Category Archives: pattern design

Sock Summit: I can’t stop smiling

Posted on August 7, 2009 | 21 comments

Today was the first “real” day of Sock Summit. It looked like a very smooth launch.

My friend Anna and I had a three hour class in the morning with Star Athena, Sock Design Workshop: Know the Rules, then Break Them. This was a great class. Star is a big fan of the gauge swatch; she says that they don’t lie. I still think mine do, but I’ll keep making them. I usually make design decisions by trial and error, and keep ripping back if I don’t like what I have. I hadn’t really thought about making a long continuous swatch before, but it’s a great idea. We also went over different ways of approaching design, and worked on designs of our own. Star also went over different avenues to publishing (magazines, books, internet, self-publishing). I came out of class with several design ideas and am happy I took the class. Thanks, Star!

I peeked into the market during lunch (vendor perk!) and said hi to Shannon and Emily from Twisted. They thought they should win a prize for yarn density in the booth. That’s a lot of color packed in there.

In the afternoon, we had Hooked on Beads with Sivia Harding. This was a one hour class, so it was pretty basic. We learned how to add beads in our knitting without pre-stringing them, and learned when each method is appropriate. We also looked at some of Sivia’s amazing beaded knitting. Webs provided crochet hooks and beads for the class (thank you!) which was a very nice surprise.

I know this is not the world’s most exciting swatch, but hey, I’m just trying to get the technique down without splitting the yarn!

Where are all these people going? To the market opening, of course!

I did a quick walk through the market; I’ll be back to shop and work in the booth tomorrow. I did buy a Sock Summit tote bag from the bookstore right away, though. I didn’t pre-order swag, and I think they’ll run out of what’s left pretty quickly. The bag has organizing pockets on the front AND back. I’ll be using it tomorrow; today I had to carry two bags to bring all my class supplies, and I felt pretty disorganized.

I stopped by Lantern Moon’s booth, because Cathy and Diana are so much fun. Cathy’s in my knit group!

One of the really fun things about knitting events is meeting bloggers from far away that you “know” but have never met in person. I briefly met Jessica, with whom I’ve been chatting about our respective Tokyo adventures this summer. Carrie was working at the market information booth. I met Heather at the Knitted Wit booth. And I met Cristi in the market, too. She’s just as fun in person as she is online. Cristi was wearing her Charlotte’s Web shawl, and it is even more gorgeous in person.

And doubly fun is hanging out with the local PDX Knit-Bloggers. I saw Tami, Melissa, Bobbie, Duffy, Adam, Rachel. And maybe more, but it’s a blur!

By the way, I ran into Deb, and she had my yarn from yesterday’s lunch! I’m so happy that my wandering yarn has found its way home.

I missed the opening reception tonight; it was sold out when I registered. Some openings were available yesterday/today, but I had already booked a rehearsal with my singing buddies since I thought I was free. And we really needed to sing.

If you’re local and couldn’t get into classes, come to the market! There are demonstrations going on in the market all day long, and entry to the market is only $2 per day if you’re not a student. And the shopping is awesome, too.

21 Comments

Posted in Blogging, Knit, pattern design

Tagged Knit, sock summit

Sock Summit preparations

Posted on July 27, 2009 | 12 comments

Sock Summit is just around the corner! I need to re-learn Judy’s Magic Cast On, and review wrapping and turning before I get to Cat Bordhi’s class, Dancing with Socks. Soon. I have a few other things to do, first.

I’m re-formatting my patterns to give them a visual cohesiveness as a group. They’ll all have the same banner across the top, which is the same one you see here on the blog. I’m about halfway done with the set. Then I need to print them all again, and reload them to Ravelry, too. Don’t worry, there aren’t any substantive changes; I’m just adding the banner and some extra pictures, so they’ll be more visually appealing.

Lorajean at Knitted Wit asked me to knit some samples for her. She’s having a booth at the Summit, and I’m helping her there. Come see us in Booth 223! My patterns will be there, too, and I’ll be there on Friday afternoon. I picked up these yarns yesterday:

The skeined blue yarn is 400 yards of sock weight yarn that I won from Lorajean in June. I think it’s going to be a shawl, eventually. I love this color; it’s gorgeous. It reminds me of a summer sky.

