At The End of My Yarn

The knitting of my bobble-less Ruby is still flying by. Both fronts rushed by, and I cast on the back last night. According to the pattern it’s essentially the same as the fronts but knit together with the shaping reversed. However, it does mean I have to pay attention, because the cable twist changes direction depending on where I am in the row, hence the bright pink stitch marker in the center.

Also still working on my co-worker’s beach cover-up, but as that looks like a peachy-pink mesh fishing net at this point, I’ve spared you all the photographic details. I’m about sixty percent done, I’d say, so I’ll let you all see it when I’m done. I mainly crochet on that at work so I can make the recipient try it on for me. Ruby gets knit when I get home.

Started my Ruby last night. I ended up using the light green Vintage for the simple reason that I turned out to not have enough of the purple Ella Rae. The purple would probably be more striking, but this is growing on me. It’s a serious quick knit, due to the cables and lace that repeat every few rows. Short pattern repeats always seem to go by fast for me. Good thing, because I need it by the end of May. I can do this!

The original pattern has knit bobbles centered between cable twists, but I’ve never been a fan of bobbles and definitely don’t want a row of something resembling a bit of anatomy marching down my front. It’s probably just a flaw in my techniques that I have to keep manually popping my bobbles to face the front of the fabric. An inverted bobble is not an attractive thing in a sweater. In the version knit for McGowan-Michael’s website they look lovely, especially in the red yarn. They remind me of knit roses running down a trellis.

The pattern itself is well written, at least as far as I can tell at this point. I’ll let you know how it goes.

I have so much left to learn. Reading through The Knitter’s Book of Socks by Clara Parkes (check out The Knitter’s Book of Yarn and The Knitter’s Book of Wool while you’re there), makes that all too clear to me. She’s given this way more thought that I could ever muster.

“A sock is a work of wonder. No other knitted garment has as many structural demands or endures as much wear and tear. The humble sock must defy gravity, suffer the confines of our shoes, and endure being trampled on all day long.” See what I mean?

This book takes us through the life of a sock from the fiber the yarn is spun to the sock the fiber becomes. We start with the basics of spinning sock yarn, starting with fiber, discussing different types of wool, cotton, nylon, tencel , (regenerated cellulose), and others. As most sock knitters know, finding a sock yarn with nylon helps to keep the sock together and gives the knitted stitches strength to withstand the punishment they deal with every day. I’ll be honest, Clara doesn’t seem like such a fan of superwash sock yarn, aka wool yarn that won’t felt in the wash, but I adore it. I’m way too hard on my feet to knit socks that I have to hand-wash each time, And quite lazy. I don’t sort my laundry as carefully as I should, which leads to a load for clothes, including hand-knit socks, and the separate load is towels (and/or dog blankets and afghans if they need it. If I were a better person, less true to my nature and less in love with superwash sock yarn, I’d wear my socks to the bath like the Yarn Harlot does (or did, I’ll admit it’s been a while since I properly read through her post archive so she might not still be doing that) . However, since I am a bit lazy and thoroughly myself, I’ll knit my socks out of superwash and toss them straight in the laundry. Draped to dry, no clothes driver in my house (too small), and they seem to do just fine. Of course, reading any Webs or Ravelry yarn review will tell you that even if a yarn says it’s superwash, it may still felt, which makes it a bit of gamble. Unless you’re looking to make a pair of Kitten Mittens, no judgment here). If you are ordering sight-unseen or haven’t used that yarn brand before and come to find that when you hang up your socks to dry and the fibers in the yarn have meshed together and shrunk considerably due to the minuscule scales in the yarn that have joined together. Or so in love with a colorway that you hardly checked the label on the wrapper. I’m only human!

Non-superwash has a certain charm , though. I particularly enjoy a sock yarn when it’s tightly plied and bouncy with a bold dye. I just won’t use it for socks. I think people have a tendency to stick to what they know, and struggle to think outside the boss with yarn, which leads to many an adult-intended sock to become fit only for a child. My favorite sock yarn is Regia from Schachemayr for the inventive colorways and bullet-proof nature of the yarn.

The Knitter’s Book of Socks then goes into astonishingly detain on the process of spinning sock yarn itself, then the specific knitting techniques used to knit on as tight a gauge to prevent the stitches from sliding against one another and wearing out quicker (especially in the hard-working heel and toe). Next up comes the patterns, carefully curated from expert knitters like Cat Bordhi and Nancy Bush. I’m going to have to knit Nancy’s socks. You know how I feel about her.

