Knits

Now that Christmas has past, I can post about the socks I knit for my boyfriend. I’d only knit the one sock previously mentioned before I embarked on making him a pair of socks for Christmas. I’ve also never knitted anything for anyone other than my sister. Okay that’s not entirely true, I knit that giant cat for my friend.

Anyway, I am not one for plain patterns really. I actually had a hard time finding a ‘manly’ pattern that wasn’t just ribs. I came across Lonnie’s Sport Socks by the very lovely Becka. Lonnie has much larger feet than my boy so I was a bit apprehensive about how to go about resizing. I left a comment to say thanks for the pattern and I hoped I could sort things out with the pattern (as my previous experience with a free sock pattern was not good!).

Becka invited me to email her with my questions so I did. And my what a kind woman she is! She wrote back pointing me to two very helpful sock tutorials and rewrote parts of the pattern for me. I had already cast-on and was happily knitting away knowing I was going to make the leg longer than stated in the pattern. I ended up ripping out what I’d done (about 3- or 4-inches of work) because it was obvious that the sock was going to be too baggy for my skinny boy’s leg. I re-cast-on and away I went. With the help of the tutorials and Becka’s thorough instructions, I managed to adjust the pattern as I needed.

I am really pleased with how these socks turned out. I never thought I would love knitting socks, but I do. I know I’ve only knit a total of three socks, but I loved it! I have already purchased more sock wool to knit myself either Jaywalker’s or maybe even Pomatomus. Because I had such a problem with the pattern with the first sock I knit, I am likely going to rip that one out and start again as the author left such a bitter taste in my mouth, I don’t want to knit its mate anymore. I don’t think I have enough wool of the green wool to knit either Jaywalker or Pomatomus, but I’ll find something.

Things I learned with this pattern:

• Twisted German cast-on (PDF) - This is similar to the long-tail cast-on, but my what a nice, stretchy edge it makes! And neatly too. I’ve now decided this is the best cast-on for brim-up hats as well because of the stretchiness of it.
• Using 5 DPNs - well I’d had some experience here and it wasn’t pretty. I did pretty well this time around although it is still a bit obvious where the joins are because they are on purl stitches and my purling is in serious need of practice.
• Adjusting patterns for a better fit - this is pretty easy with socks. We’ll see if I can eventually knit something like a sweater and have success there.
• Don’t knit where you might be caught by the knitee because you might lose a needle when you are trying to quickly hide things!

The details:
Yarn: Natural dye studio Luxury sock wool in Ruby Plum
Needles: 2.5mm Prym bamboo DPNs (and the last foot of sock 2 I had to use a 2.5mm aluminium needle)
Tension / gauge: unknown (e.g. too lazy to measure)

Maybe the next pair of socks I knit I will do at the same time.