These two are sport weight Falkland (as in Island) yarn; they come in a 100 gram/310 yard skein. The green one is Semi-Solid Peacock, one of Lorajean’s entries in Ravelry’s Dye for Glory contest. Have you voted yet? The colors are even more lovely than in this picture; I just can’t capture the greens the way I want to. I’m knitting a sample of my Seafoam Sock with it. And maybe starting an Entrelac Sock, too.

The pink yarn is Cotton Candy, and it’s going to be a ZigZag Lace Pedi Sock. You can see that I have a lot of knitting to do in the next couple weeks! At least it’s sport weight; it goes pretty quickly for me.

Knit on!

12 Comments

Posted in Knit, pattern design

Tagged Dye for Glory, Knit, sock summit

Curiosity

Posted on June 30, 2009 | 9 comments

I’ve made two lace triangle shawls so far, the Shetland Triangle and Ishbel. I think it’s ingenious how these start at the center of the neck, and grow out from there. I want to know more about how this works, so I bought this book.

Knitting Lace Triangles by Evelyn A. Clark. The Shetland Triangle is one of her patterns, and it was a fun knit. This book is kind of a recipe book for knitting triangle shawls using four different lace stitches. You can use one, two, three, or all four of the different lace patterns. Ingenious! All of the patterns increase four stitches every other row.

What I really want to know, though, is what happens when the increases are more frequent, as in Ishbel. I know it makes the triangle shallower, but what happens to the lace at the sides? I guess I’ll have to chart it out and see.

9 Comments

Posted in Knit, pattern design

Tagged Knit, lace

Knit-picky

Posted on April 30, 2009 | 12 comments

I started the second Kai-Mei/Lai-Wah sock. And it’s just a little bit different. Can you see what I changed?

I shifted the ribbing over by one stitch, so the K2 would flow out of the center of each 4 stitch twist at the top of the cuff. I like how it looks more symmetrical with the twist, instead of coming out of one half of the twist. That’s how knit-picky I am! Here’s the new cuff.

And here’s the first cuff for reference:

Oh, I bought these sock blockers at Twisted. I decided that it might be easier to photograph socks on blockers than to do the contortionist thing that I usually do. But I think I’ll still be doing that sometimes, too. These blockers were made by Twisted co-owner Shannon’s parents, and they’re really nice.

12 Comments

Posted in Knit, pattern design

Tagged kai-mei, Knit, knit socks

Mitered squares, topsy-turvy

Posted on April 23, 2009 | 3 comments

I’ve been making a lot of socks, knit from the cuff-down. I know you can knit them toe-up, too; I just haven’t, yet. Well, once, but I never finished the first sock.

I’m knitting a mitered square for a Ravelry group project Afghans for Afghans blanket in honor of Kay and Peter. So why not turn that idea upside down, too? Instead of starting with the long edges and decreasing down, what if we start at the point, and increase up? Anything to mix things up a bit! And no gauge swatch required, because you’d stop when the square reaches the right dimensions.

Here’s my first attempt:

Cast on 2. Knit the first row (wrong side).

Row 1: KFB (knit in front and back of stitch), place marker, KFB

Row 2: Knit.
row 3: K to stitch before first marker, KFB, slip marker, KFB, K to end

Repeat rows 2 and 3 until square is desired size, changing colors as desired, ending with a row 2. The symmetry lover in me would probably bug out not knowing if the stripes would all be the same number of rows. I’m that way. But maybe I’d get around it by making all stripes just two rows (1 garter ridge), or 4 rows (2 garter ridges), and carry the second yarn up the side of the block, twisting at each color change. Binding off was a bit tricky; my regular knit bind-off was too tight and the piece wasn’t very square. I changed to a suspended bind off, and that made it looser, but there’s still not a nice pointy corner on the bound off edge.

I also tried this with yarn over increases on each side of a center stitch, like this:

Cast on 3. Knit the first row (wrong side)
Row 1: K1, yo, place marker, K, place marker, yo, K1

Row 2: Knit
Row 3: K to marker, yo, slip marker, K, slip marker, yo, K to end

Repeat rows 2 and 3 until square is desired size, changing color as desired, ending with a row 2. Again, I used a suspended bind off to keep the edge from pulling.