“Most people have an obsession; mine is knitting. Your hobby might be pie-baking, playing the piano, or potbelly-stove collecting, and you can sympathize with my enthusiasm, having an obsession of your own. Will you forgive my single-mindedness, and my tendency to see knitting in everything?” -Elizabeth Zimmermann

The opening paragraph to Knitting Without Tears sums up Elizabeth’s philosophy perfectly. Last weekend I found myself at a local used bookstore and came away with a serious haul. I went to look for new material, went to the craft section, didn’t see anything at first. Then Elizabeth caught my eye, followed by Clara Parkes, Charlene Schurch, Beth Parrott…for less than a full tank of gas. You know I have a weakness for Elizabeth Zimmermann anyway, so I was delighted to find this.

The biggest thing that I appreciate about her works is her writing style. I’ve read most all of them, and she has such a conversational style that following along with her logic is incredibly simple. She’s certainly opinionated, but you’d be hard-pressed to deny that she knows her stuff.

Knitting Without Tears takes us through the basics of knitting, from fibers (she’s definitely biased towards wool, but she also refers to every type of yarn as wool, which is right in line with her English heritage and the year the book was first published, 1971), to needles, gauge, stitches, and patterns. To that point, in her section on different knitting needle materials she mentions walrus tusk! which I’ll admit threw me for a loop. I thought she was joking for a section, until I read further. She’s got a sense of humor that comes through in her writing, but I’ve never known her to make that kind of joke. Shes does call it “…pure boasting to mention these.” I haven’t heard of walrus tusk needles before, and according to her they are curved “as the tusk from which they sprang.”

One of her most ardent points is how much she dislikes purling and drafts her patterns specifically to avoid it. I don’t have such a strong problem with it, but if she chooses to use a garter stitch border for a hat or other circular garment, she will knit back and forth and sew the ends together rather than resort to purling. Having said that, she will use purl stitches in her textured aran sweaters, such as the January sweater from Knitter’s Almanac. I would rather purl than sew an extra seam, but to each their own.

Speaking of sweater patterns, this book contains organic instructions for color-worked Norwegian ski sweaters, patterned yoke sweaters, and the garter-based hooded jacket, the Tomten.

“There is no right way to knit; there is no wrong way to knit. The way to knit is the way that suits you, and the way that suits the wool and the pattern and the shape you are currently working on. Show me any ‘mistake’ and I will show you that it is only a misplaced pattern or an inappropriate technique. There are patterns that include dropped stitches and twisted stitches. There are projects which should be as tight as you can possibly knit; there are others where you have to relax to the point of lethargy in order to make them loose enough. I’ve not yet found a pattern which includes a split stitch; this is the only real mistake I know. ” What do you think?

Knocked out my Gold Diggers. For the most part, I’m pretty pleased with them but i did run into the usual issue I have with flap heels. There is something about the construction that just does not lend itself to fit my feet. The excess fabric just bags around my ankles. The whole point of knitting my own socks, as I’ve always been given to understand, is that they fit much better than commercial socks. Getting to buy colorful sock yarn is just a delightful bonus.

I guess it’s the way most flap heels are constructed. Half the stitches are used for the flap itself, which are then worked back and forth for the height of the heel. In most cases the bottom of the heel is turned with short rows, then the gusset stitches are picked up from the perimeter and decreased evenly until you are down to the original stitch count and you continue straight for the instep and bottom of the sock. It’s useful because by the time you have decreased your gusset stitches, you are more than half-way done with the foot, unless you have particularly long feet.

The heels on the Gold Diggers are a riff on the usual flap method, as you increase for the gusset on each side of the heel, then decrease for the bottom of the sock. Honestly, while I was knitting them I thought about changing to a full short-row heel, which I find fits my foot much better. However, since the pattern come from New Directions, I figured it would be missing the point of the whole book if I swapped a new heel for an old heel. Road less traveled, that sort of thing. Thinking on that, though, the Yarn Harlot swaps heels all the time, and since she’s a million times more prolific as a knitter, it must be a good thing.

I wonder if it would make a difference if I changed the rate of decreases for the gusset to make it come to a point much quicker, so there is less fabric to bag? Maybe? I’ll have to try that next time. Or just bite the bullet and do a short-row heel.