Sunday, October 28, 2007

Almost to the end...

This is the progress on my Socktoberfest sock. I'll consider it successful if I finish one of the pair by Wednesday! I'm thinking it needs about two more inches of color, and then half an inch or so of black ribbing to match the heel and toe.

Unfortunately, I am not completely happy with the way the yarn is knitting up. It's 100% superwash merino, very lightweight. I made a feeble attempt at swatching and got 8stitches to the inch on US 2 dpns. As I started knitting the toe, it seemed large, so I switched to US 1s for most of the foot. It fits, but I think I am stretching the yarn too much, which of course distorts the fabric. So, for the leg, I went back to US 2s. I have some modifications in mind for the second sock...perhaps re-reading the Yarn Harlot's generic recipe would help! I'd rather not frog this one, but we'll see when I get done with sock #2. I should have plenty of yarn, which is a small blessing :-)

Another contributing factor is the length of each color. You can see how the black kind of lines up in sections, but the orange and purple are always single rows, which lets the other stitches show up too much, if that makes sense to anyone!

Oh, and to make matters worse, I have huge holes where the short row heels join back to the main sock! grrrr. I know there are suggestions online for preventing that...more research before sock #2!

Edit: Ravelry is wonderful! I did a quick search for the yarn, and someone else was making socks with it. I much preferred hers, of course! So, it looks like my Halloween socks will wait ANOTHER year. I need to rip these out, find a matching weight solid yarn for the heels and toes, and start again on size 1 needles. Oh joy. I think I will dig into a Rockin Sock Club kit instead ;-) Obviously, I am not ready to venture out on my own into the wild world of sock design!