Wool For Brains

It would appear that I was wrong in saying that the socks I knitted for my son would get no wear. He did wear them on and off and then (as I predicted) one wandered off and lost itself and that was the end of that. He had a new bed last week which meant that we moved all his bedroom around, vacuumed bits of carpet that have not seen daylight for five years and found the missing sock. I knew that they couldn’t possibly still fit but he was determined to wear them and proclaimed them to be a perfect fit. They weren’t but I promised that I could fix them. For anyone else that knits socks for people with growing feet, this is a quick fix to extend the socks.

First check that they can get them on and that the foot negotiates the heel. If they are too tight in the cuff then they are officially too small for this fix and are doomed. (You could investigate whether dropping a few stitches Clapotis style would give you enough ease but you’re on your own with that) If they can get them on but they are too short in the heel to toe section then the following will work. Cut a thread in the body of the sock in a plain bit, somewhere between the end of the gusset decreases and the start of the toe decreases and unpick it around until the toe falls off (this demonstrates that what you tell them about picking at their toes is true, pick it and it will fall off). Get them to try the sock on again and check that it does fit in the cuff and around the heel – if it doesn’t then this won’t work, just unpick the sock and reclaim the yarn or graft the two pieces back together and find a smaller child. If the body of the sock does fit, measure the gap between the two pieces of knitting and write it down because you won’t believe it later. Pick up the stitches around the body of the sock, knit for the appropriate length (the green stripe on these socks) and then graft the toe section back on. It is a good idea to check that there are the same number of stitches in each section before you start and I wish that I’d thought of that. Check that this one fits then make another to match.

The piece to be added in is far longer than you would perhaps expect. If you think about blocking a scarf you can choose to have it long and thin or wide and short, but not both. The foot is growing both in length and circumference although we only tend to notice the length change because that’s what forces the purchase of new shoes. The new piece of knitting needs to be much longer than the change in length of the foot because the increase in width of the foot is eating up some of the length of the sock. If I hadn’t taken the photograph that showed me the gap then I would have stopped knitting the stripe much sooner (it can’t possibly need to be THAT long) and then they wouldn’t have fitted. Now they do and I may need to rethink my position on knitting socks for children because it may be worthwhile after all. Next time I would make the cuffs a bit longer to allow for them shortening as the ankle widens and I might put a few more stitches in the body of the sock than I would otherwise have done so they are not quite as snug to start with but last longer before they become constricting.

It’s not that I enjoy cutting up socks, but it is much faster than knitting new pairs.

I am still wielding the pointy needle. The evidence, one new knitting bag, now with added handles (it’s not for me, it’s waaay too small). I wasn’t ever going to get around to making more yarn to make the icord handles so I bought some from the selection at the Wool Baa. The purchasing process went along the lines of: “I need some handles for this”, “How about these?”, “They’ll do”. You can’t really see that the bamboo matches the golden tones in the body of the bag because the bag is hidden by the socks. The ugly socks are hiding at the back, they have now had all the ends sewn in and are really finished as opposed to cast off. I’m not going to look to see how long they have been waiting around for me to do that but in the time it’s taken me to do a bit of sewing up I’ve knitted nearly four pairs of socks. The purple holiday socks are also finished, with the ends sewn in. I like these because I started them in the car at Scarborough, I knitted them on the beach and turned the first heel at Center Parcs. I look at them and think of holidays. The ring marker is hanging at the start of the calf increases, when the husband’s legs come home from work I will have the opportunity to see where his calves really are. I just made it up in the knitting and although they look fine on I have the feeling that I’ve not got the shaping in the right place. If these are to be the new standard sock then it’s worth taking the time to get it right.

