Once Upon a Sock – June 2018

Hello you fabulous sockers! How are you all?

Enough small talk, shall we get on to the matter at hand? Good, because I’m excited.

I left you last time with hopes but doubts that I would finish my seaside socks by today. It looked for a long time that this would be the case. The start of the month was spent working on a present for Himself. That out of the way, the socks returned into general circulation. I was plodding along as you do, thinking that I was still a way off. A lazy Sunday afternoon led me to think ‘I should try these on and see how they’re doing.’ We’ve all had that thought. Well it was a good job I did, I can tell you. I usually do a 50 row foot to fit my giant clown feet. At 38 rows, I was still a way off yet. You can imagine my amazement when I tried them on and found out I was only a couple of rows short! From then you’ll understand that I was a hive of activity. I’m not sure why I needed less rows for this pair. Yarn maybe? Could it be because I was making a narrower sock? Tension? I don’t know. Any answers would be helpful. It was a handy lesson about checking my length however. No longer will I blindly knit my foot without checking. I wouldn’t want to make my feet look any bigger now would I?

Anyway, they’re done!

Ta da!

My toes flew off my needles. I put this down to a combination of less stitches and an excitement to start a new project. Again, you know what I’m talking about. I should make a confession here and tell you that there is a mistake in there somewhere. A couple of k2togs missed and I needed to hastily repair the damage. This means one side of my toe is at a slightly different gradient to the rest. Luckily, I’m not sure it’s noticeable. Is it? I did think about undoing it, until I remembered that I’m unable to unknit. If someone could teach me, that would be super, but for now, I have to manage with making the best of the situation or ripping the entire thing out. Not something I was going to be doing half way through toes!

My Kitchener is coming on leaps and bounds. Don’t get me wrong, I still have to take myself off to a quiet area, lock the door and use a book AND a video, but I am getting better. Doing the two together makes it so much easier. I find that I’m a bit wobbly at the start of my first. ‘What the **** have I just done?!? Was that meant to be a knitwise or purl?’ And so on. Eventually I get into it. Just as I finish usually. But aha! I have another one to go! A closer inspection will always show that one is better than the other. I have of course included a picture of the better one..

As previously mentioned, I reduced the stich count of these ones to make them narrower. I was hoping that this would make them slightly snugger as they were worn and washed. I wouldn’t go as far as to say my others were saggy, just less springy than before. Manners cost nothing, and saggy is such an ugly word. Not only does a 68 stich fit, but I’m wondering if I could go down one more. How tight is good for socks? I’m not sure it’s ever something I’ve thought about, but I’m now up for experimenting.

Speaking of experimenting, my new pair are a bit wild!

Ok. When I say wild, I mean they’re not basic. I’m broadening my horizons. I’ll pause a second while I receive your whoops and rounds of applause.

Thanks very much!

I’m not sure where the legalities lie with this one. Himself has a couple of pairs of socks bought from a popular supermarket (starts with A, but isn’t Aldi). Every time I wash them I think, hmm, I could probably do this pattern. Here are the socks in question.

Technically, this is stealing, but as it’s a simple design, I’m not going to worry. I got to work with my graph paper and came up with the specifics.

Annoyingly I couldn’t make this pattern work with a 68 cast on, so I’ve gone back up to a 72. Damn and blast.

I decided on this pattern as I thought it might look a bit scaly. Like a mermaid, for my mermaid yarn. Remember this?

This is my sock yarn swap from Kat. (Did you all see her helical sock pattern by the way? They’re next in the queue for me.) As I’ve said before, this yarn reminds me of mermaids, but how to represent this in a pattern? Luckily I had the brainwave when pegging a load on to the washing line.

Here’s how it’s working out so far. I’m not sure you’ll be able to see the pattern. It’s a bit blurry, even in real life at the moment, but I’m hoping it’ll work out as it goes on, and even more when it’s blocked. Looking at it now, I’m not sure it’ll actually look fishy. Never mind.

There are some lovely colours in this. I get very excited every time I hit a patch of green.

Now I was slightly worried about this pattern. Apart from the fiddly bits, socks have been a wonderful way to relax and calm down. Would adding a complicated (for me) pattern in to the mix cause anxiety rather than tame it? I think the jury is still out on this, but what I can tell you is that I’m speeding along with them. I think it must be the concentration and counting involved, but my rounds and flying off quicker than normal.

I haven’t decided how long the leg will be on these socks. I think I’m just going to wing it. These socks feel very much like a ‘wait and see’ pair. I’ll let you know the particulars when I get there.

So I’ve told you they’re going fast, but how fast will they get done? Well I’ve got even more exciting news. The Gwr and I are popping to London next week for a gig. As is always the way with my birthday celebrations, there is always a great gig planned. It just happens like that. I’m also looking forward to getting to London again. I tend to feel that I need to get swept up and lost in that city once a year or I start to feel weird. I love mountains, and wouldn’t live anywhere else, but sometimes I need the feel of a big city around me. It’s been 4 years now. I’m positively twitchy.

Now, I feel like you’re the only people I can say this to. For us to get there, it means a 3.5 hour bus ride. That’s 7 hours return. Yup, I’m getting more excited about 7 hours straight knitting time. I’m practically giddy. What a loser. Luckily, I’m talking to like minded individuals. I know you’ll understand. With this in mind, I’m hoping to finish these pretty quickly. I’ll need to put my big girl pants on to attempt a heel turn on a bus, but I’m getting older. This is something that should happen. Personal growth etc.

Wow. This was a pretty hefty post. Relatively hefty. Hefty for me at the moment, where this space is being neglected again. Now I’m going to urge you to neglect me and go look at the other projects on the go. I’ll guarantee they’ll be much better and more inspiring than you could ever hope. Here’s where you need to go.

I’ll leave you with a picture of the little one doing what he does best – get in the way – while I toddle off in my new socks to my physio appointment. You have to look respectable when you get your bits out don’t you.

Go on then. Off with you.

Much love xx