On and Off the Needles August 10, 2012

I finished the socks for my quilting friend, Joanne.  I had one complete last month and needed her to try it on before I finished the other one.  I will see her tonight for our monthly Friday Night Quilters meeting and they are ready to go home with her.  I used Knit Picks Stroll yarn in Parlor Multi.  It knits up nicely and wears well.

I used the Simple Skyp pattern, free on Ravelry.  The pattern is not very visible but I am hoping it will show up more after a few washings.  I already washed them once in the machine in a net bag with a color catcher in the bag.  There was no color on the color catcher.  I did dry them flat on a towel

I am finally starting a toe up project.  I am using this book.

I used the figure eight cast on-pretty easy.  The only problem with this book is that it is all about technique.  They do not give the stitch number needed by size or stitches per inch or needle size.  I started the socks using a #1 needle, smaller then I am used to.  I used the number of stitches given in their example which is supposed to fit MOST women.  Well, I have small feet and after about 4 inches, I could see that the sock would be too large-I like them snug.  So I unknitted most of my work and started with less stitches BUT foolishly changed to larger needles #3.  What was I thinking???  So now I have unknitted again and gone back to the smaller needles.

I wish I had read Judy L's hint about using waste yarn so you can just rip out instead of unknitting.

Judy L says :For those who have never had to use one, a life line is some kind of waste yarn (it’s the orange string you see in the picture) that is pulled through a row as that row is knitted.  Then if I have to rip out, I can rip back to there and the waste yarn stops that row from being ripped.  I can then pick up those stitches and go from there.

So, it is a little start but I think they will be fun socks.  The yarn is Chocofetti from play at life fiber arts on ETSY.

Check out the other needles too!