The V necked cardigan is still in progress. I think there’s a back here, maybe a bit more. This is the last wool shot, the next time you see it will be when it’s on the needles. Those of you with suspicious minds may think that could be tomorrow but just this once I’m going to do the right thing and make all the yarn before I start knitting. This is less to do with common sense and virtue and more about balancing out the colour variations in the yarn. I’m dyeing it in small batches just so that it isn’t all the same and the last thing I want is to run out, dye more and then have one sleeve that is less random than the rest. Part of me is saying that this is a load of phooey and that as it’s coming out nearly solid anyway there will be no noticeable difference. That’s the part of me that is saying not to bother drawing out the sleeves or the neckline, we’ll sort that out when we get there. If I hadn’t been bitten once before I might just cast on and set off but I am sometimes capable of learning from past mistakes. When I made the demon sweatshirt I worked out all the easy bits and left the shoulder shaping, neck opening and collar “for later”. What actually happened that I knitted along until I got to the part that needed more thought and then stuck the lot in a bag for a few months. I know that was nearly two years ago but I don’t think I’ve changed that much. If I start with the bits I like and leave the boring bits for later, the boring bits will still be there when I’ve run out of wool. This time I will have the whole garment planned before I cast on, I will not write critical parts of the design on loose bits of paper and lose them and I will write down what size needles I’m using just in case there is a long pause in the knitting and I recover the needles to use on something else.

I think last time I promised there would be some actual knitting content. I have been knitting, the socks are longer (the lace isn’t) but I have spent more time with a single needle with an eye than with multiple needles. I think we have identified that I’m not big on the actual finishing of things so this weird sewing jag that I’ve been on must have been because I’ve not been well. It’s either that or a sign of alien possession or something else straight from the X Files. Having to unearth the sewing machine to make the back for the cushion cover turned out to be a good thing because I needed to make a hanging pocket for the new high rise bed. The big pocket is the right size for a comic and the small one is designed for the remote control for the dimmer switch (is there only me in the world that didn’t know that there was such a thing as a remote control dimmer switch?) The bed manufacturer does make a hanging pocket but mine did not cost me £25 as everything I needed was already in the house. Admittedly I did run short of the last 2″ of Velcro but as I begged that from my mother that doesn’t count.

If that wasn’t enough I then changed the sheets and vacuumed upstairs, did the ironing and made myself this. Here is the promised knitting content – look, there’s a sock in the bag. Laura made one and I copied hers, this is the protobag and it is a little bigger than I need for a sock, bag number two will be about as deep, the handles will be wider apart and it will be of smaller circumference. I should by then have finished fighting with the sewing machine that woke up from its five year sleep in a bad mood (why is it that when the tension goes loopy it’s never on the side that you can see as you’re sewing?)

Woollen project details – Noni evening bag made from most of one ball of Cascade 220 in some dark purple colour (no, I don’t get any better about keeping ball bands) and about half a ball of 220 in lilac. I made three lilac flowers and then overdyed one of them to make the plum colour. I didn’t fancy my chances of making green leaves starting with lilac yarn so those are white BFL sock yarn, held double and dyed green. I didn’t do any of the beading, I put off going to the bead shop on three successive weeks and when I did get to a craft shop that sold beads they didn’t have the right colours. I just wanted it finished and now it is. I blocked it over the guinea pigs’ food canister which turned out to be exactly the right size although it provoked much excited squeaking followed by disappointed muttering. I blocked it a second time by soaking the top and pinning it with spring clothes pegs to shape the fold on the top.

The cushion cover is hand spun merino/silk, (previously shown in pieces) woven on the 4″ pin loom that my husband made for me, washed aggressively and then oversewn with a ginger aran. I think I would have been better sewing the squares together before washing them because the fulled fabric was difficult to hand sew. I didn’t do this because I was worried that there would be some differential shrinkeage on the seam and I’d end up with a puckered mess. I can get that effect on a sewing machine, I don’t need to hand sew to do it.

The Noni bag is done, or at least I’m done with it. I need to sew the bits together but I don’t feel like it right now. It is my turn for the stinking cold that the husband brought back from France and I don’t feel like doing anything at all. I’ve had days with no knitting, there was nothing in the world I wanted to knit so I didn’t. I would have said that I’d not been knitting at all but that is clearly not the case. There’s no-one else in the house capable of adding inches to the latest striped sock so it must have been me. I like it, I would have liked it more if it had fitted me but it looks like being a mother sock. That’s what you get for just casting on a few more stitches to offset for the stranding pulling it in a bit. Those who swatch get socks that fit, the rest of us just find a foot that fits what we chose to knit.

I did make a start on the second of the Trekking socks. I made a cuff, perfect in every way except that it should have been a toe. I am just thankful that I switched my brain back on before I reached the heel. It did cross my mind to keep knitting and make the second sock in the other direction but that was doomed. The first sock had calf shaping so that little cufflet didn’t have enough width to match the first sock.

