Hey, the Olympics are over and I did get something finished on my 2010 Knitting Wish List — well, one sock, anyway.
But it's a doozy of a sock. This picture may not look like much, but trust me on this. (Plus, there are better pictures further down.)
Continue reading "Possibly the Laziest Smartest. Short-Row Heel. Ever."
Sep 8
Hey, we made it! This is the final post in the toe-up sock design series. And since it is the final one, naturally we are going to talk about binding off.
Aug 25
Before we finish off the sock design series, we have to talk about ribbing.
Ribbing is actually a fairly important design consideration. Ribbing at the top edge is what keeps a sock up if it is made of a less-stretchy stitch pattern, such as plain stockinette. And no one is going to wear a pair of socks that keeps falling down all the time.
Aug 18
OK, I admit I got a little off track, and sort of forgot I had this sock design series going. Apologies to both of you who have been sitting on the edge of your computer chairs, waiting breathlessly for the next post in the series.
May 26
Oh, hi. You got that basketweave sock done all the way to the heel then? Not quite? OK, good, we’ll "pick up" where we left off. (ha, ha, little knitting humor there. Very little.)
May 19
Well, life has been happening with a vengeance around our house the past few days. So you’ll have to forgive me for just throwing out a couple of updates here.
May 12
(This is the second in a series of posts discussing the process of designing DH’s basketweave socks.)
We left off Part 1 with a completed toe, and have discovered that in order to have a sock foot that is about 7" circumference, we have ended up with 64 sts total for the foot of the sock.
May 11
Oh, happy day! DH has another pair of handknit socks, and I have one less UFO. (Believe it or not, I’m down to just SIX UFO’s. My advice is to keep an eye out for plagues of locusts.)
OK, you got a peek at the toe a couple of weeks ago — now here’s the rest of it!
I said you wouldn’t get bored halfway through, now didn’t I?
Mar 26
OK, so obviously I am a sucker for pink. And being a redhead, this can be problematic — although I am starting to see more and more hairs that are, shall we say, colorless — so maybe this issue will resolve itself in time. (My hairdresser refers to them as "platinum highlights", BTW. Talk about spin!)
You may remember that one of the things I recently finished was a pair of short socks for DH. Unfortunately, they turned out to be short in multiple places: one of which was the leg, as intended, and one of which was the foot, which was not.
Jan 29
The rest of the old Buddhist saying is, "…then the teacher will appear."
Well, usually I’m the knitting teacher — but in this case, I became the student.
Last Friday, I was grousing about the short black socks I had knitted for DH while on the trip in New Zealand. Although I had faithfully copied the original socks, DH confirmed (after a brief trial wearing) that the feet were really too short. You’re probably familiar with the phenomenon of short socks sliding down the back of your foot and off your heel — and that’s what happened.
Jan 20
I’m sure at least one of you is wondering — "Well, fine, lots of sheep, some yarn stores, but did she actually get any knitting done on the trip?"
Well, yes and no. OK, well, actually, there can only be one accurate answer there, which is YES, I did knit a couple of things on the trip. However, NO, I did not finish 4 pairs of socks for DH.
Dec 30
Well, it had to happen sometime. I had to stumble upon some yarn eventually.
I didn’t expect it to be in the little town of Gore, though. Nor did I expect it to be some lovely handspun.
Nov 28
OK, I believe I now have incontrovertible proof that the socks I am currently making trying to make for DH have some kind of curse upon them.
You may remember all the trials and tribulations that I went through — admittedly, some self-imposed — in getting this pair off the ground. But, I finally bowed to the pressures of reality, and moved one of said socks onto a set of dpns in order to turn the heel, and cope with the alignment changes in the stitch pattern.
Nov 25
I admit I don’t really have a focus to this post (when do I ever?) but I felt a need to kind of throw an update out there before the big Holiday Weekend. I have been doing some stuff — really, I have. And here’s some pictures to prove it.
Nov 21
Oh, boy. It’s been, like, a week and a half. What happened to blogging?
Well, I’ll tell you what happened to blogging. Life happened, that’s what. That, and as I mentioned recently, knitters wanting knitting lessons have reappeared this fall with a vengeance. In the past month, my teaching hours each week have been up 50-70% from the previous month. Yeah, that cuts into the blogging time a tad bit — let alone the knitting time.
OK, I know both of you were kind of worried about it, but I believe I have figured out an elegant solution to a looming knitting problem:
What on earth do I take along to knit in New Zealand??
Nov 4
Ahhhhhh — finally, I can sit back, relax and blog a little bit. And it’s great that I can now write about something that’s recently been taking a lot of my time.
Oct 31
Well, I’m sure both of you have done Kitchener stitch, or grafting, in the usual way: it involves a tapestry needle, at least one reference book, and some quiet time alone — not to mention gnashing of teeth.
Yes, you may well have been questioning why there is a total of 12 UFO's on my UFOlympic "decathlon" list. (Actually, there are 13, because I had to add one UFO #0 that I forgot about when making the original list.) But it's a good thing.
May 27
Hey, we’re back from our trip to Sasquatch over the Memorial Day Weekend. And it was an interesting weekend.
(BTW, this post really does include something pretty interesting about sock heels too, although that bit’s way at the end. Just skip down there if you must.)
May 23
OK, even I can admit that this short row heel obsession thing may be getting a bit out of hand.
But there’s another little gem of genius here worth sharing, in my efforts to eliminate the inelegant flap-and-gusset-style heel from the face of the earth.
So — a few weeks ago, I wrote about sock heels. How I don't really like flap-and-gusset style heels, and how the EZ afterthought heel usually seems too small for me, and how I'd been checking out all kinds of short row heels, in my search for the Best Short Row Heel of All Time.
Continue reading "The Double-Stitch Short Row Heel – aka the “yo-yo” or “jo-jo” heel"
May 1
OK, once again my lack of recent blogging is due to me having to work on other stuff. (Lately I’ve really been forced to admit there are only so many hours in a given day, or week. And some of them are required for sleeping, or else I get even more really cranky.) 
But big news today!
Apr 10
So, while I haven't been blogging much in the past week or so, I really have been busy.
One of the things I've been working on is a sock pattern for my friend Deb, whose blog lives over at www.fearlessfibers.blogspot.com. She dyes bee-you-tee-full yarn and sells it on Etsy – which if you haven't visited is a very fun place — her shop is at http://fearlessfibers.etsy.com.
Mar 24
Over the weekend, I had a touch of "the depression" *.
Specifically, I had the knitting depression.
I didn’t have a single decent current project, the UFOs were one big pile o’ crap, I hated everything in my hotlist **.
Feb 19
Admittedly, I haven’t written much in the past week (heck, I haven’t written anything). But, I have an excellent excuse reason. Actually, several reasons…
#1 reason is, I have a bad Continental knitting habit of using my right index finger to help out on each and every stitch. I don’t actually need to use it — I can knit and purl without moving it at all, if I think about it. As I say, it’s a bad habit, which means I do it more-or-less unconsciously. I even demonstrate it to new Continental knitters in my classes as a great example of what not to do.
Feb 12
The other night, I complained mentioned to my loving, caring DH how my feet had been freakin’ FREEZING ALL DAY.
DH was kicked back sideways on the chair-and-a-half, with his legs propped up over the arm of the chair and his feet aloft. He said smugly in a very meaningful manner,
Feb 7
Aaaaaand here they are, in all their glory:
These socks comprise many of my favorite sock-knitting techniques to date. I prefer techniques that work well and are easy to memorize, so for those of you who want to know the nuts & bolts, here’s a brief recap:
Jan 30
OK, it’s high time I wrote something new & exciting. Hmmm…!
First, let me tell you that the site has gotten just a teensy bit better, with the addition of two new pages: look up at the top, on the navigation bar, and you’ll see "Site Map" as well as "Knit Links".
Well, on Sunday evening (Sunday the 13th!) I finally cast on another pair of socks for DH.
The yarn is Lana Grossa "Meilenweit 6 fach" in a true solid dark green – his favorite color. I like doing toe-up socks, so I don’t have to bother too much with a gauge swatch or any math or anything. I figured I’d just increase until the toe was the right size, eh?
Dec 21
Both my sister and a college friend recently sent me copies of this Wall Street Journal article about knitting.
More specifically, it’s about "Sock Wars", where the idea is that everyone playing the game is an "assassin" and has an assigned "target". You are supposed to "assassinate" that person by knitting them a pair of socks, and then you send them to your target before your assassin sends a pair of finished socks to you.
Nov 28
Last night, Don said he had a “dangerous” question for me.
“Did you knit me another pair of black socks?” he asked.
I knew right away what had happened. After all, there are only two pairs of hand-knit black socks in the house. Yes, it was quickly confirmed that the black heavyweight socks I had made for me (Mission Falls 1824 wool) had ended up in his laundry pile, from there to his sock drawer, and from there onto his feet.
Nov 27
Every so often, of course, the subject comes up. Why (the expletive) would anyone HAND-KNIT a pair of socks?
One year, at my family reunion, I presented one of my brothers with a pair of obviously hand-knit socks, in his all-time favorite color – dark purple.
Oct 2
Is it just me, or does it happen to everyone else too?
Without fail, the handknit superwash wool socks come out of my dryer with hairs stuck to them.
At least it’s definitely our hair: my DH has dark curly hair, and I have longish red hair. Both of these end up being fairly obvious when stuck to a sock. (And it’s clean hair! because of course it’s just been through the laundry.)
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