Friday, September 10, 2010

Words I Thought I'd Never Say


I am finally tired of knitting socks. In the past two weeks I’ve knitted five pairs of adult medium socks and sample feet for four other sizes. I’m sure my saturation with sock knitting won’t last, but if I find time to knit today after I clean my desk, I’ll bypass my double-points in favor of circulars and cast on stitches for a triangular shawl (if I can find a suitably mindless pattern).

The first photo below shows socks with an 8" foot circumference in Quince yarns at gauges of (from left to right) 4.5 (Puffin), 5.5 (Osprey), 6.5 (Lark), 7.5 (Chickadee), and 8.5 (Tern) stitches to the inch. The second photo shows the feet only in Brown Sheep Lamb's Pride Worsted at 5.5 stitches/inch in size (from left to right) 9.5", 9", 7.5", and 6.5" foot circumferences.






Why have I been knitting socks like a fanatic? I’ve been under a self-imposed deadline to generate a toe-up sock pattern for multiple sizes (five) and multiple gauges (ten) for Quince & Co. Unlike the toe-up sock pattern (Working Socks from the Toe Up) I wrote for the Spring 2007 issue of Interweave Knits that features a short-row heel, this pattern looks like a “normal” top-down sock with a padded flap along the back of the heel and gussets along the sides of the instep. This pattern also includes stitch gauges in one-half-stitch-per-inch increments from 4.5 stitches/inch to 10 stitches/inch that gives enormous freedom for working with a variety of yarn weights and needle sizes. I plan to send the socks and pattern to the tech editor today so she can correct all my errors before the pattern is posted on the Quince & Co website. Stay tuned.

4 comments:

Nancy said...

All that in 2 weeks does sound like rather "enough" sock knitting for a while. I, for one, am grateful to you for doing it and writing up this pattern and the process - can't wait to try a pair!

AnniesArtifacting said...

Ann,
Regarding your son being away for the summer...
I would have cried like a moron, and been in a nutty slap happy daze for the whole time my child would've been gone.
I don't know how you made it through a summer and were still able to function with him away.
Blessings to you, him, & your family...
And through it all you got so much done... You are AMAZING!
Every time I read your blog entries, I wish more and more that I lived closer to you.
You are a very inspirational and loving person, you do know that don't you?

****Oh, having trouble with my email...
Thanks for the yarn!!!****

Yes, it's Anne-from PA...
And it looks like 20 total students in the regular class for the township, and I have another 61all set up in groups of 6 to 10 from all over my county, and 12 that are coming from a different county...
Can you believe that???
I guess I won't be having enough time for "self pity" in the next 3 months...lol.
Keeping the schedule straight is gonna make me loony though. GRIN!
My father stepped up to the plate though, he's going to drive me to every single class, and take me home after, if Stephani can't.

The really great part is that I circumvented the school district, the township and anyone else that was giving me problems.

I paid $10 to set up a table outside our biggest Farmer's Market here and gave out info, my name and numbers, and talked to probably over 600 people 2 Saturdays ago... I gave away little things for kids, and spent the day crochetting and spinning...it was better than the "Step Back in Time" day!

Blessings to you and your family!

And tell anyone who helped with the yarn, that I feel very blessed and honored by their donations!!!!

You ARE NOT a spoiled brat!

Anne

PS. Keep spinning when you have time...just got the books back Saturday-you should be selling a bunch of them really soon... Everyone that looked at them, wants one. And, I expressly forbade any copying of patterns. They could make something for themselves with the books but no copying. And, as they all have come back in almost perfect condition(I can tell when I binding has been forced into a copier-duh-how would I have made enough copies of the patterns I need for the classes but to copy-I wrote and got all the designer's permission too) (=

AnniesArtifacting said...

Anne
Looked in on Quince yarns today...

I emailed them for help, I have a fairly lacy pattern (crochet) that Stephani picked for her birthday...

It's a sweater/coat that's shoulder to floor in length, and the pattern calls for Berroco Suede yarn...but I don't like that yarn for crochet-it twists.

I think Their yarn named Tern, in just about any of their colors is gonna be the ticket, but I need to be sure before I spend that much money... Because of what my parent's have done to Paul's pay, we are down to only $400 per month for food...but one good thing has come out of it. I've lost 50 pounds mainly because I rarely eat, and my "type II diabetes" seems to have just gotten better...
Then again, the docs wanted me on a 45 carb a day diet or less, and I think I'm down to 10 or less carbs per day.
That's one of the reasons that I have to be sooo careful with the money that I spend.
My mother would give it to me-the money, but I refuse to ask her for anything, I just can't.

Love and blessings!

Anne

Anonymous said...

I really enjoyed this (free) triangular shawl pattern: http://feministy.com/traveling-woman/

The first section is stockinette, the first lace pattern is really quick to memorize, and you just keep repeating the first one until it's as big as you want, then add one repeat of the slightly fancier lace. As written, it's more of a shawlette.

I liked this so much I made two as written, and am considering making a larger one.

--Anna-Liza