I have the Honeybee stole on the needles but that’s staying in a bag until I feel more like making the effort. That’s all I have – two pairs of socks and a bit of lace. I know I intended to empty the knitting bag in preparation for the V necked cardi but I won’t have the yarn for that for weeks yet and I’m running out of things to knit. (If I felt like knitting, which I don’t) I suspect that when my nose becomes my own again my return to the land of knitting will be marked by a fit of startitis.

I will no doubt be back next week with some actual knitting content, in the meantime here is a filler of some seasonal produce.

This is one of the things I’ve been spinning whilst pondering on the shall I/shan’t I of the V neck cardi. Let me concentrate on the positives. It’s superwash, it has twinkly bits which did not run all over the house and form part of breakfast, the two colours of green look lovely together and it should wear really well because it has nylon in it. The two socks should be an obvious (if not matched) pair as the green stripes will fall in the same sequence even if they don’t fall in the same place in each sock. The other side of the coin is that the colour of the dark green reminded me of pan scourers, I found it hard to get a thin and even single and it was no fun at all to spin.

I do not like it on the floor
I do not like it near the door
Nor when it’s plied
Nor when it’s dried
I do not like it Sam-I-Am
I do not like green eggs and ham.

The husband does like it so it has a future as socks which will probably be indestructable and live forever to mock me every washday. It is quite a bit thicker than I would normally make for socks and so bigger needles will be in order. I’m still not utterly convinced that there’s enough of it but I shall deal with that when the time comes (the contingency plan is to work toe up, with contrast heel and cuff in purple if needed)

(For those of you who have not been exposed to the delights of preschool reading, let me tell you that when you have to read the same book over and over and over you memorise it without any conscious thought. If “Green Eggs and Ham” has not been drilled into you then you can read it here but it is far better with the illustrations)

My shop cardi has been smoothed out and measured (no photos as it is black and in need of a wash) and I have the pattern for the back written as far as the shoulder shaping. I’ve spent the afternoon looking at how a set in sleeve works and it’s not as difficult as I have always thought. Dropped shoulders are now out (they are easy to do but make me look like a sack of spuds) and set in sleeves are in. I would like to thank Marjorie for telling me that the Vogue Knitting Ultimate Knitting Book covered sleeve design. Amazon swooped in with a copy on Monday and if I never look at any chapter other than the one on designing it will have been money well spent. By the end of the week I should be able to bore for my country on the subject of sleeve design. It’s possible that it may turn out to be as interesting as sock heels. (I know, how can this be true?)

This is the first in a pair of husband socks. These are toe up, 72 stitches with a heel with a gusset. I had intended to knit this heel but as I went on holiday with no pattern, no internet and no idea what to do that plan was shelved. What I did was measure the new sock against another sock that had been knitted cuff down. When I reached the point in the new socks where the gusset decreases ended on the old sock I knitted a normal heel flap and pick up around the edges, just the same as I would have done if I was working cuff down. My reasoning was that when you pick up on a heel flap you are picking up one stitch for every two rows and when you decrease on the gusset you are decreasing one stitch on every two rows. The length taken up by the gusset decreases on the old sock should therefore be the same as the length of the heel flap. It worked because I got the heel in the right place at the first attempt (always a challenge for me when working toe up). The thing I was uncertain about was what the heel turn would look like worked in the other direction, it ends up looking like a heel so that’s good enough for me. I can’t believe that I can get away with doing this, it seems just too simple but it bends in all the right places, is not ugly and it fits. This may now be the new standard husband sock, working toe up should mean that I can make them a touch longer and use a bit more yarn (I should have 20g left over from the pair). I did put a bit of calf shaping on this pair although it’s not in the same place as his calves (it’s at the back but not high enough up. At some point I’ll measure the husband’s calves to check where it really needs to be)

These are the latest pair for my mother, Cherry Tree Hill supersock, 64 stitches, no gusset heel. I started these at Center Parcs so for me they will always be the Center Parcs socks. As a result of having a new set of scales I am weighing everything that doesn’t move and I was taken aback to find that the leftovers from this pair weigh 48g. With a contrast heel I’d get her another pair from this skein. That would go some way to explaining the mushrooming of the leftover pile because I have not been making her two pairs from one skein. I have been making one pair and sticking the “bit” left over on one side.

