Socks

Mobius Scarf and Klein Hat
I note that I've started to include all my knitting projects here, and not just the socks. I should probably put the non-socks in a different place. :)
For: Eva

Alligator Shell Socks, another Joslyn sock of the month kit. As with many such, the lace and multicolor-ness might both be better separately. This wool is a little finer than is used in Peak Experience or the Rapunzel Toe Braid, and not as fine as the Twinkletoes for Waves of Grain or Line of Fire. Probably the same as Pinwheels of Easter, now that I think of it.

Rose of England Table Sock
Done. Yay.

Fiesta Feet, again
Main color purple, wildly multicolored contrast color. (Somewhat accidentally, the top half of the sock is in size 0, and the main body will be in size 2. But last time I made a pair of these I decided "I think a third attempt might want to use different size needles for the bit above the heel" so it's a good experiment).

For: Patricia Schoch (mother-in-law-in-law)

Diamond Patch
This is another of Joslyn's sock of the month socks. Each diamond is picked up and knit separately, so while it looks really interesting, there's a lot of weaving in to be done. Did I mention I hate weaving in? Still, I've not done one of these diamond patterns before, and it's novel.

Several people suggested doing it all in one thread (which isn't feasible), but four does turn out to be mostly feasible, and cuts down on the weaving in quite a bit. I hope they don't feel different because of that.

ARGH! I made one pair with one more set of diamonds than the other! They're different leg lengths. Sulk sulk sulk. Must rip out cuff ribbing and half-diamonds and restart. Hmm. I wonder if the Bad Sock is too long or too short. If it's too long, that would require less extra knitting to fix...

Finally done. Happily, the bad sock was too long, so fixing it wasn't interminable.

(There was a brief sock hiatus to make a hat and to start a lace tablecloth. Then the tablecloth went on hiatus when I had to order more yarn from it, so it's back to socks.)

For: Mikka

Butterfly Lace
Opal "bumblebee" yarn, butterfly lace pattern. It's called butterfly lace because the lace open holes are in groups of four, like a butterfly's wings:

OO         OO
oo   OO    oo
     oo

But the loudness of the yarn makes the lacework very difficult to see. I think I prefer plain yarn for lace.

For: Meg

Trellis Lace
This is an Opal sock of the month pattern (though it's not actually Opal yarn). It looks a little like cables, but it's really lacework.

For: christmas present

Warm Booties
More of the felted booties. No pictures yet. But they knit up darned fast.

For: christmas presents

Waves of Grain Sock
This is another of the Joslyn's socks of the month. I really like the way this particular yarn, Twinkletoes, feels (it's the same very thin weight as the Line of Fire socks. Though I suspect it may wear out quickly.

For: christmas present

Grandmaster Socks
This is an interesting experiment. The black yarn (with little colored specks) is Regia, the red is leftovers from Joslyn's Line of Fire (see below). This first attempt at a dagger is done with cabled stitches, but it's intarsia, which requires that the yarn go back and forth, rather than round and round. So there's a seam.
Lesson one: The waves in the wavy dagger aren't pronounced enough. At the top I think they want to wave by two stitches, not just one. Lesson two: It bunches terribly. I think my floats are loose enough, but the stitch being cabled behind can't really be loosened so well. I think the waving should happen with increases and decreases to the sides, rather than cabling. Lesson three: The seam is too bulky. I'm doing it by going to the end and then wrapping the neighboring stitch, which works okay for joining, but I think it needs a thinner seam. Lesson four: I like the way the cabled handle turned out. That part I'll keep.

I'm much happier with the second attempt. The seam is flat and unbulky, the dagger waves nicely and doesn't bunch (decreases and increases to move it, rather than cabling).

For: Hongyi

Bar Eight Cable Sock
This is a sock of the month pattern from the Opal sock club, rather than Joslyn's Fiber Farm. Opal is a thinner, harder-wearing yarn than most of Joslyn's; they're comfy, but not snuggly. And machine washable. Still interesting to knit, and comes in all sorts of interesting colors.

The stripes are from the yarn, the cable isn't very visible in the thumbnail picture, but is a lot more clear in the blowup.

For: Father Terry

Fiesta Feet, Mark 3
These are the "wacky socks in red and black". The black is basic, the red is "Ember" from Shepherd Socks, which means it's really red and grey and a sort of grey-red that looks a little like purple.

For: Chris

Pink Torso Sock
Finally done. Whew.

