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Thursday, July 12, 2007

The Inevitable Sock

Yes, I have jumped on the Jaywalker bandwagon! I couldn't help myself! After knitting miles of stockinette stitch for the boy's mondo socks, I couldn't tolerate doing another plain sock. Doing so would cause me to stick my itty bitty needles into my eyes.

Since I just adore toe up socks, I didn't follow the Jaywalker pattern precisely. For starters, I started at the toe instead of the cuff. Meet my friend, the Turkish cast on. It produces a much better result, and is much easier, than the fidgety figure 8 cast on I was doing for past socks. See how clean it looks? No seam! I also didn't have to tighten stitches or untwist stitches by knitting through the back loop. So. Much. Easier. When I did my first pair of socks, I literally spent 3 hours trying to do the figure 8 over, and over, and over. (I am nothing if not stubborn!) Much swearing was involved and the boy had to hear about the f*cking figure 8 for the rest of the night. So, thank you Turkish cast on.

Once I increased by enough stitches to fit my foot, I started the signature zig zag Jaywalker pattern.

Right now, I think I want to knit a heel flap when the time comes. I could do another short row heel, but I get bored easily

Hm, what else can I tell you about this sock? Well, I'm using 2 size 0 circular needles, the yarn is Tofutsies, I started by casting on 28 stitches, and I finished increasing at 76 stitches. The number of stitches I ended up using for the foot happened to be the same number of stitches in the original pattern by happy accident. Even if it wasn't, though, it would have been easy enough to modify due to the symmetrical knit stitches on either side of the increase and decrease stitches. Oh, and I feel a need to point out to you that Tofutsies smell weird. Not good. Not bad. Just weird, like something is burning weird.

In other news, Fifty got a little session with the Furminator today. The Furminator won! I thought about spinning her hair, but who am I kidding? I have 3 pounds of alpaca and some Mingus fur in the spinning queue.

4 comments:

  1. I love the pink!

    do you have issues with your tofutsies being splitty amd coming unspun? I did and maybe its the way I knit.. when I had to add a new 1/2 ball for the very end of my socks I tried to see if I could start from a different end to get the fibers to be spun in the opp direction but I didn't seem to be able to..

    I loved the yarn otherwise but the splittiness drove me nuts!

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  2. It's a little splitty, but not as splitty as the bamboo yarn!

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  3. well the socks certainly look great.. I really love their colors and the way its not just varigated but also multiple colored plys too..

    this weekend I am going to wash and dry mine and see how they do!

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  4. I am so impressed with the way you've picked up your knitting skills with such GUSTO!

    You almost make ME want to start learning how to knit. Almost.

    Great job on the socks. Since I know NOTHING about knitting, it all looks like magic spells and unicorns to me!

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