Why am I so keen on how much yarn is leftover? I am still on a mission to keep the pile of leftover sock yarn under a kilo. I know that I’ve recently knitted three pairs of striped socks but it wasn’t enough. I was hoping to have got the heap down to something more respectable by now (at this point I would be happy with 900g) but it is still hovering just over the kilo. I have done my share of spiral stripes, I’ve done feather and fan spirals and Monkey spirals, I’ve done cabled spirals and textured waffle spirals. I need a little break from that spiral pattern but I can’t bring myself to knit eight row stripes from cuff to toe. The latest sock is exploring fair isle as a variant on stripes (although I reserve the right to return to spirals later in this sock if the fit takes me). I’m really hoping to finish some of those balls off this time. I think all over the blue/greens are now on their third sock as they have survived from the 72 stitch spiral green waffle sock that was supposed to use up the green leftovers and didn’t.

Thank you for all your thoughts on the blue yarn that is now probably going to be a sweater rather than socks. I left the ball on the dining table where I could look at it several times a day and it doesn’t look too electric and I have the fall back of overdyeing the completed thing in navy if it doesn’t work out (thank you Carie for that idea). I haven’t spun any more yarn to go with it yet but that’s because the wheel has been busy with other things. Fickle, that’s me.

The cardigan I planned for myself whilst floating around in the pool on holiday has vertical bands of colour, a V neck and dropped sleeves, three biggish buttons, side slits and a seed stitch border. I have a cardigan in my wardrobe styled exactly like this in my usual colour choice (black). What I don’t want is to end up with a “you knit WHAT” project, where the colour is just too much. I want a wearable item not a clown suit (so not at all as I’ve drawn it then) but my traditional cardi colour choices of black and grey did come about because they were part of my working wardrobe. Mummies at home do not have a dress code so I can now wear what I like. I just don’t want to run the risk of stopping the traffic that’s all.

I had hoped that the colours in the yarn would darken from those in the fibre and that’s what happened. I’m still not sure whether the blue is still sitting a bit on the electric side of comfort. Ask me again in five minutes and I will have had the chance to change my mind again. I have 300g in this colour, although the next 200g is slightly more purple it is close enough and because of the vertical stripes it doesn’t matter if the colours are different, in fact it would be a good thing. I think that I would like this more if it were more navy (darker, plainer) than it is now but then I run the risk of losing the colour changes that are there. They are subtle enough already, any more subtle and I’d end up with my usual “put hours of effort into it to make a solid” production.

The reason that I ended up with over 300g of fibre all the same colour was not because I set out to start a sweater. I intended to dye 100g for a pair of socks but when I came to weigh the dyed fibre to split it into halves there was only 80g. This does not a pair of socks make and I was not happy, especially as I’ve done this once before and I’m supposed to be capable of learning from my mistakes. I dyed the 200g of bfl silk that I had in similar colours with the intention of getting three pairs of socks out of the lot. So unhappy was I with the results of my weighing that I did the thing I’ve been talking about for months and bought a set of more accurate scales. These will weigh 500g in 0.1g increments and they will be just the job for dyeing. The next week the batteries died on the kitchen scales and after I’d replaced them they weighed the fibre at 100g. That would explain why it was that my recent weighing has been so dodgy but my cakes have still been rising.

I can now decide I like the yarn and start knitting or I can overdye it with a small amount of navy and see if I like it better. At this stage this is just a 50g sample so I have a third option, to ditch the whole project and make the rest into socks. There are other options, I could make the cardi with something like Trekking sock yarn or Kauni Multi Effect but I haven’t really recovered from the shock of buying yarn for the Noni bag (BUYING yarn, me, when it usually drops off the back of a spinning wheel). Part of the reason that I’m a little stuck is that when you dye-spin-knit you have limitless possibilities, I can have my sweater yarn in any thickness, any colours and I can choose whether I have short colour changes, long ones or something tweedy. I just have too much choice. For someone with a perfectionist streak this is not so good because you spend so long dithering over making a yarn that is absolutely perfect for your plans that you never get to the knitting stage. The key thing is to reach the stage of good enough and then stop. I think this may be good enough, I certainly think it deserves the chance to be a knitted sample. (Would you believe that the postman brought me the perfect prop to make the yarn cake face into the daylight, Fleece Artist sock yarn from Deb, with some swirly beaded stitchmarkers)

