Saturday is for Sock Knitting

Yesterday, our power was out. Yep, shut off from about 2:30pm 'til 10am this morning by PG&E, who did some sort of equipment upgrade at the local sub-station. So what's a girl to do when she has an unexpected sunny afternoon, no internet, & loads of sock yarn sitting about? Why, knit socks of course!

My original plan was to work on the purple lace socks I started earlier this week, but they have got me all tied up in knots, making me ask if maybe I'm just not cut out for lace knitting. I even colored in my chart all purdy, see? To no avail. I knit the first few rows of the lace pattern 3 frikken times & the stitch count was all FUBAR. I think the YO at the beginning of the row is what is giving me the headache. Damn operator error, I'm sure.

But it was much too gorgeous a day to let a little lace get me down, so I pulled out the yarn I dyed recently, 'Tarzhay Wannabe', and set to casting on. I was going to give the magic-loop & Judy's Magic Cast-on techniques a whirl, but they look way too fiddly for me. Good on ya if they work for you, but this chick is sticking to DPNs for now, & the provisional cast-on works just fine for me (although I had to look it up again 'cuz I haven't used it in awhile).

Instead of knitting this pattern as planned, I'm using Amy Swenson's Universal Toe-Up Sock Formula; I had such good results when I used it for my Wild Tide Socks, I figured I'd use it again. I already had my foot measurements plugged in, all I needed was gauge for this yarn; living on the edge as I do, I decided to go for it & assume my KnitPicks Color Your Own would knit to the same gauge as the BMFA Silkie Socks That Rock I used for Wild Tide.

While I had daylight, I finished the toe! And this is how I worked last night:

I was able to knit 4" by the light of the candles last night. The US1 needles are making a nice, dense fabric of this yarn, just like I like. I like a very tight fit on my socks, and I think my no-gauge gamble is paying off - just right!

My dye job is knitting up differently than I anticipated: the yarn is much more variegated than I expected. As you might recall from my dye post, I was anticipating nice bright, solid stripes, but these are more muted & a bit disharmonious; & I'm not sure I like the colors together due to the variegation. We'll see, maybe they'll grow on me. I mean, it's not like I hate 'em or anything. But I do want to work on obtaining more even color saturation for next time. What do you think?

Edited to add: I took another picture that better shows the variegation I'm talking about. And I must say, I'm really starting to love this yarn, this sock!

Tags: knitting, socks