Socks, socks, socks

Thought I'd share a few work-in-progress photos with you. As per the stated aim of this blog, I am designing a pattern, and if it turns out I will attempt to write it down and share it with the world. I figured that socks might be a good starting point, and since I did promise my husband 3 pairs of socks for Christmas, and have only delivered 1 so far, they seemed a perfect choice.


So, first step to peruse the stitch dictionary. At the moment I am borrowing the Barbara Walker from the QSW&FA library. I originally was thinking of a cabled sock, but these lovely patterns with rows of single travelling stitches caught my eye and I decided to swatch.

I really liked the ribbed cable with twisted stitches. The hourglass pattern I liked as well, but I decided to use twisted stitches for it as well, to get more definition. The stitches really stand up and almost tilt to one side. The little coin cable at either side of the swatch is deeply textured as well. I will definitely use it somewhere, but after measuring both the recipient's foot and the swatch I decided on the centre pattern (which is 2 pattern repeats of the hourglass pattern) bordered by a single row of twisted stitches with a single ribbed cable at either side. I am going to split the ribbed cables when I reach the heel and continue a twisted smaller cable down each side of the heel and either side of the top of the foot. I am figuring on a small amount of negative ease so that the cable pattern will stretch a little bit.

I cast on the 86 stitches needed and started with twisted ribbing (seemed appropriate and it looks great). Haven't had much time to knit on it yet, so the pattern hasn't taken shape, but that's the project for this week.

I figure if it works out the pattern will be easily altered for a smaller size by taking out either 1 or 1/2 of the centre hourglass pattern.

In other sock news, I am also knitting plain socks for Scott. These are handy public transit knitting as they are plain as plain can be. It's my first go at knitting both socks at once and I'm very glad I tried it on this pair because I loath this yarn. It sticks to itself like Velcro. I had to take out and discard the centre of both balls after trying to find the ends and use them as centre pull balls as they were so badly tangled. I think I would have given up after the first sock if I weren't doing them together. Saying that though, I don't mind how the pattern is working up and I did manage to make the colour repeats match exactly.

My last sock is hibernating at the moment.

(PS I can't figure out how to rotate photos in my blog posts. This photo was rotated the right way when saved on my computer but it reverted when I uploaded it here and I don't know what to do. Any ideas?)

I've made one and I can't decide if it's worth it to make the next. Not sure I like the pattern/yarn combo. It definitely doesn't show up the cable pattern to the fullest. However, I might be able to live with it.

To frog or knit the second sock?