I am continually told off by my husband for my poor photography (and congratulated for actually getting a shot in focus) I know my problem, it’s not that my subject is fast moving but that I continue to take hand held shots in poor light even though I know that they never come out very well. The British summer is to blame for the poor lighting conditions but the wobble is down to me being too idle to find and set up a tripod. It would also help if I’d ever read the manual for the camera. The side issue is that I don’t think about carrying a camera and as a result many ideal photo opportunities pass me by. Am I bothered? Not really. We went away for the weekend and there were the potential nature shots of the many photogenic squirrels (although I didn’t spot the one in the tap shoes who was performing a daily routine of excerpts from “Riverdance” on the roof in the grey hours of the morning), there was the romantic shot of glorious late sunshine reflected on a lake with the wavelets in a dark brown and a silhouette of a duck (the swans were all busy posing for the people who had cameras), there was the action shot of the shrieking children splashing in water that was not quite warm enough for me although I did manage not to shriek and the comedy shots on the golf driving range. I don’t have photos of any of that. My holiday shots are closer to my personal norm.

This is the white shetland that I was spinning last week, plied on Friday after I’d unpacked and was waiting for the boys to arrive straight from school. I have three bobbins that have 124, 126 and 128 yards and a whopper at 200 yards (I’d stopped measuring fibre at that point). The shetland will be reappearing later when it’s dyed and dried but for now I’ll say that it pleases me greatly. One of the things I’m pleased with is the consistency on those three bobbins given that this I spun this quickly (it’s for a cushion cover and my definition of “good enough” for that is much lower than for socks).

This is what I started to draft and spin while I was away and the boys were fishing, the fluffy blue is bfl, the scrunched up blue is bfl and silk (that will be equally as fluffy once predrafted). It is possible that this may be the start of a sweater, I spent some time planning it while floating around in the pool and I know what it will look like but I’m not sure if the colour (which I love to bits) is one that I would wear. I tend to favour plain and boring greys and blacks for sweaters but I have no wish at all to dye,spin or knit those colours. It’s possible that the yarn will look much darker so I’m making a 100g sample which may end up as sock yarn after all. If it doesn’t magically darken my other option is to show the finished yarn a touch of navy dye which would darken it to something I’m likely to wear but could also lose the subtle colour changes that I was aiming for. The decision tree can branch no further until the sample is plied and dried.

It’s not often I pack up the wheel, so I didn’t know that once folded it is the right height to stand up in the boot of the car and wedge under the parcel shelf. (a photo of the packed boot of the car would have been mildly amusing, if I’d thought to take one. Golf clubs, fishing rods, barbeque, spinning wheel, Wii, we had it all). I did also take my knitting. The blob of lace is six pattern repeats long now which means that in 20 rows I get to turn the page on the pattern and start something new. The sock on the left went on holiday as a ball of yarn and needles, the first sock is now near the toe shaping. It is my last ball of Cherry Tree Hill from my big spending yarn days (those would be the days before I started spinning) and although I’m sad to see it go, its time has come. The sock on the right is my favorite, for several reasons and it deserves a post all for itself. I have learned a new toe up heel, it’s easy and It Fits. This could well be the start of a new standard husbandsock.

Thankfully the buttons were not lurking under the settee as I feared so I was able to finish this without having to wait for the filters on the vacuum to dry, reassemble it and do battle with the six weeks of crumbs that are under the settee. This is the baby bog jacket from Elizabeth Zimmermann’s “Knitting Around” which will fit an 18″ chest. I think the top button will be decorative, I’m not sure but I think that I’ve set it too high to be able to close it without choking the baby.