For: Mike

Rickrack Socks
After the Heidi knee socks, I wanted to do something easy. These are another Sock of the Month pattern from Joslyn, and went very fast. The colorway, is "Pinwheels of Easter". The picture here is of the finished socks, on a scanner instead of with the digital camera - that seems to make the stitch definition come out a lot better.

For: Meg

Knee Socks
These are the Austrian Knee Socks from _Socks Socks Socks_ for Heidi, in white Fixation yarn. Fixation is definitely heavier than is called for, so the pattern's been altered a little to decrease the number of stitches. It's still not the best of yarns to see a fancy twisted-stitch pattern in, but it's a little better than in the mushroom color. The pattern in the book is terribly buggy, I shall have to write them and complain.

Yay! Done, finally. Heidi calls them Lursa and Batour, after the two Klingon sisters ("Those are not mook socks, those are named socks).

For: Heidi

Line of Fire
This is another sock of the month. The twinkletoes yarn has a lovely feel to it, and the pattern has an interesting barred fake-cable, that the picture doesn't really bring out. I suspect it will turn the wearer's feet red.

For: Marleigh

Peak Experience
Another sock of the month - "Peak Experience" in the Northern Lights colorway.

For: me!

Cabled Purple Stripey Socks
This pair is in more Opal auto-striping yarn, and uses the mysterious pass-over cable from the Birkenstock socks.

For: Mikka

More Felted Booties
Grey and green booties (two of the traditional three Eon knitting colors). I have to mail-order this darned yarn (Brown Sheep) since Woolcott doesn't carry it any more. Woe! And I messed up on the second yarn order and got the wrong green. Note the toe. And, this time I'm putting feet on the bottom.

For: Eon

Three-color Old Marleigh Socks
These are actually done a while ago - I tried three times to knit the fair isle "best of show" socks from _Socks Socks Socks_, and each time they just were unwearably inflexible due to all the floats. I eventually did a different pattern with the same yarn, also from _Socks Socks Socks_.

For: Marleigh

Blue Stripey Basic Sock
After cables and cables and knitting too many inches of arm sock (oops), I want something very simple and fast. Meg is dubious about wool socks, so this is an attempt to convert her. It's using a Regia "shadow" striped yarn which I really like the look of.

For: Meg

Crazy Daze Socks
This pair is the second of the sock of the month kits. Well, it isn't actually the second kit, it's just the second I'm doing. It's a mosaic knitting pattern, which I've never done before, and it's in quite fine yarn. The fact that mosaic/garter stitch (the pattern, on the leg and top of the foot) is much more vertically condensed than stockinette (the stripes on the sole of the foot) makes the sock scrunch up a little oddly and not lie flat. Happily, it turns out fine when worn.

Alas! They have worn out! It seems that non-nylon-reinforced socks shouldn't be worn around without shoes on a daily basis. Perhaps there will be replacements, after the booties are done.

For: Eon

Felted Sock Boot
This thing is astonishingly fast to knit. Make a huge bootie sock, then felt in the washing machine. The pictures are from before and after felting; the fork is for size reference. The pattern is from Socks Soar. The yarn is Brown Sheep Bulky - the mohair really comes out as top fuzz in the felted sock. Lopi might be better if that effect wasn't wanted. Jerry reports that they're very warm.

For: Jerry

Skiing Socks
This is another double-yarn pair, using plain brown and variegated brown Opal. Much like the other Thickish Socks pairs shown below, but in my favorite little mock-cable pattern from the ever-present Birkenstock socks. Because of the variegated yarn, you really can't see the cables, but they're there, and they make it quite elastic.

For: Derrick

Arm Sock
Two pink arm socks! To join a torso sock at some point. The pattern is "Fulmar" from Alice Starmore's Aran Knitting, which is even in pink in the sample sweater in the book. And, no, I didn't pick the yarn.

For: Mike

White "Birkenstock Cable" cotton socks
These are those cabled socks again, this time in cotton. I'm becoming more dubious for cotton for knit socks; it seems like the yarn is soft and shreds easily, like Fixation, or hard and not necessarily comfortable. But I don't think I'm going to convert allergic people to wool. Oh well.

For: Kate

Fiesta Feet in Black and Aqua
This is take two on this sock; the first time was coming out a little tight. I think I did it in a smaller needle size than the first pair, which wasn't ideal. The top is a little slouchy; I think a third attempt might want to use different size needles for the bit above the heel.

