3.0 mm. This is the newest one of my many oddities, multiple needle sizes for a single pair of socks. No doubt 2 sizes would be enough for any normal person. The ribbing is on the 3.0 (or you could just do non-twisted ribbing), the first repeat or so is on the 2.75, and the rest on the 2.5.

Mods: I used the pattern cast-on, which I blathered about at great length here, then went down to smaller needles since I like my socks snug. I didn't use the pattern heel, but what is becoming my standard eye-of-partridge heel flap. I used the pattern toes, but didn't decrease to quite what the pattern called for, since so few stitches always makes weird pointy toes for me. Oh, yes, I made the stems of the leaves with Ktbl to give a bit more definition to them. I think this worked well, although I'm not sure you can see in the pix.

Time: I can't say, since between sock one and sock 2 I knit another sock.

Again? Maybe, but all in all I prefer the Waving Lace Socks. Also, I think I'd try to jigger the pattern to have fewer purl stitches if I did these again.

But that's just me.

I've been a bad blogger

I've been a bad blogger, it's been over 2 weeks since I blogged. Oh, wait, I was away for one of those weeks, without internet. Well, still.

Before I went away, I went on a yarn crawl with Maia. We had a blast! Here we are at the end, flush with yarn fumes:



I was a bad blogger on the yarn crawl. I got no shots of yarn, buttons, ribbons, or yarn shops. Of course, I did get some yarn, buttons and ribbons. And this surreptitious shot, which is probably the most interesting shot I got the whole day:



What does this signify? Anybody know?

I got this when we stopped for coffee (for Maia) and tea (for me) here:



I will try to do better at blogging! I have some shots of finished socks, circus camp, and family camp to tempt you with. All in good time, my pretties.

Rated PG

I got nothin' to show you, so when I saw this over at Norma's, I had it rate my blog. You'll never guess.

It's because I said "crap" twice and "sexy" once (in the link to the Sexy Knitter's Club). Ooops, there goes the ol' rating. Good thing I didn't post everything that I saw at the Pride Parade, I guess. And I'm not talking about the LGBT folks, I'm talking about the float sponsored by the strip joint.

The Embossed Leaves socks are almost done, but they are picture-less because they are a surprise. I think I'm safe to blab about them but not show them. I don't think Lorri reads knitting blogs, and if she does (hi Lorri!), well, if there are no pix there is still an element of surprise. Right? Of course right.

Now that I'm here, I guess I can tell you that I started out to knit them on US 1's. This despite the pattern instruction to knit them on US 2's. Yep, living on the edge. But it's a 64-stitch sock, and I've never met a 64-stitch sock yet that didn't fit my feet when knit on 1's, my preferred sock needles for the tight gauge.

Until now.

Actually, everything would have been fine if not for the fact that I wanted to try the twisted ribbing specified in the pattern. Not to mention the 1x1 two-strand cast-on (despite the fact that Mona Schmidt, the designer herself, commented on the Blue Blog that she did not choose that cast-on. In fact, she says she has never even tried it.

And a further note of interest (to some): The book describes this as "a smooth two-stranded tubular cast-on". I'm here to tell you that it is all those things, except tubular. I mainly tried it because it was advertised as tubular, and you may remember that I have been wanting to learn tubular cast-on. I jumped in, thinking now's the time.

Only it ain't. Don't get me wrong, it's a very nice cast-on, one that I intend to use again and again. But it ain't tubular cast-on.

But I digress. Back to the ribbing. 64 stitches of 1x1 twisted rib is too darn tight on me. I actually had a night where I tossed and turned, wondering how to resolve my aversion to knitting socks on #2 needles and the too-tight cast-on. Yeah, I'm weird like that.

Some time in the middle of the night, I had an "aha!" moment. I needed a 2.75 mm needle, something in-between my KnitPicks size 1 (2.5 mm) and size 2 (3 mm). And as I was going on a yarn crawl the next day with my good blogger-friend (and now a real-life friend!) Maia, spinner and knitter extraordinaire, I would be able to snap one up. Which I did.

When I was able to think about this wide-awake, I decided to frog what I had done, knit the twisted rib cuff on the 3 mm needle, the first repeat on the 2.75 mm needle, and the rest on the 2.5 mm needle. This seems to have worked, as they say, like a charm. Quite possibly the 2.75 is even an unnecessary complication, but since I had bought one, what the heck.

I know, I know, if I had been thinking about this properly while wide-awake I should have been able to quickly leap to the conclusion that a different needle for the cuff was all that was needed. A sleepless night could have been avoided. But I've never knit socks on more than one size needle before. That's my pathetic excuse, and I'm sticking to it.

Warn the kids.