You could use any increases you like, as long as you increase just before and just after the center. Some need a center stitch to separate them, and some don’t. I can never remember which M1 increase leans left and which one leans right, but paired increases would look nice. Here’s a link to KnittingHelp.com‘s excellent page on increases.

I’ll add this information to the mitered square pattern page, just in case someone else wants to mix it up, too.

After all of that, I’m making my current mitered square in my usual way, long edge first. It needs to be 10 inches square, and I know that I get 4.5 sts/inch in garter stitch on US size 8 needles. 10 inches times 4.5 st/inch is 45 sts for each 10 inch edge. 90 stitches for my square.

Knit on!

3 Comments

Posted in Knit, pattern design, ravelry

Tagged Knit, mitered square

Where did my week go? (knitting content, eventually)

Posted on April 19, 2009 | 12 comments

Well, that was a busy week! Easter on Easter, a Passover Seder on Tuesday, flew to LA on Wednesday to see Springsteen, home on Thursday, 16 crafty moms celebrating spring birthdays Friday, worked a high school fund-raiser event on Saturday. Sunday starts all over again…

LA is different from the Pacific Northwet. They have flowers like these growing in hotel parking lots.

And funny looking trees.

The last time we saw Springsteen in LA, it was in 1985 with 90,000 of our nearest and dearest, here.

This time it was at the LA Sports Arena, right next door, with 20,000 of our closest friends. Here’s the obligatory crappy cell phone pic. We were to the right of the stage, pretty high up, but the venue is small enough that it didn’t feel like we were on Mars. Bruce was stupendous, as usual. Three hours of fun; the man knows how to put on a show.

I did take my knitting! I had just finished my Shur’tugal socks, and didn’t have any good airplane knitting on the needles. Although I want to knit with beads, and do Chrissy Gardner’s toe-up sock from Twisted’s Single Skein Club, both require either attention or charts or tiny things that don’t make for good airplane knitting. What’s a knitter to do? Cookie A to the rescue!

I love the Kai-Mei pattern in her new book, Sock Innovation. It’s written for fingering weight yarn, and I only had Louet Gems sport in my tiny stash. No problem; I adapt things all the time. But something about this pattern made me want to completely play with it and make it my own. Here’s the process so far.

I started with 48 stitches, because most of my sport weight socks are 48-52 stitches around. I decided on a 2×2 rib instead of the 3×3 in the pattern, because I like to put twists in my ribs so I can use them to count rows. My first attempt had a right twist on every rib every 6 rows, but that was boring. I decided to alternate columns of right twists with columns of left twists, and offset them so the right twists and left twists were 4 rounds apart. I used the twisted cast on edging that I used on my Leyburns, because I thought the twists would complement the twisted rib.

I was cruising along on the plane and later in the hotel, when I heard the 1 a.m. tiny voice say, “ribbing sucks in a lot. Sure that will go around your leg, but it would look prettier if it wasn’t stretched to the max…” Right-o. Let’s try 56 stitches instead.

Since I was ripping it all out anyway, I thought I’d play with the twisted cast on. What if I used stockinette stitch instead of garter stitch for those first four rows before the twist? I could take advantage of stockinette’s natural tendency to curl, and hopefully get a tighter, tidier edge. I like it better, and I like the not as stretched out ribbing better, too.

Here’s a better look. Garter edge first:

Stockinette edge:

Side by side! Garter on left, stockinette on right:

What do you think?

Almost done with the first sock; more soon!

12 Comments

Posted in Knit, pattern design

Tagged kai-mei, Knit, knit socks, springsteen

A long time coming…Seafoam Socks Pattern

Posted on March 20, 2009 | 13 comments

I just can’t stop knitting this pattern. It makes me really happy! The pattern is so logical, so easily memorized, so easy to track. I had to make another…

The Fly Designs Monarch sport on top is my favorite yarn so far. The colors are even more vibrant than in the picture. The yarn is really springy and fun to knit with.

The pattern has been written for a while, but I wasn’t happy with my pictures! Pictures that looked good on the screen didn’t look good coming out of the printer. It’s been a frustrating couple days, but I think I have what I want now.

