Inside-out comfort socks
Recipient: BIL#1
Designer: Debbi Young
Pattern: Sock It to Me Plain Toe-Up Socks for the Family
Source: elann.com
Due: December 25, 2007
Colours: Tweeded red, white and blue
Yarn: Unknown - to check
Ungiven status: I hope he likes 'em!
Pictures:
- 2007-Dec-1
- Done! Finished last Sunday.
- 2007-Nov-23
- Finished off the top ribbing on the leg today and cast off. I had DH (whose feet, as you may recall from previous descriptions of my detective work in this area, seem to be slightly longer and possibly thinner than his brother's) try it on. Alas, it was too long, although otherwise a good fit. I needed to remove six rows to make it fit DH, so I figured removing eight rows would be good for BIL. So I was faced with the prospect of cutting part of the foot and grafting it back together.
Most unfortunately, I decided to get fancy and graft before cutting. I thought this would make it easier. It did not. Once I got to the cutting part I found it was extremely hard to figure out where to cut, and I also found that some of my grafting had spliced some of the strands I was supposed to be getting rid of. All in all, it was an unmitigated disaster and I went through a fair bit of Grafting Hell before getting back on track. I now have one completed sock (although ends still have to be woven in).
- 2007-Nov-19
- I ripped back what I'd originally done on the leg, and the heel, and then ripped back the foot to the correct starting point for the heel. I then did the heel a second time, and re-started the leg. I'm now working on the top ribbing.
- 2007-Nov-9
- My BIL#1 and MIL visited last weekend (yes, I hid both of their knitting project presents), and while BIL was distracted, I checked out his shoe size (8). Then I got DH to come over and try on his brother's shoes. The verdict is that BIL's feet are slightly shorter than my husband's, but also a touch wider. So I did a calculation about how many rows the heel would take before the turn, how much length that would work out to, and then figured out that I needed to start the heel shaping when the foot was about 8" long, based on the fact that I knew my husband's feet were 10.5" long.
Last night I turned the heel and was happily working my way up the leg when the subject of my husband's feet being 10.5" long came up.
"Where did you get that number?" he asked, surprised. I told him that I had measured his feet some time ago, and memorized the number.
We brought out a ruler. His feet are actually 10 inches long.
(insert your choice of expletive here - I was certainly thinking them all)
So I will be ripping back all the leg I've done, the heel, and some of the foot, until it's about a quarter- to a half-inch shorter than it was when I started the heel shaping the first time.
Grumble grumble.
Farewell.
- 2007-Oct-27
- A number of months back, my elder BIL was hanging out at our place, and I happened to look at his socks. I noticed pretty quickly that they were inside out. When I mentioned this to him, he was completely unsurprised, and revealed that he does that on purpose. That way, the smooth, comfortable stocking stitch side of the socks is touching his feet. Naturally I was instantly inspired to knit him a pair of socks where all the ends were woven in on the stocking stitch side, so that he could wear them with the reverse stocking stitch facing out without the socks looking so blatantly inside-out. In the summer I found some terrific sock yarn that I thought he would really like, so I decided to make him some "inside-out" socks for Christmas. This week, I started them. I am knitting them inside-out. No way am I going to purl an entire pair of socks.
They do seem a little big to me so far, though. I'm going to compare them to some of DH's socks to see if I need to rip back and stop the toe increasing earlier.
Labels: bilsocks
