Probably the "biggest" (in terms of the amount of time and effort they took to make) thing I finished over break were the Faceted Rib socks.



The pattern for these is in that "Box of Knitted Socks" box of patterns. (The box, I was a little disappointed in; many of the patterns are for heavier-weight yarns, which do not work so well for where I live because they are excessively warm). It is a slipped stitch pattern - two of the four pattern rows have a slipped stitch in them - so it is fairly time consuming (and also yarn-consuming) to knit. (I had less yarn left over than I often do with socks).

However, it IS a good pattern for a busy variegated yarn, as the slipped stitches prevent pooling. (But I still think I prefer the similar but different "Classy Slip Up" pattern - which I've also used - from the Knit Socks! book)

The yarn is Brown Sheep Wildfoote, in the color called "Sonatina." I bought this well over a year ago.

I also started a new pair of socks - the photo will come later, when I either figure out how to get a good "stretched" shot of the lace, or when I finish the first sock.

I went to the yarn shop while I was up visiting my parents. (Actually, I went twice). The first time I bought a skein of Fibra Natura sock yarn in sort of a burgundy and russet color combination. I asked the owner to wind the yarn for me, on the off chance I wanted to start the socks.

Well. Apparently the hank of yarn was miswound because the simple winding of a hank into a yarn cake turned into a 20 minute or so production, with each of us taking an end of the yarn and trying to untangle it on the skein. (I joked, "Maybe the guy who was supposed to wind the yarn into hanks, he had gotten fired and it was his last day on the job"). But eventually, we got it sorted, even if we did wind up having to wind it into a big 'softball' instead of a nice neat yarn cake.

And I did start some new socks from it. I bought Cookie A's sock book. I hadn't bought it when it first came out - none of the stores near me had it, and with the word "Innovation" in the title, I didn't want to order it sight unseen from an online seller. Because sometimes in the craft world, words like "innovation" are code for "I've developed some arduous new technique that I think is cool, and I've made up a few patterns in service of that technique." And I generally hate that kind of thing, being, in part, a traditionalist at heart. So I thought perhaps the book would have some kind of method that would make me groan to have to do it, and wonder why people aren't content to use the methods that people have successfully used for hundreds of years.

Also, some people who want to write new and different patterns tend to make things that are a bit impractical...I have seen patterns for socks and sweaters with large holes (like, 2" diameter holes, not the tiny holes formed in lace) worked into them. Which seems impractical for a sweater (you want it to keep you warm, right?) and uncomfortable for socks.

(I also wanted to be sure the book wasn't all toe-up patterns, though if I had looked at her existing free patterns online - they're all cuff down).

Anyway, I got to look at the book at a bookstore. And wound up buying it. Far from being some weird new annoying technique, it is just a book of fairly complex (mostly lace) sock patterns. She does describe extensively in the front how to convert "flat" stitch patterns for knitting in-the-round.

Also, all the socks are cuff down - which she notes she prefers, as the cuff and first inch or so of knitting serve as the swatch and you don't need to separately swatch. (There are a few patterns in the book with short-row heels, but I think it would be easy enough to substitute a flapped heel for them)

So I started the pattern called "Angee" (She has named all the patterns for family and friends). It is a lace pattern that puts me in mind of either blades of grass or cattail leaves. It takes some concentration but is not hard to do, and like a lot of lace patterns, you want to keep working on it, to see how it looks after "just one more row."

The next pair I want to make out of the book are called "Cauchy" (yes, after the mathematician, but really after a cat she had named after the mathematician). It's a simple knit and purl pattern that looks like inequality signs when it's done. I think it will look best of a solid or semi-solid colored yarn, but I have some of that.

I had said, going into the yarn shop the first time last week, that I wasn't going to buy any sweater yarn - I was happily working on Honeycomb and I also have a great many sweaters' worth of yarn "ahead" stored in my stash.

But then I saw this:



And I immediately pictured it as a button front, cabled vest.

So I went back and bought what I roughly estimate will be more than enough (that's 1100 yards there - actually, probably enough for a fitted, plain-stockinette pullover). But cables take up more yarn, and as I didn't have a pattern right in mind, I figured I had better overbuy.

It's one of those colors I love - it's not quite blue but not quite grey. It's one of the Cascade 220 tweed yarns - it has tiny flecks of red, yellow, and dark blue in it, and I think it will make a handsome cabled vest. If I can't find just what I want, I may even try my hand at designing from an existing pattern. I almost envision the vest as having the Homes of Donegal traditional cable-pattern on the front, maybe with a four-stitch cable on either side of it.

Of course, I'd have to swatch heavily for that, to figure out how many stitches I would need to make it fit. (And I really don't like swatching that much). I may still look around for either an existing pattern that is acceptable to my vision, or one with similar cables and swap out what I want to do for the cables in the pattern. I want a v-neck button front vest, probably with a ribbed-stitch button band, and then the cables on the front of the vest. (The back does not necessarily need to have them). It's funny, I rarely get this clear a picture of what I want from the yarn - much more often, I see a pattern I want to do and then go in search of the "right" yarn for it.