Remember the Sanguine Gryphon Eidos yarn I picked up at Sock Summit (see my blogpost Why I’m a Spoiled Brat—#4)? I just finished working it into my favorite k3, p1 rib pattern along the leg and instep. I worked a standard heel with heel flap and gusset and, just for fun, I worked Priscilla Gibson-Roberts' short-row toe with a bind-off ridge on the top (this ridge is NOT uncomfortable in a shoe). I took advantage of the sun shining through my living room window to highlight the amazing colors in this "brown" yarn.
I also recently finished a pair of twisted rib socks. For this pair, worked in Footpath from the Wooly West, I used a tubular cast-on and worked a zig and zag near the top of the sock. I worked a basic heel with heel flap but for a little change, I worked the gusset stitches in the twisted rib pattern.
Being the spoiled brat that I am, I planned that both pairs would be for me. But I have a serious character flaw—every time I really like a pair of socks, I feel compelled to give it away. What is wrong with me?!
Don't forget to submit a recipe to get included in Friday's drawing for free book (see last week's blogpost What's for Dinner?).
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4 comments:
Both of your socks are gorgeous! That second pair looks flawless. I'm very jealous.
Have you looked at the "Knitting Traditions" magazine and tried the 2 socks at a time, one inside the other? It's on my list to try, but if anyone has tried such a thing I'm sure it would be you!
I've tried the two socks one inside the other thing and, as the saying goes, it wasn't all beer and skittles. I did the first 5" of a pair of socks this way, then gave up and finished them separately. This is what I learned:
It's very slow because you have to work with a separate ball of yarn for each sock and switch the yarns between the back and front of the work after every stitch. The "Ooooh" factor of the cute party trick doesn't compensate for how gruesomely long it takes to make socks this way.
If you accidentally use the wrong strand of yarn or fail to manipulate the yarns correctly, the two socks become stitched together. The only solution is to rip back across two socks' worth of knitting until you reach the mistake. Constantly checking to make sure this has not happened will also slow things down.
The arrangement I used had the socks one inside the other with their wrong sides touching, so the outer sock had its knit side facing me, and the inner sock had its purl side facing. If you have different knit and purl gauges, the socks end up different sizes. Luckily, I caught on to this before I got to the feet and I can live with slightly different leg diameters. I've since learned that you can arrange the socks with both knit sides facing.
For anyone who wants to try two socks at once, in addition to the PieceWork article I can recommend Kory Stamper's excellent tutorial from Knitty Fall 2006:
http://bit.ly/U7sQB
Thanks ever so much for the brown yarn love :-) It's so hard to photograph that it doesn't sell well, but we keep trying, because we really love the browns.
-Gryphon
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