Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Up-Down Entrelac--Getting Started

I'm now about to tackle the toe-up socks in Sock Knitting Master Class. The first pair is Kathryn Alexander's Up-Down Entrelac socks (page 122), which are technically knitted both from the top down and from the bottom up.

These socks involve about a million colors (well, 30 to be exact) worked in a combination of stripes and entrelac. If I hadn't committed to knitting every pair of socks in the book, I probably would never knit these socks. I love the kaleidoscopic look of the colors but for years I've said that you'd have to put a gun to my head to get me to knit entrelac--all those ends and all that fussy knitting back and forth!

I decided that if I knit these socks, I want them to be every bit as sharp as Kathryn's originals. So, rather than digging up lots of mis-matched sock yarn leftovers, I ordered the yarn as a kit directly from Kathryn's website (you can see kits on her website, but you have to contact her directly to purchase them).
The yarns are so beautiful that I'm a bit reluctant to start knitting with them (maybe I'm just procrastinating the entrelac...).

5 comments:

Ann said...

I love Kathryn Alexanders designs.
Last year, I knitted her Sweater with a doo dad hem, and I felt like you. The yarn was so beautiful. It took me a long time to spoil the keins and start knitting.
The socks are also funny.
Good luck. I will look forward to see the result.

Peggy said...

One of my oldest unfinished project is the Kathryn Alexander shawl in Scarf Style. I hated the yarn, I couldn't deal with all the different techniques (I think it was my 4th or 5th project ever), and now I wonder if I could ever go back and resume. I may be scared off for life!

Shannon said...

Wow - that looks like quite the challenge! 30 colors!

Anonymous said...

I've been waiting months for this!

Malin said...

Entrelac isn't so fussy if you learn to knit backwards! Then you don't have to turn the project every 10 stitches (or whatever) I learned from a Knitty article.