Finished my Lorna's Lace's bee stripe socks last night. They came out really cute, I think -- check then out here.

So I decided to start socks for my brother Dave for a Christmas gift. My brother has size 14EEE feet, so I figured I'd make his socks out of sport weight yarn so I wouldn't go crazy knitting humungo socks out of sock weight. I had purchased some sport weight Regia on eBay.

I learned two things.

1. I love my Pony Pearl dpns in size 0. Love love love 'em! I hate my Pony Pearls is size 2. Hate hate hate 'em. Tips are wa-a-ay too blunt. This doesn't seem to matter in size 0. It matters deeply in size 2.

2. I am an idiot. Well, to be more specific, I pulled an idiot bonehead move when I bought BLACK sportweight yarn for these socks. I very quickly realized that knitting socks in black wool was something I was not willing to do. My eyes aren't up to it.

Conclusion? I cast on some Regia jacquard sockweight on my size 0s. These are NOT going to be knit for size 14EEE feet. I'll have to figure out something for Dave later. In a lighter-colored wool!

(Hanging my head in shame) no fair isle progress to report. I didn't even pick it up. I got home late, due to a mandatory appearance at a Function at Work, and then had lots to do.

Function at Work was kinda interesting. An awards reception. Yeah, I got an award. Li'l ol' me. Along with a bunch of other people in the Department of Labor. There were only three of us from my agency -- me, my office director, and the head of our agency. When it cam time for the photo op, I was told to stand next to Elaine Chao, the Secretary of Labor. When we get the official photo back in about a month, I'll scan it for my website, provided it's not too heinous a picture. The Secretary of Labor is very photogenic. I am not. But the photo will impress my parents.

8.15.2002
Thursday - More Sock Talk

Thanks everyone for your thoughtful comments about how and why you make your socks the way you do. It's very interesting to me to hear how others do things.

I personally always make my socks toe-up and do a short row heel. Making the same sock over and over is boring, but that's what I'm looking for. I knit socks only while commuting and sometimes during my lunch hour, while I read a book or sit with a friend. I need something mindless, hence my generic sock.

Sock tips

For toe-up socks, if you find the figure-8 start a little too fiddly to deal with, try a short-row toe. Do a provisional cast-on of half the total number of stitches around you want your sock to be, then make what essentially is a short row heel. You will go down to as many stitches you need to make the toe as pointy as you need. For example, on a sock of 60 stitches around, I do a provisional cast-on of 30 stitches. I short-row down to 12 stitches, then back up again. Then unzip the provisional cast-on and divide the total stitches over your four needles. On the first round I might pick up an extra stitch at the points between the provisional stitches and the "live" stitches, if it looks like there might be a hole there. Then decrease those extra stitches on the next round.

If you find a short row heel is too shallow for your instep, consider making the heel over 60% of your stitches, rather than 50%.

You can make your short row heels a couple of different ways. You can wrap the stitches as you short-row down, then pick up the wraps and knit them together with the wrapped stitch on the way back up. You can also double-wrap them -- both on the way down and on the way up, and knit both the wraps together with the stitch.

Or, you can short-row without wraps, then on the way back up, pick up a stitch in between the last live stitch and the stitch you are about to knit, then knit it together with that stitch.

If on toe-up socks you have problems with your bind-off being too tight, try Elizabeth Zimmerman's stretchy sewn bind-off. Or, if you are doing a pattern that has a ribbing band at the top, on the last row before you start your ribbing, increase evenly around the sock -- I'll increase from 60 to 72 stitches, then do a 3x3 rib, then bind off loosely in rib.

Fair Isle Progress

A little progress -- here is is.

8.14.2002
Wednesday - Sleeves and Socks

Happy Wednesday, bloggers. It's supposed to hit three digits in temperature here again today. Yikes. Good thing I had all my hair cut off! Thank you everyone who complimented me on my new hairdo.

And Izzy thanks you for all the nice things you said about her. I gave her the night off last night, so today's progress photo, here, is cat-free. I've got the sleeve more than half done. Yippee!

Question for you guys. What's your favorite sock heel and why? I've been doing a short row heel because I think it looks nice. I'm thinking about trying a peasant heel on my next pair of socks -- anyone have any opinions of that?

I bought a sock pattern from someone on the Socknitters list (her name escapes me right now and I don't have the pattern handy) called the "Renegade Sock." Anyone tried that yet? It's supposed to be a heel technique that is completely different. The pattern is 7 pages long and I haven't read through it yet. Maybe I ought to shut shut up and read the pattern, eh?

But I would like to know what your sock heel preferences are!

8.13.2002
We interrupt this knitting blog . . .

 . . . to bring you my new haircut. Here are the photo of my new do, front and side:

Serious masses of hair were cut off. I could have used one of these:

But enough of this silliness. Back to knitting.

Thank you to everyone who commented on the beauty of my knitting supervisor, Isolde. It's a good thing she's always there, checking my work.

Not a great deal of knitting progress, due to the time used in getting the aforementioned haircut. But here is my sleeve progress.

Yesterday Caroline asked how I pick up stitches around the armhole -- I pick up between the edge stitch and the first pattern stitch. Here is a close-up of the picked up stitches. The body of the sweater is at the top of the photo, the sleeve stitches that were picked up and knitted at the bottom of the photo.

8.12.2002
Monday. Of socks and steeks

Just in case you wondered if anyone ever wears the socks I knit, here's proof:

Totally unrehearsed.

Kate is knitting toe-up Opal socks right now -- they look great!

And here is a photo of my fair isle progress. As you can see, I started the second sleeve. Which means I cut open a steek. And as promised, I created a page with photos of the process. My Steek Page is here. You might notice that Izzy was there supervising the whole process, as usual.