Self-patterning socks

Recipient: Moi
Designer: Debbi Young
Pattern: Sock It to Me Plain Toe-Up Socks for the Family
Source: elann.com
Completed: February 21, 2006
Colours: 'Tropical', #9071
Yarn: Fortissima Colori Socka Color, 75% superwash wool/25% polyamid, sock weight
Completed status: I love 'em!
Pictures:

completed


'in action'

2006-Feb-22

Yesterday I finished them! And despite the fact that they look really silly when worn with a suit, I put 'em on while I was still at work. :)

200Sox will be getting wind of these, baybee.

2006-Feb-18

Got back into these last night. The heel has begun:


DH is very pleased that I am getting closer to having my own socks.

2006-Feb-8

Knitting continues - I'm a few rows away from starting the heel of sock #2.

2006-Feb-6

I don't think I've made any progress since my last entry, but I do have a picture:

2006-Feb-2

I finished sock #1 last night (I had to borrow a 3mm DPN from Megan at Lettuce to do the castoff, since I brilliantly left my bigger DPNs at home) and it looks great. It just so happens that the yarn started into a different colour right as I began the castoff row, so I've got this cool orange rim at the top of the sock. Love it. Pictures forthcoming.

I then proceeded to start sock #2, and am making good headway up the foot. I had to adjust the yarn a little bit a few times on the toe to make sure the patterning was identical to sock #1 - I think it looks great so far.

2006-Jan-29

Yesterday I was zooming happily up the leg of sock #1, and came to a knot where there had been a cut in the skein. Okay, I thought, no problem, that's annoying but I can live with it. At this stage in the game, it won't make a huge difference in my efforts to make the two socks identical.

Or so I thought.

Half an inch later as I came to the next colour change, I realised that the yarn after the join was variegating in the wrong direction.

I was pretty furious with the yarn company. That kind of mistake kind of negates the purpose and value of their product, doncha think? I had to frog back half an inch to the join and start again, this time from the outside of the skein. Plus, I first had to cut off a whole huge section from the beginning of the outside of the skein in order to continue the colour pattern properly on the sock. It was extremely annoying, and as a result I may not have enough yarn left over to do socks for my daughter, as I was originally hoping. It kind of blows.

On the bright side, I'm less than a row away from starting the top ribbing of the leg on sock #1:

2006-Jan-26

I progressed a bit this evening:

2006-Jan-9

I've had a few brief chances to pick this up in the last week or so. It has grown by about a centimetre. Woo.

2006-Jan-3

These have largely been abandoned for the time being, in favour of deadline-driven projects, however, on Monday we had my oldest and dearest friend over for lunch and DH made me show her the coolness of the self-patterned yarn...and I started working on it. (In my defence, DH started it - he was working on my scarf.) My friend did wonder why I was working on the sock when I should be panic knitting on my grandmother's shawl, but I explained that the shawl would take too much concentration to pay enough attention to her, whereas I could easily converse and work on the sock at the same time. And then tonight driving home in the dark I figured I would screw up too badly if I tried to do my grandmother's shawl, so I whipped out the sock again.

Result:


Heel is complete.

2005-Dec-27

It's amazing how fast sock #1 is growing considering that I'm putting so much effort into my grandma's shawl:


And I am loving. It. Ordinarily I would think that being entertained by patterned yarn bodes dire things for the sophistication of my intellect, but I know that I am not alone.

2005-Dec-26

I have no shame.