having a great life in spite of everything

Oh I know, lots of knitters just looove knitting socks. I’ve knit a whole lot myself, but I definitely have a love/hate thing going with them.

The pros:

They’re generally straight-forward. There are some wildly complex patterns, but most socks have a fair bit of easy knitting combined with some interesting bits.

They’re almost a sure-thing gift. If the recipient doesn’t care for the color or style, they’re socks. They can still easily get use out of them, even if it’s just slouching around the house or wearing while walking the dog.

They’re a sure-thing for yourself. As long as you get even vaguely close in size, this is something you will definitely be able to wear. Not like that bulky-weight novelty yarn sweater you have stashed in your closet that you admire sometimes but only actually wear once or twice. Or the sweater that you ended up getting rid of so you wouldn’t have to keep feeling guilty that you never wear it (and it didn’t fit right anyway). Or the lovely wrap that you don’t use because wraps can be such a hassle. Etc.

Fine gauge means more knitting for your money. Generally, you get more knitting time out of finer gauges of yarn, and projects often cost less.

The cons:

They’re socks. Which will typically be covered up by shoes and pant legs, making it tough to show them off. It’s really not common that anyone is going to say, “Oh wow, look at those socks you’re wearing, did you knit those yourself?!” Come on, you know you want that to happen when you wear your own knits, admit it!

You have to make two of them. Which can be soooo tedious! Oh sure, you could use double-knitting to knit two at once on the same needles. Ha! It ain’t the fastest method, since you have to move both yarns back and forth between the needles for every single stitch—not too bad for some things, but socks tend to use a finer gauge and take long enough as it is. Using a method that makes it even slower doesn’t seem like the best solution to me. And god forbid you twist the yarns on accident, there is no way to fix that except to rip back to the point where they’re twisted; unlike a double-knit hat or scarf the socks will be absolutely useless if they’re joined together, so you have no option but to rip back, you can’t just let that one go or duplicate stitch over it to hide it. IMO, the best way to avoid second-sock syndrome is to knit both at the same time on two sets of needles, it’s faster than double-knitting and it ensures they’ll be just the same and finished at close to the same time. But still, tedious.

Fine gauge means they take a long time. Fine gauge has its own pros and cons, it costs less, but it takes longer. If you knit a lot, no problem, but if you don’t get in a lot of knitting time you may not want to spend your precious few hours on socks. You can use a heavier gauge and knit heavier socks, but you might get less practical use out of those (though if you like really heavy boot socks and wear them often, you’re in luck).

You’d better get the gauge exactly right. As they’re so small, fit is probably more crucial and exacting on socks than just about anything else you could knit. So you’d better swatch well. And you’d better be knitting at the same tension the entire time, too, if you relax more with the second sock you might well end up with a slight bit looser tension resulting in a larger sock.

And finally…

THEY’RE SOCKS! Seriously, what’s with the sock obsession? There are so many books devoted to them, websites, Knitty puts out several sock patterns in every issue, for crying outloud. Srly, you guys; you guys, srly.

Now someone come and club me over the head before I actually cast on these funky-fitted socks from Knitty. This was actually what spurred this entire rant, I know I’m going to end up starting them, and I’m going to hate them while I’m knitting them, too. Damn you, Knitty! [shakes tiny fist]

But hey, I can always find a use for them once they’re finished, right?

We all trooped up to Kansas for Christmas to visit my husband’s family—me, husband, daughter, and all three dogs. Thanks to ipods and audiobook CDs, the 10-11 hour trip doesn’t seem so bad, and having the dogs along forces us to take frequent breaks. I got to experience my first blizzard while there, wheee. I know I’ve been told, but boy, actually getting whipped in the face with snow and ice makes you go, oh, this really is very painful! Now I get it! Our stupid fake-SUV rental got stuck in the snow in a relative’s driveway (long drive on couple of acres), we just left it and BIL (with 4-wheel drive truck) drove us home. There was just no way it was practical to try to dig that damn thing out at night during a storm. The next day (Christmas) the sun was shining and it was very simple to get it moving again. 

