Diagonal socks
My first pair of socks! I found the pattern on the web, and immediately knew I had to try it.
Learning to use double-pointed needles was fun, but went pretty fast; I now have the hang of it and already can go faster at it than with regular needles. I can hold the (short) dp needle near one end with my thumb and middle finger, and then the other end rests against the butt of my palm, giving me a lot of control.
I was swatching for this project around 14 May 2003, and started the first sock a few days later. I finished off the skein just before the toe of that sock on 5 June, holding the loops on another piece of yarn until I'd finished the other sock in case I ran out of yarn---if nothing else, I could make the toes in a contrasting colour of yarn. :)
I cast on for the second sock around 8 June, and this was the project that carried me through the first draft of my dissertation.
I had just started the heel flap when the Direct Compositionality workshop started, and I got a lot done there: I finished these socks completely and started the next pair.
They're... fairly tight. The size of the pattern was medium, and I wear a size 9 so I figured that'd be right. And they aren't uncomfortable, but with all the ribbing and such I figured it wouldn't be quite as stretched out as it is when I'm wearing it. Still, I'm pretty pleased with the result. :)
Pattern modifications
I only did 1" of rib around the top of the socks, because I thought it looked better. I still did a total of 8" before starting the heel flap.
I inadvertently managed to pick up 19 stitches along the sides of the heel flap instead of 16; I'm still not sure how I was supposed to do it. In any case, this was a trivial change to the pattern; I just did three more rows of decreases along the instep.
The toes are a little strange. First of all, I looked to be running low on yarn, so I cut the pattern a little short---the last five toe decreases are done every row instead of every other row. Which is kind of cool, actually, as it makes the sides actually curve in rather than just angling. Also, I had forgotten to look up "grafting" before I got to the workshop, and that's what I was supposed to do to finish off the toe. So I invented my own thing: turn the sock inside-out, move all loops from two needles to one (interleaving them), then p2tog and bind off as you go. (Has to be p2tog, because with a double batch of loops it's just too tight for anything else.) It definitely doesn't look as good as, say, the toe of Theresa's socks, but it looks reasonably nice.
Materials
I'm using four short US-1 bamboo dp needles on this one. The yarn is two 225yd(50g) skeins of Froehlich-Wolle #7402, a really pretty sock yarn with 3 ply of grey and the fourth ply fading between muted blue, pink, and purple. The yarn came with reinforcement thread, but I forgot it when I went to my conference in Canada, which is where I got around to turning the heel, so I didn't use it. :P
Pictures
First socks I ever made |
The diagonal socks again |