Socktoberfest 2006 Conclusion

In the month of Socktober I managed to finish 3 pairs of socks (Moss Stitch/Cables, Aran Braid and Anastasia socks) and 1 single big ass sock (Thuja), start a sock in a fiber I've never used before, and write a lace sock pattern from scratch. Not too shabby, eh?

I've yet to actually knit an entire sock in the pattern I made, but I've swatched it in the round and I'm rather pleased with the results. It was really fun to make the lace chart for it in Excel using a knitting symbols font created by Aire River Design. I'm really quite anxious to knit the first real sock, but since they'll be for me and not a Christmas gift, I feel a little guilty about starting them when I've got so many more gift socks to churn out.

Here's the fiber I've never used before. There's a picture of Carolyn's Greenwood Fiberworks cotton\lycra sock yarn all balled up in yesterday's entry. After taking some more pictures of the yarn today, I realized why Carolyn's Great Pumpkin color is way different than mine--when this yarn is photographed with a flash, it appears exactly as it does on her site--much much brighter in color than it really is. But again, I prefer the real color anyway, so I wasn't even remotely disappointed.



It's really is weird and lovely stuff-- very very stretchy because of the filament of lycra that runs thru the middle and which makes it all scrunchy when it's unstretched. It's also very very soft, too. When it's all stretched out, it's fairly smooth. It took me a few minutes to figure out how much tension I should be using to knit this into a fabric I liked that wasn't too hole-y looking when it was stretched a bit.

I like it best at 9 spi. I'm getting this gauge using size 1 needles. It's only a little pebbly-looking--much less so than you'd think by looking at the yarn itself. Here's the beginning of a toe up simple stockinette sock I'm making for my sister. (Turkish cast on, oooh yeah.) She's got feet like canoe paddles (long and very wide), so I cast on 68 stitches. I'm not feeling much like experimenting with any fancy stitchwork on these--eyelets are probably all that this yarn would show well and I'm not in the mood for any more eyelets after cranking out the Anastasia's.