Self-patterning socks for DD

Recipient: DD
Designer: Debbi Young
Pattern: Sock It to Me Plain Toe-Up Socks for the Family
Source: elann.com
Completed: July 14, 2006
Colours: 'Tropical', #9071, with 'Navy/blue' colourway for the cast-off
Yarn: Fortissima Colori Socka Color, 75% superwash wool/25% polyamid, sock weight
Completed status: She loves 'em!
Pictures:


(Don't mind the awful bruise on her left shin...I have given up trying to keep her limbs bruise-free. She's three. If you've ever parented a three-year-old you will know whereof I speak.)

2006-Jul-16

Ugh. Making the socks match was an excruciatingly tedious process, and I cut it very, very fine with the yarn, in some cases leaving only an inch or so of end to weave in. But it all worked out in the end and, to my delight, I have two socks for my wee girl made from the leftovers of this pair and a teeny bit from this pair, and they match each other, and DD loves them.

They are obviously a bit too long in the foot right now, but I'm not worried about that. I made them long on purpose so that she would still fit into them by the winter.

2006-Jun-9

I kept going on sock #2, and found that I came up about two rows too short with the amount of green-and-white yarn I had left. That's okay, though. The next segment of the colour sequence was blue, and I had some extra blue, so I did two more rows of blue than were worked in the first sock, and - tadah! - at the point the blue finished, the colour sequence was back to being identical to the first sock.

Flash forward to the heel (not pictured below), when I discovered I had the opposite problem with the red portion of the colour sequence - in this case, I had more for the second sock than I had for the first sock. However, I didn't bother trying to even it out because it's not that obvious. So I kept knitting until I ran out of yarn for the second sock.

Sadly, this is what the two socks now look like:



Yeah. Olive green stripe at the top of sock #1, no olive green stripe at the top of sock #2.

But...I have a solution! I'm going to unravel sock #1 down to about three rows into the olive green. Then I'm going to attach the other end of the olive green to sock #2 and knit about three rows with that. Then I'll keep alternating olive green rows on each sock until the olive green is almost all gone and the socks are attached by only a very short length of olive green, which I will then cut in the middle.

But I won't have finished the socks yet. Oh, no. I still have a fairly decent chunk of blue yarn attached to the beginning of sock #2 (since I had to start sock #2 at a very specific point in the colour sequence in order to match up with sock #1). There's probably enough blue there for several rows on each sock. So I'll do the same thing with that leftover blue as I will do with the olive - join one end to sock #1, knit a row, join the other end to sock #2, knit a row, and continue until the blue is all gone.

And yet, I will still not be done. Because I will still have to cast off.

For that I will be using some leftover blue-and-white yarn from this sock project. Same yarn, different colour. Since the colourway of DD's socks is very 'rainbow', the addition of a new colour into the sequence will not seem at all strange. There should be enough in this leftover length of blue-and-white to cast off for two socks.

Then I will be done. And DD's socks will be identical, and she will love them, and I will have used up all the Fortissima Colori Socka Colour yarn that MIL gave me for Christmas. And I will be very, very happy.

This is the theory, anyway.

Stay tuned for the practical execution.

2006-May-29

Sunday evening I announced to my daughter that I'd finished her grandpa's socks. She informed me that this meant I would be starting another sock. How well she knows me. :) However, it soon became clear that she was talking about the second sock of the Grandpa pair. "Oh no, sweetie," I told her, "I already finished the second socks. Both socks are finished! Now I get to start a whole new pair of socks!"

She considered this information, and then informed me that, this being the case, I should be working next on finishing up her socks.

Excellent point.

So I got out the first sock and all the remaining little balls of yarn, and started figuring out how I could splice and dice everything to make the two socks match. I think I can do it, but it will all depend on how much of one part of the patterning sequence I actually have. Right now I'm working my way up the toe and will probably have the answer to this crucial question before I get halfway through the foot.


It doesn't look promising at this point, but there's still hope. As always, stay tuned. (I know, I know, how can your nerves stand all this drama.)

2006-Apr-30

11 more stitches knitted. Say it with me everyone, "Whoop-dee-doo." This at least used up all the yarn in the current ball and brought me to the beginning of the next round, allowing me to put the sock on a spare yarn length and free up the needles for another sock. (Not the second sock of this pair, of course. That would be too responsible.)

2006-Apr-26

I've run out of yarn for sock #1 and only have about half an inch of ribbing done. However, I'm not panicked because, with the extra yarn I found, it gives me two balls for each sock plus a little extra. I'm going to use the 'little extra' to do more ribbing. But first I want to do the same amount on the second sock, and then we'll divide up the 'little extra' into two and push forward on both top ribbings.

2006-Apr-25

Just a tiny bit more got done on this over the weekend. I'm now a few rows into the top ribbing of the first sock.

2006-Apr-21

The further along I knit on the first sock today, the more nervous I got about whether I'd have enough yarn for two socks. I had just two small balls, and the hope theory was that each ball would make one sock. Sadly, in the car on the way home, I ran out of yarn on the first ball right after I turned the heel of the first sock.

Screwed.

I apologized to DD, told her that I didn't have enough yarn to make the socks, and that I'd make her socks out of something else. Fortunately she was pretty cavalier about the whole thing.

And then...when I went to put away the newly-arrived sock yarn in the 'fingering/sock/laceweight wool' boxes...I FOUND MORE OF THE SAME YARN FOR DD'S SOCKS. Two more balls! Each not too much smaller than the original two balls I had! Now I can so totally make her the socks. So I kept going.

(I am so jazzed by the cuteness of this tiny self-patterning sock)

2006-Apr-19

Cast on for these while watching TV last night. Still working on the toe. I'm using the yarn left over from my self-patterning socks, and unfortunately I have no idea if there will be enough for a pair for DD. But hey, you never know until you try, right?