Sunday, February 04, 2007

did i happen to mention...

sometime before christmas, while in s.f. for a work holiday luncheon, i walked to a well known knitting store to take a look see. while there i found madril's iceland washable wool in a chocolate brown, the perfect yarn to make my monk friend a scarf. while making the purchase, the woman behind the counter mentioned a newly released book which used this yarn to make a pair of men's hiking socks. my dream come true. so i purchased another ball of yarn, the book and off i went.

i cast on, using two circulars and started knitting. the ribbing was a cinch, the st st between the ribbing and the heel, no problem. the heel flap, ok. i thought to myself, this is going so quickly these socks will be ready for A2 when i see him next weekend. but then the heel turn came. a few rows into the heel turn and the instructions went a little vague. was the work to be turned or knitted till the end of the row? it wasn't stated. so i continuted knitting to the end of the row. it made the heel turn look a little odd. then i tried to p/u stitches. there were huge gaps in the knitting. this did not happen with the other sock i am knitting on size 3 needles. so i put the sock aside, missing the gifting date i had set for myself.

during the LYS holiday gathering, i brought the sock out for some suggestions. our master knitter said i had to knit back and start the whole heel flap over again. so, i un-knit it back to the start of the heel flap. started to re-knit it, but still had questions about the heel turn. took it back to the LYS at a tuesday evening gathering, where gisella, the sock guru, looked at the heel turn pattern and agreed there was something awry. she suggested the heel turn from another pattern. so i knit that instead. it looked great until i noticed that there were purl stitches on the knit side and knit stitches on the purl side. one of those knitting inside out in the round quirks. and the p/u stitches still looked a bit gappy to me. so i un-knit it again, bought an hour of gisella's time so i could re-do the heel turn and have her help me p/u the stitches for the gusset.

and it was well worth it. gisella went over the heel turn one more time; she showed me this great way to p/u stitches that produced no gaps and once again, i was off.

so here it is. my first finished sock. as i mentioned this sock is to fit a man with a size 9-12 foot so my foot doesn't quite fill the whole sock. and it is meant to be worn with boots. the yarn is quite chunky which makes it a relatively quick knit (i'll see if that prediction holds true while knitting the second sock!), and it is knitted with one size smaller of a needle then is called for on the yarn label. but it feels heavy and warm. and i am so very excited about finishing a sock! socks are what i have always wanted to knit. and now i have! yay! so on to the second one!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Congratulations on the first sock done!

David T. Macknet said...

You are so cool for doing socks. I've stuck with hats, because ... well, if they turn out to not have a particular shape, you can always give them to an infant or something. Socks, on the other ... hand ... er ... foot ... have to fit! And to match!

Some day I'll try.

Until then I'll look at yours & at teaandcakes' and ... just look.

Anonymous said...

From someone who has perpetually cold feet, I must say those socks look quite toasty! Well done on that!