For: Marleigh

Camo Socks
This is another completely plain sock, in elastic Regia. I don't know how much wool really needs elastic, but I'll see how it goes.

For: me. Hah!

Gold Brazil Socks
This is an utterly plain sock, done in a gold-and-brown colorway of Opal's Brazil line. Heidi calls it magic yarn; all the stripes and dots are built into the yarn, I don't have to do any work at all myself.

For: Mikka

Boring Thickish Socks
This is another one of the cabled socks like the Brown Hiking Sock below, but with greys and blacks. The grey is a variegated German yarn, the black is Wildfoote (still a little thin for me); toes and cuffs are two strands of black and body is one strand each of black and grey. I like the way the grey/black combination turned out, sort of interestingly mottled.

For: Nick

Rapunzel Toe Braid
This is another of the Joselyn's Fiber Farm sock patterns, in Rose Quartz colorway. Amusingly, the cables are very similar to the mushroom socks below. However, you can't really see them in the picture. Alas.

For: Adina

Klein Sock
Darn. The picture of the klein sock got replaced with the picture of the klein hat. That's the trouble with making up intuitive names for things.

This is a somewhat extra-large sock, pattern made up from scratch. It's using Brown Sheep Wildfoote yarn in a blue-with-other-colors colorway, and cabled using the neat little mock cables that the Birkenstock sock uses (one of the cables has a little eyelet hole in it, for the pass-through bit. I tried to take a picture of the eyelet, but it didn't turn out).

If this were a real sock, it would probably be a little too loosely knit; the Wildfoote is thinner than other sock yarns (especially things like Fixation). But it's not a real sock, so it's okay.

For: rif

Mushroom Cable Sock
This is a test run with Fixation (stretchy cotton), using the twisted-stitch pattern in Socks Soar.... The Fixation is "mushroom" colorway, which is an interesting sort of multicolor in browns and yellows and pinkish grey, probably not ideal for cables but oh well.

Results of the test run: probably good for someone small-footed, but otherwise comfortable. The stitch definition is a little better in real life than in the picture, but it's not amazingly crisp in this yarn. And I don't seem to be very good at taking pictures of my feet.

For: Heidi, the small-footed

Stained Glass Sock
This is the first of the sock of the month patterns. The yarn is a bit thicker and the gauge tighter than a lot of the other socks; these will probably be comfy warm socks.

Woe! Not enough yarn! Betrayal! But now they have sent me more. All done.

For: Marleigh

Brown Hiking Sock
The pattern is from Socks, Socks, Socks for a worsted yarn. I did this one in two different colored strands of Regia sock yarn, with two strands of the same color for accents. It's a large heavy sock.

For: Schochs

Grey Men's Sock
The pattern is the basic sock from Socks Soar on Circular Needles, and it's knitted to the men's size, with dark grey Regia. Kinda boring, I know. The picture's been tweaked a little to let the stitches show up more clearly, otherwise it looks like a grey sock-shaped blob.

For: Schochs

Purl Lace Sock
The pattern is a simple purl lace sock from Socks, Socks, Socks, knitted in a speckled Opal yarn, which makes it nigh-impossible to see the pattern. This is more of a women's sock, especially since it turned out a little slouchy.

For: Schochs

Stripey Twist-Top Sock
This is another pattern from Socks Soar with a cool twisty i-cord top. It's knitted in (I think) Regia, in one of those automatic striped colorways.

For: Schochs

Wacky Colorful Sock
This is a pattern that Woolcott sold me to go with the multicolor Koigu yarn (I am reminded that the pattern is Lucy Neatby's "Fiesta Feet", to give credit where it is due). I don't know where you'd wear these, but I think they're neat. The bobbles do take it a little over the top. And I have some blue Koigu for a second pair...

For: Schochs

Cabled Sock
Here's another one from Socks, Socks, Socks that you're supposed to wear with Birkenstocks. It's knitted with beige Regia, the same as one of the strands for the hiking sock above. This one has also been image-enhanced so you can see the stitches a little better.

For: Schochs, plus Susie got one too

Hyperspace Socks
These are based on the "Maple Swirl Sock", the cover picture in Socks, Socks, Socks without the extra dots. They're fascinating to look at, and wacky to knit (leading to people calling them "hyperspace socks"), but not really comfortable to wear (largish gauge, garter stitch in cotton yarn) and million of ends poke out in the wash. No more of these. :)