Takeaway lesson: SUVs are really just silly, overgrown station wagons if they don’t have 4-wheel drive. Actually, I already knew that, it was really just a lesson reinforced, but if you didn’t know, now you do.

I was clever enough to take plenty of yarn with me, I finished a bag with a cable band top (pattern coming soon), a simple rolled brim hat, and I even started a lace shawl in a fingering-weight sock yarn. I decided to do another half-circle shawl, but with pi shawl increases this time. I started off with garter drop stitch, thinking I’d whip it all up in that and it’d be easy. As I worked on it, though, the bands created by the drop-stitch rows reminded me of tire tracks in the snow. Not a very lacy or romantic image, but when you’re trying to get around in a crappy fake-SUV that can’t handle snow at all, tire tracks in the street are a great relief, it decreases the odds that you’re going to get stuck again. So that inspired me to do a snow/Christmas-themed shawl.

After the increases on row 32, I switched to cat’s paw lace, reminiscent of the dogs’ paw prints in the snow. In the next section after the row 64 increases, I wanted to do Christmas trees, but hit a snag—all the stitch patterns I could find were worked from the bottom up, and I’m knitting from the top down. So I had to write a new stitch pattern myself, I’m working on that part now. I don’t know what I’ll put in the next section, I’ll figure that out when I get there. Maybe horseshoe lace? Or some metaphorical imagery like, dogs grumbling about having to go out in the snow to pee? Car stuck in snowy driveway? Kids overdosed on sugar? Ooo, I like that last one, it could be all spazzy and all over the place.

It’s up at last, the felted dollhouse! I think this one was worth all the trouble, but please please, if you try it and have any problems let me know, even if it’s anything very minor. I really want some feedback on how well this works out for anyone else, I’m a little nervous about it. The knitting part is relatively easy, but the felting and blocking was hard enough for me that I’m concerned about it. Although, admittedly, I don’t have lots of experience felting, maybe it’s normal to have to fuss with it. The photos do reveal my crummy sewing skills if you look close. Come to think of it, if I can make this thing turn out, it shouldn’t be that big a problem for anyone who knows how to sew.

Still, feedback please, if you knit it.

I’ve been trying to figure out a new cabling method, working a cable like a motif and starting it in the middle of a piece instead of from the beginning. So obviously you’d work a reverse stockinette background, then do stockinette at the start of the cable, but how would you start a second branch of the cable beginning from the same point? I picked up stitches for that from the back of the work, but I wasn’t sure how to write a pattern telling someone else to do that, and I was even less sure that it’d actually be successful for anyone else. I mean, it felt very like improvising.

I searched online and eventually found the solution in the form of Elsebeth Lavold and her book Viking Patterns For Knitting. And of course, her solution is to pick up stitches from the back of the work, just as I was doing. So, yay, my instincts were dead on! And then she takes it all further, so, yay again, I don’t have to figure out all these techniques for myself (whew!). I might have been able to do it, but it was going to take huge amounts of work and swatching. And I would have second-guessed it all constantly, that alone could have sunk the whole project. Sheesh, even with the help in this book I think this might be a long-term design project.

BTW, this book is AWESOME. It’s advanced cabling, and there’s a lot of stuff about the history of Viking art and cable design. If you want beginning knitting instructions or a book of patterns, don’t bother, this ain’t it. I’d say the best target audience here is geeky knit designers, or any serious cable knitters.

The results are in, shawls/wraps is the clear winner! Here’s a breakdown of how the votes went:

shawls/wraps: 31 votes (34.4%)
toys: 19 votes (21.1%)
scarves: 16 votes ( 17.8%)
sweaters: 10 votes (11.1%)
afghans: 7 votes (7.8%)
baby items: 7 votes (7.8%)

I have to admit, I’m a little surprised that toys came in second. But that’s good news, as I already have another toy pattern in development. Oh, which brings me to the admission that, unfortunately, there is no new free pattern this week. I’m working on a few new things, though, hopefully I can get the bugs worked out fairly quickly. Sue was the only person brave enough to make a specific request (lace patterns) so I’m going to come up with something just for her. Go Sue! Get on with yo bad lace knittin’ self!