Tuesday, June 19, 2007

Socks 101 - Remedial and Beginners Classes

I've written before about having some difficulties with my gauge for socks recently. At the moment, my poor lovely Horcrux sock (from the Six Sox KAL), which was formerly past the heel turn, is totally frogged and awaiting a second chance at becoming a wearable object.

Remedial
While I was in San Francisco, I worked diligently at keeping a good tight tension on a sock, and it's looking good. This is OnLine sock yarn I got from Little Knits last month; it's nice yarn and my friend Lisa's suggestion to use ribbing on the leg and the top of the foot is making me feel better about getting a relatively durable sock from this. I think these are US1 needles.

Beginner
And then, in spite of my warnings about being sock-challenged, my dear friend Madge asked me to teach her to knit socks. We've been working through the stages - cast-on, heel flap, heel turn, gusset - on and off for a couple of months, and today we *finished* the first sock, Kitchener bind-off and all. Woot!! Madge is a terrific pupil, and for a very first Kitchener, she was awesome: it looked great with nearly no snugging-up required. Look at those great Kitchener'd toes!!

So - here's Madge's first finished sock, in the blue; mine is the red one. We used worsted weight yarn and size 4 needles/dpns. Our second socks both need a few more rows to get to the toe decreases, but they're right on track, and we are both really JAZZED!!! Plus - our socks *fit* us!!

Madge and I are signed up for a class in Toe-Up socks from Cookie A, to be held July 5 at my favorite LYS, Unwind.




And, for some fun, I snagged this from my online friend Curlerchik:

Your Power Element is Wood

Your power colors: green and brown

Your energy: generative

Your season: spring

Like a tree, you are always growing and changing.
And while your life is dynamic, you are firmly grounded.
You have high morals and great confidence in yourself and others.
You have a wide set of interests, and you make for interesting company.

6 comments:

Cindy G said...

Way to go Madge and CBM! Rockin with the socks!

Madge said...

Hey, look at our awesome socks! Yeehaw!
Thanks again for being such a great teacher, CBM.

I finished my second sock tonight; blog post tomorrow. And I only messed up the grafting once, when Tom was pestering me unmercifully. (so mean, to make me slip purlwise when I should have slipped knitwise)

I really like how your OnLIne sock is working up - yay to Lisa for the ribbed sock suggestion. Fingers crossed this means your sock gauge curse has been lifted!

Sandra said...

You are going to love the toe up - it's my favourite way to do socks. What kind of cast on are you going to do - turkish toe or provisional cast on ans short row? (Go for the Turkish Toe!)

jayne said...

I agree that there is a peculiar pleasure in getting the sock thing just right. And once you get there, there's no turning back.

Joan said...

What a great teacher you are CBM! BTW another easy toe to try is star toe from Nancy Bush's book. I'm using that on my Monkey Socks.

I don't prefer toe ups bc I don't like a short row heel and doing that turkish co is just as much as a pain as kitchener. But it's good to know how-to.

benne said...

Barbara, I just loved reading about your trip to SF and meeting Lisa and Marie and M. It sounds like you all had so much fun! I have never been to SF in an official, on the ground, shop the fiber way, but now I'm plotting some way to get there. ;-}
The socks are great! Congrats to you and Madge for getting that sock mojo working. I'm going to try socks. If you get a package full of DPN's from me, you'll know frustration set in and I mailed off the needles before I snapped them in two. HA!