There is one thing that I did wrong and although it’s only a little thing it is bugging me so I’ll tell you about it. When I came to do the shoulder shaping I did what I thought it was telling me to do and the stitches I was slipping formed an unattractive (to my eye) line of stockinette on what up to that point had been the right side of the jacket. I had three options, live with it, rip it or change the right side to be the wrong side. I went with the third choice and the stockinette line now appears on the inside. What I didn’t stop to think about was that when I cast on I had made sure that the right side would be the most appealing after the icord edging was attached so that the edging would run right up against the first ridges. Now it doesn’t and it runs up against a ditch. The attractive top border is now the wrong side and slightly less attractive although equally decorative border at the bottom is the right side. I said it was only a little thing, it’s not nasty but it isn’t as good. It’s not the effect that I find annoying so much as that I carefully worked out what the best border edge would look like, maintained that as the right side throughout most of the knitting and then cast it aside when I came to deal with the shoulder shaping. If I had thought through the implications I would have done a bit of nifty work with a crochet hook and had the slipped stitches appear on the other side of the fabric.

Spongebob’s hat was really a bag, I had hoped to show it in a more advanced state but it’s currently only semi-felted. The handles are done nicely but they are not the most exciting thing in the world to photograph and the rest of it needs to lose a bit more stitch definition with another trip through the washer. We are away for the weekend so I can guarantee several loads of washing on Monday. There has been spinning too, that’s also not terribly exciting – it’s white shetland so just imagine some bobbins with white wool on them and you’re there.

I did have this idea that I would knit an adult bog jacket, complete with short row sleeve and waist shaping, phony seams and all the other bells and whistles that you can add to the basic jacket. That was until I made the baby bog. The first seven inches of plain garter stitch on 160 stitches taught me that I do not have the staying power for the adult version. I have had a bit of a garter stitch phase but I’m over it now. I think I was over it after about five inches of this. It has been difficult to explain what it was that I was knitting although it was always more identifiable as a garment than the baby surprise. It’s when you start moving your hands around and saying that this bit HERE opens up and goes the other way and then grafts onto this bit HERE and then….well the glazed look around this point stops you going into detail about the imaginary collar. At least the shoulder shaping looks like what it is, even if there are no sleeves apparent at this point.

Here I’ve folded down the top bit of the knitting (in cream) so that it’s the right shape. You knit along and then work in waste yarn where the sleeve/front seam will be (just the same as for an afterthought heel). When you’re done, you open up the waste yarn so that there is a line of stitches above it and below it. (The right side of the top photo shows the gaping hole that results from this). The top line of these stitches go outwards and join to the last row of knitting to become the sleeve seam, the bottom line of stitches fold inwards and join with the last row of knitting to make the fronts.

This does involve grafting in garter stitch which gave me an interesting learning experience. I can graft lace if I really have to, I once did an amazing job of grafting cables and moss stitch to put afterthought pockets in a cabled jacket (long story short – I backed myself into a corner due to poor planning, a big cone of yarn and a reluctance to break it to make the pocket linings that I’d forgotten to make before I started the fronts) but I have never grafted in garter stitch. I didn’t give it the thought that it deserved and I paid the price. My first graft looked ok at first glance, until I snugged it up and it became clear that I had a perfect line of fifty stitches of reverse stockinette. It wasn’t too bad on the right side if you were on a galloping horse and not a knitter but on the wrong side there was stockinette where garter should be. I did contemplate a three needle bind off at this point but persevered. The problem is that I am conditioned to grafting sock toes and if I don’t concentrate I will fall into a natural (and wrong) grafting pattern that feels right but isn’t. I made myself a deal that I would have one more go, on my own with no distractions and if it still went wobbly I’d resort to a three needle bind off and a quick finish (needed in case the yarn for the next project goes stale). I had the laptop open at this page and it all went swimmingly.

It isn’t finished yet but it is now a recognizable object. It needs the icord border and buttons and then I can call it done. The cream that is hanging there is attached to my last row of knitting which really seems such an odd place to finish. I think there’s probably enough yarn there to get me around the edge, there’s certainly enough for me to think it’s worthwhile to try for it. If I knit really quickly then maybe I’ll manage it.

I may have started the next project slightly ahead of finishing the jacket, I was going to model it as a hat but it’s too small for me even if I did have a rectangular head. It’s a bit small for him too but at least the shaping is good. It will be back, the other way up, next time. That will probably be the end of the week as we are returning to a school schedule this week and I have some major tidying up to attend to. I still have some school clothes to buy too but let’s not think about that.