The pattern is available as a pdf download through Ravelry. See the pattern page for more information.

13 Comments

Posted in Knit, pattern design, ravelry

Tagged Knit, seafoam socks, socks, yarn

Random thoughts on yarn weights

Posted on March 16, 2009 | 16 comments

I’m playing with gauge and fabric. My Seafoam Socks are twice knitted, twice edited. I’ve done my swatching with four different yarns, all on size 2 needles. I’m getting 6.5 sts/inch with all of the yarns.

Gauge is a funny thing! The first time I knit these socks, I knit them with Mirasol Hacho, a dk weight yarn, 137 yards to 50 grams/1.76 oz (78 yards/oz). (Blue sock at the bottom of the pile, foot showing.) I like the hand of the fabric, a bit firm, but not stiff. My hands were tired by the time I finished knitting the socks though, as I was trying to keep things fairly firm so the socks wouldn’t be too big.

My next purchase for this sock was the Butternut Woolens Super Sock yarn above, 341 yards to 113 grams/4 oz, (85 yards/oz). This yarn is listed on Ravelry as fingering weight. It feels bulkier than the Hacho! I would call it a sport weight yarn, at least. It’s making a nice wooly feeling sock, but definitely a winter article. The ply is looser than that of the Hacho. Here’s the Hacho sock on top of the Butternut Woolens sock; although the circumference of the sock is essentially the same, the Butternut Woolens sock has fewer rows per inch, so the sock is a bit taller and a bit longer, same number of rounds. See the green peeking out from behind the blue?

I also swatched with my leftover BMFA Socks that Rock Mediumweight, also considered to be a fingering weight yarn at 380 yards to 155 grams/5.47 ounces (69 yards/oz). This knit up to a slightly loose but still very nice feeling fabric.

And I couldn’t help myself. I was at the LYS and wanted to check out one more sport weight yarn, and chose Monarch by FlyDesigns. This colorway is called Sailing. The yarn is listed as a sport weight yarn, although it feels a bit lighter than the STR Mediumweight. It’s 370 yards to 126 grams/4.44 oz, (83 yards/oz). My gauge? Also 6.5 st/inch, and isn’t this lovely? The fabric isn’t as dense as I usually knit my socks, but it’s quite acceptable, very similar to the Socks that Rock Mediumweight.

By the numbers, the Monarch should be closest in weight to the Butternut Woolens, but look at the difference in appearance. By numbers, the STR Mediumweight should be the thickest, because it has the least yardage/ounce. I’ve read that if the yardage of the yarn required for your pattern is within 10% of the yarn you’d like to substitute (similar fibers), it should work. All of these knit up with a decent hand, some thicker, some thinner, but all result in a sock of about the same size, so what does it all mean?

(Hacho DK, Butternut Fingering, STR Mediumweight Fingering, Monarch Sport)

I think it means that if I specify sport weight yarn for this pattern, you still have to decide if you like the fabric you’re getting with the yarn you choose. Labels by the manufacturer are just the first step in choosing your yarn. A yarn labeled fingering may knit up thicker than a yarn called sport at the same gauge. A tight twist can make a yarn feel thinner, or a loose twist can make a thin yarn look thicker. You may like your socks thicker or thinner, firmer or floppier. Ultimately, you are the boss of your knitting, and you get to decide how you want the fabric of that sock to feel. Knit on!

16 Comments

Posted in Knit, pattern design

Tagged gauge, Knit, sock yarn, yarn

Are we there yet? Seafoam Socks

Posted on March 15, 2009 | 16 comments

I love how these turned out. Just the way I wanted…after much trial and error!

Seafoam Socks
2 skeins Mirasol Hacho, size 2 Lantern Moon ebony Sox Stix

See the waves? The bubbles? And the sea foam at the rippling edges? I like how the pattern doesn’t fight with the variegated yarn. I’m playing with different yarns and gauges to finish writing the pattern; it will be along soon. By the way, I’ve started a sock with the Butternut Woolens sock yarn. Gorgeous! But it’s pretty heavy for a fingering weight yarn. It actually feels heftier than the Hacho, which is listed as dk weight. Funny how fingering can feel thin, thick, or in-between!

One more contortionist picture: