Summer Knitting -- What Else?

What Else But Socks?

I've finished off a few socks that I haven't shown off properly yet. Some of these were actually knit in the spring, but socks do make good summer knitting. They don't demand too much attention, and are small enough not to block too much sun when I'm outside basking in the warmth. And of course, in the torpid summer weather we get around here, they're a lot more appealing than a big woolly lapful of sweater-in-progress!

First up were my good-humored-brother's Christmas socks. (As I recall, I joked that I expected to be finished with my Christmas knitting by about the 4th of July. Some joke, it turns out!) These socks are my own design; I call them Sidecar Socks. They're knit with Trekking XXL on US size 1 needles. My brother seemed to want something pretty plain, so I kept them as simple as I could stand. Even so, I couldn't resist giving them a little ribbing down the front and clocks to their sides. They're with their owner now, and I hope they fit. But in the hot weather, I didn't have the heart to demand that he try on his new woollen socks.

The bad news about knitting large men's socks is that they take more than the standard 100 grams of yarn and I end up scrambling for more. Some yarn-shopping day, maybe I'll remember that large men's socks are best knit with yarn that comes in 50-gram skeins so I don't need to buy so much extra.

The good news is that I tend to end up with plenty of leftovers. Which means... more socks for me!

This is another pair of my own design. I call these my Blackthorn Socks. It's the same Trekking XXL yarn, of course, and US size 1 needles again. I really like the color variation in this yarn. It's brown, but there's a world of purples and greens and golds in there if you look closely. I entertained myself with a little more decoration and a few slightly tricky features on these.

And bringing up the rear are these. This is the Dublin Bay pattern, knit in Socks That Rock lightweight in the Scottish Highlands colorway. Clearly I have some sort of pan-Celtic thing going on here. I enjoyed the colors, and thought of gorse and bracken, heather and brooding mountains as I knit. The high-contrast striping was entertaining and created a particularly nice effect in the eye-of-partridge heel that the pattern called for.

Of course, with a high-contrast striping yarn and a standard gusset-heel sock design, there are hazards. When you turn the heel and pick up the gusset stitches, you change the number of stitches in each round. And as you gradually decrease back to the original stitch count, the color repeats that create the stripes are drifting around, until almost inevitably -- eek, a splotch!

Well, phooey. Why get excited about it? Just bring on some more iced tea and summer reading, and we'll all be fine.

Tour de Fleece Time

It's July, and that can only mean one thing. It's one of the highlights of my TV-viewing year. The spectacular Tour de France bicycle race. Three solid weeks on the edge of my seat, especially now that Lance Armstrong is back in the saddle -- hooray!

Last year, I discovered the spinners' companion event, the Tour de Fleece, and that just added to the fun. So Rastro and I are off again and running. Now that we have another year of experience under our belts, the spinning doesn't take as much concentration, so I think it's going to be an easier three weeks this year. And no tendinitis this time, I hope! Once again, my spinning challenge goals are a little loose and slapdash, but who cares, as long as I'm spinning every day and enjoying it?

For the first few Tour de France stages (days of racing), I'm spinning this lovely stuff. It's merino and alpaca that I brought back from New Zealand. Can you tell how soft and lovely it is?

It's actually the first spinning fiber I bought, other than a little Brillo pad of coarse fiber for learning with my spindle. A little later on, there was the practice Coopworth wool (that eventually became the Cannonball sweater) and a sweater's quantity of Finn wool (still waiting for me to feel I'm ready) that I bought right along with my spinning wheel. And later still came the excitement of all the amazing fibers to be found at the festivals. But when I wandered into this shop, I was still just getting the hang of the spindle and only beginning to dream of having a wheel. It was very novel then, when I came across a bin of spinning fiber in a yarn shop, to think, "Wait a minute; this is not something only for other people. It's something I can buy, because I'm learning how to spin!"

Feeling ready to actually spin it was another matter. I didn't feel worthy of such nice fiber for a long time. Now that I'm confident that I can do a decent job with a soft, pretty fiber and not risk botching it, it's a real pleasure to dive in and play with it.

I've also started a sock. Because I've gotten over a recent spell of being kind of tired of sock-knitting. And because a sock on the needles is just generally a good thing to have. This is Socks That Rock lightweight, in the Scottish Highlands colorway. In the skein, it's really beautiful. But in the wound-up ball, it got a little circus-clown looking, I thought. I wasn't at all sure what to expect when the knitting started. It's working out to be a hearty, regular stripe, with no pooling. Not a subtle look, but pleasant, and entertaining to knit.

The pattern is Dublin Bay (available free on-line from Mossy Cottage Knits, here.) It's a nice pattern, mostly plain, but with a simple lace pattern down the sides to give me something to do every couple of rows. The lace doesn't really show up as openwork against the bold stripes, but it does create a visual break. So, full speed ahead.

Yes, I am also still working toward starting on the Chanel-ish jacket with my 3-ply handspun. I haven't abandoned it; I'm not that fickle! Besides, it's the Tour de Fleece yarn I spun last year, so it seems entirely appropriate to get it started now. I'm hard at work with sharp pencil and graph paper, mapping out the pattern stitchcount by rowcount, plotting increases and bind-offs, so that I can recalculate all those little counts for much bulkier yarn. This is not a particularly photogenic process, though. And somehow, it always seems to go so much faster when they do it on TV.

Good thing I have the Tour de Fleece spinning and the new sock, for when I need a break. :)

Eater of Stitchwork

It looks so harmless just sitting there, doesn't it?

Needing a knitting project to while away the idle hours on my Parisian flight, I turned to some expendable yarn. I once saw, in the KnitPicks catalog, a sock yarn called Dancing, each bright, summery colorway cutely named for a different type of dance. It was a cotton-wool blend, with a bit of elastic added. It was clearance-priced. There must have been a photo of a finished sock that showed it off nicely, as well. Some deep bargain-hunting instinct must have kicked in at that point. I think I ordered it in five different colorways.

Since then, I've been knitting all those socks in their relentlessly cheerful colorways for what seems like forever. I was finally down to the last colorway. Well, I needed something to keep me occupied on the trip, and I didn't want to take one of my serious projects. They're not that portable, and there's always the remote chance that I'll lose something important and not be able to replace it.

So the last of the Dancing it was to be. I packed it up. I'd flipped through some sock books, but nothing had jumped out at me. The short, sharp color changes of the yarn pose a challenge. Adding to the fun, the yarn is marled, with a contrasting white ply wrapped around the bright colors.With so much going on, the yarn would be well suited for a plain and simple sock, but I wanted something more entertaining to knit. I'd brought along some hasty notes of stitch patterns that I thought I'd like to play with and that I hoped wouldn't be completely obscured by such an assertive colorway. Sitting in the airport, I worked out a design and got going.

As it turned out, I stayed so busy that I didn't get all that much done on the trip, maybe half of the first sock. So I still had a lot yet to do when I got home. But I was determined to get them done. Not only would I be able to finally say "bon voyage" to the KnitPicks Dancing yarn, but the socks would forever be a reminder of my trip. I'd never forget where I did some of the knitting.

I showed sock number two in progress to a friend. She was at a loss for words at the pink and purple and green and yellow and orangeness of it all. Well, I can't say I blame her, really. But I wasn't making it as elegant haberdashery; it's destined to wear with blue jeans on sunny days.

I actually rather liked the sock design I'd come up with. It has lace and cables and meandering ribs and some straight lines in the back to tamp down all the commotion. Really, it's a bit of a wild melange like the colorway itself.

But how did all that fancy stitching work out? Mostly swallowed up, as one might have expected. When the light is right, the cables down the sides stand out pretty well, but the lace pattern on the front mostly just looks like chaos.

I had a more high-falutin' name in mind for the pattern, but I think that will have to wait. Maybe one of these days I'll knit it again with a yarn that's a better partner for it. Then it will seem right to give it a fancier name. Until then, I'll just call this version by pretty much what it looks like: Fruit Salad.

That's OK. By now I'm actually rather fond of these silly, frivolous socks.

Fruit Salad it is. It'll do.

A Stroke of Luck

First of all, thank you so much, everybody, for the nice comments about the handspun vest! It's great fun to chew things over with others who understand what it's like getting through the little challenges and hurdles of a knitting project to a happy outcome. :)

And, as for spinning, well, I'm with you, Amy. It's still hard to believe you can really go from what's basically a wad of animal hair to something pleasing to wear. It makes me feel like a pioneer woman, who could scratch sustenance from the land and fashion clothing from raw materials, instead of from a shopping mall. Maybe one of these days I should try my hand at building a sod hut. Oh, I don't mean to make light, of course, of the hardships that people went through in settling the Plains of the western United States. It's just that making things by hand gives an interesting feeling of self-sufficiency that's sometimes hard to come by in modern life.

The handspun vest, fun as it was, was actually just a temporary diversion from the real knitting business at hand. I'm still at work on Christmas I.O.U. knitting projects. The sweater for my trim-athletic-dad is coming along steadily.

But the socks for my good- humored brother have hit a snag. It seems I have yet to learn that it takes more yarn to knit socks for a tall-ish fellow than for an average-sized woman. You'd think that might be obvious, but it's not. Apparently.

In my defense, when I first ran into this life-lesson, last Christmas, it was with Blue Moon Fiber Arts' Socks That Rock Lightweight yarn. That yarn's virtues are its creative colorways, and firm bouncy texture, rather than exceptional yardage. A skein of Socks That Rock packs 360 yards. It's an ample amount for socks for me, but I wasn't entirely surprised at running short before completing a pair for my good-humored brother, who is indeed a tall-ish sort of fellow. So after some hand-wringing and whatever-shall-I-do-ing, I ended up ordering another colorway and knitting a contrasting toe.

This time was different. This time, I was using Zitron's Trekking XXL, a yarn of bountiful yardage. At almost 100 yards more, 459 yards in a 100 gram skein, surely it gave me a great safety margin. And I may have been unduly influenced by the many posts on Claudia's blog on socks knitted for her husband from Trekking XXL. That gave me a nice comfortable feeling. Of course, if I'd paid closer attention, I might have noticed that she says she's a loose knitter and only uses 64 stitches. I, on the other hand, am not and don't.

I knitted along, quite enjoying the soft hand of the Trekking yarn and its subtle color shifts, until I noticed that I seemed to be using up yarn faster than I ought to before the first sock was finished. I grew nervous. I began weighing what was left in the skein as I went along, calculating how many knitted rows I was getting per gram. The skein dwindled to 53 grams. I had to concede the awful truth. My illusions fell to the floor. Clunk. This skein was not going to finish two socks.

Oh, for heaven's sake. Not again. Recently, I'd watched with pity as, in the same local shop where I'd bought the yarn, a customer pleaded for an extra skein of Trekking XXL to finish a not-quite-done pair of socks. The owner was sympathetic but afraid she might not be able to order that color any more. Thank goodness that wasn't going to happen to me, thought I.

Ha! Now here I was, in much the same pickle. I'd bought the yarn months ago, and I needed more. Maybe if I was lucky, there would still be a skein left at the shop. If it was a different dye lot, I could always work it in so it wouldn't be obvious. I ran back to paw through the shelf. It wasn't there. It seemed even to have disappeared from the shop's order book. Gulp. Was it discontinued? Now I was not sure I could get any more of my colorway at all, let alone in the same dye lot.

I looked on-line at Webs. There, promisingly, it was still listed, though shown as back-ordered. I watched like a hawk, checking daily. As the days wore on, I grew a little despondent. Would it ever come in again? Or was it really gone? I tried to resign myself to looking at compatible yarn options for a contrasting toe.

That contrasting toe idea was a good dodge the first time, but if every pair made for my good-humored brother has a contrasting toe without the corresponding heel and cuff accents, it begins to look suspiciously like a sisterly lack of planning. Which, of course, it is. I had to try to find it.

A chance mention by the Yarn Harlot reminded me of the Simply Socks Yarn Company, run by Allison, where I'd browsed happily before. I rushed there, and -- Eureka! -- it showed my colorway in stock! Two days later, I held a second skein in my grateful hands. Thankfully, it looked like the dye lot was going to be a pretty good match.

On a whim, I checked the labels. What? It wasn't just a pretty good match, it was the very one. Good old dye lot 8230 itself.

Can you believe it? Months later, bought from a site based a thousand miles away from the shop of my earlier purchase, and it was the same dye lot.

Lucky.

Really lucky.

Now, to do my penance. I shall write it out 100 times:
1. I must plan ahead and buy more yarn when making men's socks.
2. I must plan ahead and buy more yarn when making men's socks.
3. I must...

This could take a while!

Launching the New Year

With two finished objects to make it even happier.

Happy New Year, everyone! The holidays have rushed onward until, pouf, here I am in the New Year without even having observed all the proprieties. I have an appointment for a little make-up session with some oysters and some black-eyed peas that are going to need to be attended to if I'm to have a lucky year. So I haven't started the new year properly yet, but I'll just ignore that for the moment and act as if I have.

So, herewith, my resolutions for 2009:
-- Write thank-you notes promptly
-- Get to bed earlier for more sleep
-- Knit more yarn than I buy
-- Don't forget the eggnog.

That knitting one shouldn't be all that difficult, since I have piles and piles of beautiful yarns and spinning fiber already here in the house awaiting my pleasure. But, then, that's what I thought last year, too. Hmmm, we'll see.

To celebrate the old year's passing, here's my last finished object of 2008! The day after Christmas, when the rush to knit presents and cook and wrap and decorate and celebrate was over, I settled down to knit again. I got out a pair of half-done socks and knitted with zeal, with abandon, around and around, until they were finished. And, after knitting for others for the last few weeks, I greedily knit these just for me. :)

They're plain stockinette socks, but the yarn makes them fun. It's Colinette's Jitterbug sock yarn, in the Kingfisher colorway. I love the way a black background brightens other colors, and I thoroughly enjoyed these.

They're knitted on US size 1 (2.25 mm) needles, and mostly just lazily following the simple sock pattern on the yarn label. I did depart from it by replacing the smooth stockinette on the heel flap with a slipstitched heel stitch for variety. The yarn was a pleasure to knit with, soft bouncy merino, with those ever-entertaining Colinette color changes. (One minor note of caution, though: the skein does not have a huge amount of yardage, so if you're knitting for a larger size, you may need two.)

I also recently got around to buying a couple of pairs of shoes sized with enough room for socks, so I'm finally getting in the habit of wearing my handknit socks, not just admiring them in the drawer. I'm looking forward to adding these to the rotation.

And, even better, here's the first finished object of 2009, the Kid Hollow Brushed Mock-Neck Sweater, Hooray!

This is knitted of brushed kid mohair yarn from Kid Hollow Farm in Free Union, Virginia. It was a gorgeous hand-dyed skein that I bought at this year's Fall Fiber Festival, in Montpelier, Virginia. The yarn is so light and fluffy that the whole sweater only takes one skein of 8 ounces or so. (And I bought another skein that will soon be heading for mock-neck-sweater-hood, too.)

The design is by Puff the Magic Rabbit, who raises angora goats (more mohair yarn!) and angora rabbits in the Virgina countryside and who is lovely and encouraging. No wonder her goaties love her. :)

The fuzzy mohair is wonderfully warm and comforting to wear, and just look at those gorgeous colors!

The sweater is knit at a worsted weight. But I actually had to go down a size -- unusual for me -- to a US size 6 (4 mm) needle to stay close to gauge. Something about knitting with this delicate fluffy yarn seems to make me drift into holding it more and more loosely, treating it gently and solicitously. There, dear, can I plump your pillow for you? Bring you a cup of tea?

So, it still sprawled a bit, but it's a great sweater. It's a little loose and slouchy, and it has a relaxed slouchy neckline to match. (World's-most-patient-husband calls it my "hippie shirt.") I find I'm already reaching for it a lot. It looks terrific with jeans, and I have a feeling it might dress up well, too, with the right outfit. I'm pretty pleased with it. :)

I painted my toenails purple in its honor.





Hope your New Year has had as good a start!

Light-Hearted Mockery

I've been much caught up, the last few days, in watching the Tour de France and treadling the spinning wheel for the Tour de Fleece. But I did find the time to bring the Mockery socks to a happy conclusion.

The pattern is from live2knit's Katie Grady, here. It's quite a nice stitch pattern -- easy knitting, considering the pretty effect you get.

I knit these with US size 0 needles and Dancing yarn, a cotton-wool-elastic blend from Knit Picks, now discontinued.

(I have to say, though, Patons' new Stretch Socks yarn, from the fiber blend and the picture, looks an awful lot like the same yarn.)

The yarn texture works well in the pattern, but the strong color changes do tend to hide the fancy stitchwork. So the stitch pattern is sort of a hidden delight, something to enjoy secretly, except when the light hits it just right and reveals it for all to see.

I especially like the way the eye-of-partridge heel stitch looks in this yarn. It almost makes a trellis-work of color.

I knit the pattern with very little modification. I did need to add a few extra rows to the heel flap, since I got a slightly different row gauge with the Dancing yarn than called for, making them mighty tight around the instep. I didn't add any repeats to the leg, though. I liked it a little on the short side for these summery cotton socks.

I think I may actually end up wearing these socks a lot more often than the others I've made for myself so far. While my sweet family members happily wear the socks I've knit for them, I have to admit I don't often wear my own. Hand-knit socks are thicker than skinny commercial ones, and most of my shoes don't have room for them. Of course, I can solve that sooner or later by buying some new shoes sized for wearing with my beautiful handmade wool socks. It may also be that I'm subconsciously reluctant to wear them, thinking they'll wear out. Maybe I can fix that by making more, until I have a whole drawerful!

But in the meantime, these light-hearted cottony socks seem perfect for sneakers, which of course are already designed for thicker socks. I even have a pair that will work well with these cheerful colors. These are going to be fun.

Practical Magic

I took another journey this week, the flight scuttling from city to city up the East coast between thunderstorms. My outward flight was delayed for hours waiting for the weather to clear once so the inbound plane could arrive and again so we could depart. After boarding, we sat another couple of hours at the gate. But I know by now how to arm myself for the airport. I didn't fret. I had fortifying snacks. I had a book. And I had the Mockery socks.

I clicked away while some passengers fumed and watched the clock. Oh, I was anxious to be on our way too; I had a late night and an early meeting. But worrying wouldn't get us there any sooner, so I concentrated on the knitting.

Here's how the Mockery socks are looking. If you just look at the surface and tune out the colors, you can see the undulating stitch pattern that gives the merest pen-and-ink suggestion of a cable.

I like those rhythmic waves. One day maybe I'll use the same stitch pattern in something solid-colored that will show it off to better advantage. But the eye-of-partridge stitch on the heel flap certainly suits the yarn well, doesn't it? It gives the color changes a beautiful mosaic-like effect.

On the return trip, thankfully, there were no more delays, just a packed-full flight. As the plane loaded and the passengers got themselves and their belongings stowed, I settled into my middle seat and got back to the knitting. The aisle seat next to me was still unoccupied. After a while, its owner, a large and vigorous young man, came bearing down the aisle. He spotted me, with my double-point needles bristling, and boomed out to everyone nearby, with faintly alarming bonhomie, "oh, we don't want to make her mad, huh?" Then with slightly more suspect jocularity, he added, "is that even legal any more?" TSA's website being clear on the matter, I parried, and he subsided good-naturedly.

A chatty seatmate, he returned to the subject later, asking what I was making, seeming interested in a you-don't-say kind of way, asking about who they're for and how you make sure the socks are the right size. He wasn't sure why he was fascinated, he said, since it's probably a pretty straightforward skill. True enough, I agreed, though some people seem to feel it's black magic.

He then jokingly mentioned Arthur C. Clarke's well-known Third Law stating that "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." I laughed, but thought about it afterwards. It turns out there's a variation to Clarke's law put forward by science fiction writer Charles Sheffield, saying that "any sufficiently antique technology is indistinguishable from magic." That, I think, is very apt.

Though knitting is having a resurgence, and sock knitting in particular is reemerging, it is as a boutique pursuit, a luxury, a form of expression for people already well fed, housed, and shod, not a way to clothe the population in hardwearing garments for daily use. In a society in which for a hundred years or more we've been provided with socks by far-away industrialized factories, cheaply and on a mass scale, is it any wonder that the antique and little-taught skill of making them by hand would come to seem as impenetrable as magic?

It seems to me there are quite a few once-basic skills that are the same way. While we take for granted our facility with once-unimaginable machines and sophisticated concepts, we are far removed from the production of simple things. If we had to fend for ourselves, we might be flummoxed. You mean people get fresh water by digging a hole in the ground? That sounds like magic. How do we make metal? Magic. We get our bread by grinding up the heads of dried grasses? Magic. We get sourdough from invisible yeasts that drift in on the air? Uh-huh. Spinning yarn from the coats of animals? Making clothes from the yarn? Definitely magic.

I'm pleased that knitting and spinning have gained converts recently. We need to know how things are made. I'm happy to be one of the new keepers of some ancient skills.

Practical magic.

Las Vegas Sockery

Las Vegas must be one of the strangest places on earth. I speak not of the suburbs, of course, where probably perfectly rational people live, but of the famous casino-lined Strip.

It's not a place I would ordinarily seek out, but it's nevertheless a place from which I've just returned. World's-most-patient husband and a couple of boyhood buddies had organized a quick weekend trip for a few couples to meet there. And once you're engulfed in its crazy theme-park atmosphere, with the pirate ship, and the dancing fountains, and the Roman statues, and the singing gondoliers, and the Eiffel Tower, what can you do but just surrender to the whole tongue-in-cheek fantasy of the place?

I lack the urge for games of hazard, so, for me, Las Vegas is a place for nutty sightseeing, eating out, and shopping. Where else could I wear flowered capri pants in an eye-splitting coral pink? And where else would I feel they really needed a pair of golden sandals to set them off? A temporary aberration, I assure you, but fun.

With long airplane flights on the agenda, I needed a compact travel project again. Awash in spinning and dyeing, I had nothing suitable in progress on the knitting front. I turned to socks. Temperatures in Las Vegas were expected to be around 100 degrees Fahrenheit, so I thought of cotton.

I happen to have Knitpicks' discontinued Dancing sock yarn still lying around in a couple of different colorways. It's a summery yarn, about half-and-half wool and cotton, with a little nylon for strength and elastic for bounciness. I think I opined here once that it felt inelastic to knit with, like pure cotton, but that was a calumny. Well, not a calumny, maybe; it wasn't maliciously false, just false. Though I blamed the yarn at the time, it actually may have been the Jaywalker sock pattern that was uncomfortable to knit.

This time, I had the Mockery sock pattern from live2knit on the brain. (I'd seen it on Lime &Violet's Daily Chum, a wonderful blog of which I've recently become an enthusiastic devotee. Honestly, how do they find all this stuff every day?) The stitch pattern creates an elegant texture without bulk. I knew there was a good chance that the delicate pattern would be swallowed up by the bright, blippy color changes in the Dancing yarn. Truthfully, the pattern would probably look best in a solid color. But I figured I'd forge ahead. After all, I needed to knit something with that yarn. I guess I could do plain stockinette socks, but where's the challenge in that?

So I packed up the bamboo needles and dipped alternately into my knitting and a book of English Country House Mystery stories as the miles flew by beneath me. The Mockery pattern was easily memorized and agreeable to knit. The unjustly accused yarn was resilient and perfectly inoffensive. The colorway, while not necessarily a favorite of mine, looks as if it will go well with jeans.

I did have one bad moment. Somehow, in changing from one double-pointed needle to the next, I fumbled a little, and one needle sprang out of my hands and disappeared. I thought it had fallen into my lap, but inspection there was fruitless. I started having visions of long taxi rides to yarn stores for replacement needles. Before long, I had world's-most-patient-husband and the seatmate on the other side searching the seat cushions, and I down on the floor on my hands and knees, posterior skyward, feeling around desperately for my fugitive needle (and no doubt providing light entertainment for some of the other passengers.) Eventually, one of my random floor-pats dislodged the needle from alongside some sort of metal track where it had hidden. So we were reunited, and I clutched the needles more tightly for the rest of the flight.

I can't say I got a tremendous amount done on this trip; it wasn't really that kind of destination. A little cool and cloudy weather might have done wonders for the knitting, but it was all blazing, cheerful sunshine. I did get this far. The strong color changes are distracting, but if you look closely, you can see the mock cable pattern forming in the actual stitchwork. It may show up better after being blocked or in the actual wearing. Or then again, it may not.

But at least I'll know it's there!

All Over but the Grafting

Hang on; just give me a minute... fuss, fiddle, pause, squint, grunt, pick, tug, tug. Deep breath, repeat. There! Done.

Yes, I'm happy to report that the Merino Lace socks are finished. They were my travel companions for quite some time. They journeyed on airplanes. They hung around in airports and stayed in hotels. They vacationed at my in-laws' house. But they finally got tired of being neglected between trips and declared they would not put up with being a travel-only project any more. They insisted on going out with us to ballgames. Really, at times they seemed starved for attention. Poor darlings.

Here they are, my version of the Merino Lace socks by Anne Woodbury from the Favorite Socks book. And honestly, the photo in the book, where they look handsome but a little blah, does not do this pattern justice. They are much prettier than that.

I was intrigued enough, though, to want to give them a try with a skein of Schaefer Anne yarn I had on hand, that I bought from Carodan Farm at last year's Fall Fiber Festival. I used one skein and had 37 grams left over. There's a lot of yardage in those skeins.

I knitted them using US size 1 double-pointed needles, although the instructions are actually written for two circular needles. I don't care for all those cables and points whanging around, so I used inoffensive double-points. Bamboo, for airports.

The Anne yarn, a beautiful concoction of merino and mohair, is on the thinner side of sock yarns. It's thinner than the yarn called for, but I thought the relatively low-contrast analogous blues and greens in my skein would look pretty in the lace pattern. I wondered if it would affect the size of the sock, but figured I would risk it.

Well... I had to do a bit of a do-over. When it came to point when I could try it on, the moment of truth, the first sock was so tight you could bounce a nickel off it (that is, if it hadn't had my leg in it and had been stretched over a drum, I guess). Those soft, subtle space-dyed colors had arranged themselves fetchingly into big thick stripes that I had been careful to ignore, rather than get upset. Embrace the pooling! Become one with the pooling!

I ripped out the whole thing and added a couple of ribs symmetrically around the narrow lace pattern on each side to make it 78 stitches instead of 66 stitches around. You can see the little ribs in this picture, coming down the side and splitting to go around the gusset. That worked out a lot better.

The extra stitches solved the size problem nicely. And I think the added ribs sharpen up the look and set off the lace patterns rather well. As an extra bonus, the pooling disappeared (except for the toes where the stitch count decreases.) The distinct colors blend into a soft, heathery effect.

So now I'm very happy and can just admire the pattern. These are really very pretty socks. Look how the petal-y lace runs right down the back of the heel. They're long- stemmed beauties.

I think I'll make a gift of them to my tall, elegant mom, who loves her hand-knitted socks so much that she bought a pair of clogs just to show off my handiwork.

Ahhh. Hear that? It's a deep sigh of satisfaction.

Knots and Rings Socks Take a Bow

And they're looking rather nice, I think!

I got the Knots and Rings socks finished a few days back. Despite the dangers along the way, they came through just fine, I'm happy to say.

This pair of socks is my good-humored-brother's Christmas gift, albeit a bit late. That is, all but one cuff is late. On the day, he actually opened his present to find a single cuff, still on the needles, along with a big ball of yarn. This worried him a bit, as I have a penchant for offering to teach everybody to knit. But that was not my intention. This time.... :)

Anyway. The Knots and Rings socks are my own design, with a cabled cuff, ribbed foot, and contrast toe. I chose not to make a contrasting heel, mostly because it might peek out of a pair of shoes, making the socks look a little too casual. I was envisioning something businesslike and handsome.

They're knitted in Blue Moon Fiber Arts Socks That Rock Lightweight. The main body of the socks is in the Lagoon colorway and the contrast toes in Haida. The colors are more accurate in this picture.

I used US size 2 needles, for a gauge of about 7 1/2 stitches per inch, and made them in a men's large size. I used one full 4 1/2-ounce skein of Lagoon, and about one ounce of Haida.

The Lagoon yarn was actually a little stiff to knit with, which is why, after some experimental swatching, I went with larger needles than the label suggests. At first, knitting with the Lagoon, I wondered why people seem to like Socks That Rock so much. But, thankfully, the Haida yarn used for the toes seemed a little softer. After trying out Haida and a couple of other colorways, I'm a convert. It's pleasant, bouncy yarn, with beautiful stitch definition. And there are scads of great colorways.

And what about those dangers along the way? Well, let's just say it's good to think about what project you might make and how much yarn it is likely to take when you're making that impulse yarn purchase, not a month later and 3,000 miles away. But the contrast toe added of necessity makes for a more interesting sock, and the Haida colorway blends in beautifully.

All's well that ends well. I hope he'll like them.

Galloping to the Rescue

Reinforcements have arrived. We're saved!

Now I can take care of December's unfinished business, before I get all caught up in rhapsodizing about January's projects. My brother's Knots and Rings socks, poor things, had been lying here for a week or two, toeless, begging for some coordinating yarn that would let me finish them off by adding contrast toes. They were looking really handsome in their Socks That Rock Lagoon colorway, but so sad, truncated of their toes.

Actually, when it comes down to it, it may be more than just contrast toes that they need. I came up more than just a little short of yarn. It may wind up being something more like contrast demi-feet!

Beyond my natural aversion to leaving anybody in quite that state, they were a Christmas present, to boot. So I've been anxious to get them done.

And there, on the right, it's new contrasting yarn to the rescue. Bless you, U.S. Postal Service! And I must say, the Blue Moon Fiber Arts people were quite snappy about filling the order, too.

Oh, what's that on the left, you ask? Well, never you mind. A girl's allowed to have a little treat now and then. :)

Anyway, the new yarn is Socks That Rock Lightweight in Haida, one of a new group of Blue Moon Fiber Arts colorways that they call the Raven Clan. A Google search to satisfy my idle curiosity yielded the information that the Haida are a Northwest Indian tribe centered in British Columbia. In their mythology, the Raven's exploits included creating the earth. A Haida legend recounted here tells how the crafty Raven brought the universe its light. So this name has layers of resonance.

Each of Blue Moon's Raven Clan colorways is made up of various colors drenched in overdyed black. Haida is based on a palette of blues. It will be interesting to see it in the morning's light. In the weak indoor light of a winter's evening, it's hard to see any blue at all; it looks like black with some hand-dyed tonal variation. Even now, though, I can see that the barely perceptible shifts give the color a little more life than a flat solid dark color has.

But either way, visibly blue or not, I think it's going to work out just fine!

And So It Begins

Behold, my first finished object of 2008. It's arrived much sooner than it might have, had I taken down Christmas decorations, written thank-you notes, and done any number of other useful things on my to-do list. On the other hand, it's awfully nice to have a new handknit for myself, so I'm not going to second- guess it!

I made these from the Feather and Fan sock pattern in the Socks Socks Socks book. The yarn is Socks That Rock Lightweight in the January One colorway. It took less than one skein. After knitting the socks with US size 2 needles to get the 7 1/2 stitch-per-inch gauge, I still have about 23 grams of yarn left over, proving once again that women's socks take much less yarn than men's.

These socks were pretty much a romp to knit, especially sock two, once all the decisions and adaptations had been made. The feather and fan lace pattern was fascinating in what it did to the hand-dyed colors.

Where the feather and fan works its magic, the colors look dark and humid and tropical. They remind me somehow of the paintings of Martin Heade, a 19th century American artist, of hummingbirds and orchids in the rainforest. On the sole of the foot, however, where it's plain stockinette, there's no mystery. It's just a perfectly straightforward stripe, albeit in a sophisticated colorway. It amazes me that a mere stitch pattern makes such a difference.

The pattern is a nice one, suits this yarn well, and is clearly written. I like the scalloped garter-stitched top edge. It also has a couple of other entertaining features. It uses a Dutch heel turning, basically square instead of triangular, and the heel flap is ribbed, something I hadn't seen before. I like the way the ribbed heel flap looks and feels on the foot. I did make a couple of small modifications. One was to lighten the purled ridge detail where the foot meets the ankle. (You may be able to just make it out in the picture above. It goes across just above the heel flap, and up and over the instep.) I changed the double ridge called for, which I thought looked a little heavy, to a single ridge. In this strongly colored and patterned yarn, you almost don't notice it at all, but I still think it adds a little zest in comparison to having a smooth sweep of feather and fan all the way down the cuff onto the foot.

The other change was in the toe shaping. As written, the pattern tells you to begin the toe two inches short of the desired length, but then the actual toe shaping adds three inches. The decreases are specified for once every four rows, in a toe style that's normally decreased every two. Then at the end it goes lickety-split, with decreases in each of the last few rows. Well, every four rows is most unusual. I think it's most likely a typo, although the XRX publishing page has no reported errata for this pattern.

I changed it to every three rows until the aforementioned fast finish to get a two-inch-long toe. That worked out reasonably well, though it's still just a bit roomy and could probably stretch without a problem to fit a women's large. If I were to knit these for a medium size again, I'd be inclined to knit them at a slightly tighter gauge.

On the whole, I'm very pleased with my new socks. I'll enjoy wearing them. They make me happy just to look at. And with the merino wool, there's not even a hint of a prickle!

New Year's Knitting

For me, the New Year has started in much the same fashion as the old one ended: with food traditions and knitting entirely more than is good for me. Each New Year's Day, for luck in the coming year, we eat black-eyed peas. (I don't know why they're supposed to be lucky, but it's a Southern tradition. You don't question some things.) We may have already taken care of the luck part with the fried oysters on New Year's Eve, but there's no such thing as too much luck!

On the knitting-too-much part, it's so easy and comfortable just to settle in with whatever's on the needles and placidly knit away for hours. (Maybe pausing now and then just to give the hands and wrists a break, get a drink, make a meal.) On a holiday, OK, there's nothing wrong with that. But what I have to guard against is letting it take over too much of my time on ordinary days when there are things I should be doing. Despite its many wonderful aspects, knitting can also be an insidious way to procrastinate. It's something I can pick up, thinking I won't spend a lot of time, thinking how satisfying and productive it is, just enjoying myself for a few minutes and then a few more minutes.... And I might just keep on doing it for much too long as a way of putting off something I'm not as eager to do. I also get very determined to make it to a stopping place, a milestone point like finishing the sleeve or turning the heel, before putting down the needles.

So, while I'm not a big resolution list-maker, this year I'd like to be mindful of when I choose to knit, for how long, and why. I don't subscribe to the "knitting with an attitude" rhetoric about abandoning housework, haircuts, and what-have-you to make more time for knitting. (I doubt if even those who do say those things really want to live that way.) I'm looking for balance.

I'd also like to reduce or reverse the growth rate of my yarn stockpile. Yarn should make me happy, not crouch in great piles in the corners of my sewing room making me nervous. I've acquired quite a lot in the last couple of years, some as travel souvenirs (as Mary points out), some from getting comfortable with ordering from on-line suppliers, some from festivals. And some from my new spinning hobby! All of this has been jolly good fun, but at this point, I'd really like to bring more of the many sweaters, socks, and shawls-to-be to fruition. I enjoy them in my imagination, and I'm looking forward to enjoying them in real life.

So I'd like to make that a priority this year. I'm not setting any rigid rules for myself, of not buying yarn at all or until some certain number of projects has been completed. I'd just like to be knitting more than I'm buying for a while. I've actually been doing reasonably well on that lately, at least since returning from my vacation in November. I've mostly been giving my local yarn stores a breather. For Christmas presents, I focused on coming up with patterns to show off the beautiful yarns, instead of the other way around. That's the spirit I want to continue with for a while. I have so much yarn that I really love; there's no reason to keep eclipsing it with new yarn coming in.

I think it might be a good goal to make most of my projects from my already-on-hand stock of yarn from now until the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival in May. (I can hardly believe it's already less than six months away!) I'd like to be able to browse joyously through the panoply of things on offer there and find something wonderful to bring home, instead of feeling guilty all the while about overdoing it.

For a little comradeship and encouragement, I've signed up for the Burnin' Up The Stash 2008 group that Knittin' Diva has organized over on Ravelry. There seem to be plenty of people there with giant yarn stashes in need of drastic reduction. It makes me feel very mild-mannered by comparison.

So now I can congratulate myself on making progress on the Feather and Fan socks not just because they're fun to knit, not just because I'm looking forward to wearing them, but also because I'm virtuously using up a skein of yarn I already have.

Happy 2008 to all -- I wish you a happy and healthy year of balance or excess, each according to your own druthers!

First-Footing

In Scotland, there's a custom at New Year's known as First-Footing. Friends visit each others' homes just after midnight, bearing traditional gifts, to ensure that the first foot across the threshold in the new year will be a friendly one, bringing luck for the year to come. There's a lot of great information here, at this BBC-sponsored wiki site, about First-Footing and the other customs of Hogmanay, the Scots New Year.

Here at Yarnstruck Manor, we're having a pleasant New Year's Eve in, with wine and smoked salmon for celebration and fried oysters for luck. Strictly speaking, the fried oysters should have been for Christmas Eve, but the stores around here had run out. We'll just assume that a fried oyster make-up session before the end of the old year will still have the same effect!

There's also first-footing going on at Yarnstruck Manor tonight, but of quite a different sort. My brother's Christmas socks -- which I'm calling Knots and Rings -- are on hold awaiting the yarn for their contrast toes. I already had three other colorways of Socks That Rock Lightweight on hand, but none of them was right for the Knots and Rings socks, so those will have to bide their time. Meanwhile, though, I couldn't help but start on something new.

I'd been thinking of two of those three skeins for possible future presents to particular people, but this one wasn't spoken for. Time for a pair of socks for me!

I hadn't really thought about it, but of all the pairs of socks I've knitted over the years, only two pairs have been for me. And they were made of pretty basic yarns -- a little prickly, in fact -- before I discovered nicer ones.

So, with this yarn, I started yesterday on a pair of socks for myself. Working with this skein, the Socks That Rock yarn is starting to grow on me. It doesn't feel as formidable as the skein in Lagoon. It feels lighter, more flexible, actually a little bouncy with elasticity. It's really rather nice to knit with.

In talking with fiber people about spinning, I've been told that different colors of dyes can affect the texture of the fiber. In particular, they tell me that when wool rovings are dyed with blue and green colors, it can actually felt them slightly, making them a little harder to draft out for spinning. I wonder if there's some similar effect going on with the different dyes with this yarn.

In any case, I began work on the Feather and Fan sock pattern from the Socks Socks Socks book. The first foot of this pair of socks will be the first new foot in our house in the New Year. Perhaps I should walk outside and carry it in over the threshold at midnight!

I like the way the pattern is working with this yarn. This pair is going to be fun. (The color is closer to true in the photo above; the overall effect is not so rusty as this, and the color changes don't really look this jarring.) I'm looking forward to finding out for myself what it's like to wear a pair of merino wool socks.

Now, what about that colorway? Yes, it's... January One. I swear I didn't plan it that way on purpose! But it's awfully appropriate for first-footing, don't you think?

Actually, I'm pretty certain that it's named after the January One blog of Cara, the founder and patron saint of the Spin-Out event held the last couple of years in the New York area. If so, I'm grateful to her for inspiring this colorway, because I'm really enjoying watching these colors paint themselves over the feather and fan pattern. And once they're socks, these colors couldn't help but be cheery on a winter's day.

I hope you're enjoying New Year's Eve as well. Lang may your lums reek! (Scots for: Long may your chimneys smoke!)

Happy New Year to all!

How Much Is Enough?

Quantity of yarn seems to be an issue all around, just now. How much does it take? How much do I need?

In yesterday's post, I didn't think to mention how much yarn the silky scarf required. Let me remedy that now. It took only one 100-gram skein of Handmaiden Sea Silk, with plenty left over. In fact, thanks to the new digital scale I got for Christmas, I can tell you that there are 32 grams left. Based on that, I estimate that Mom's scarf must have taken roughly 300 yards of yarn to knit.

Now, about that 32 grams. That's far too much to throw away, especially since it's so lovely. There's an old saying from times of wartime scarcity: "use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without." That really appeals to my innate frugality. I'd like to use the Sea Silk up. What do you suppose I can make from 1/3 of a skein of Sea Silk? I'll have to give that some thought.

My brother's socks are another matter entirely. I knew all along that there was a good chance that one skein of Socks That Rock would not be enough to complete a pair of men's socks. Even though the skein is about 4 1/2 ounces, the yarn is dense and heavy, so the yardage is moderate. Nevertheless, I knit heedlessly on, figuring that, if needed, contrasting toes would be my secret weapon. Once the first sock was done (but the yarn not cut!) I would determine whether I had enough for the second by comparing the weight of the completed sock and the remaining ball of yarn. When I got there, the completed sock weighed 71 grams, and the rest of the ball weighed only 51 grams. Not even close! I was definitely going to come up way short. I could feel the difference even without the scale.

Well. Contrasting toes are an awfully nice touch, don't you think? And they spend most of their time deep inside shoes. Nobody but the wearer need ever know, unless he chooses to doff his shoes and wiggle his toes. Surely that bespeaks a cozy degree of chumminess that ought to be able to withstand even the most startling contrasting toes! Besides, my brother is just generally a good-humored sort of fellow.

So, using my handy little scale, I ripped out enough rows to even up the weight. I knit the second sock to the same point, thinking all the while that I could do the toes with one of the other skeins of Socks That Rock that I already have on hand. I do want to use the same type of yarn so there won't be a difference in texture.

Now that both socks are ready, the question becomes acute. Here are my options. The skein in the center seems the most likely candidate, but it's not ideal. I find that I'm pickier now than I had expected. My sweet brother's good humor notwithstanding, I want to present him with a beautiful pair of handknit socks, not one thrown together as potluck.

So even though I'm eager to keep going, it looks like I won't be happy unless I order another skein specifically chosen for these socks. It will still need to be a contrasting color, since another skein of the same Lagoon colorway would most likely be from a different batch and leave a tide mark. I'll order another color that I hope will coordinate, and pace the floor impatiently until it gets here.

Looking at all of the beautiful colorways on the Blue Moon Fiber Arts site, it's awfully tempting to throw in a couple more pretty skeins for myself while I'm at it. But that would be gratuitous, wouldn't it? While my store of sock yarn has not reached national strategic stockpile proportions, I can hardly say I'm lacking. After all, how much is enough?

A Satisfying Finish

I do love the time right after Christmas when the frenetic pace of preparation and celebration gives way to relaxed lazy days with no deadlines. It's a great time to sit by the tree with a cup of hot spiced cider... and knit!

Now that my Dad has his socks, and my Mom her scarf, I thought I'd give a little wrap-up on the finished objects.

Gentleman's Fancy Socks
from Knitting Vintage Socks, by Nancy Bush

I made these socks in the yarn specified by the pattern, Schaefer Anne, which is a very fine-gauge hand-painted yarn of merino, mohair, and a bit of nylon for durability. It is soft and luscious to knit, with a little loft and a soft halo from the mohair. It's superwash, too, which is nice. This yarn goes a long way. There are 560 yards in the 4-ounce skein. I have well over an ounce left over!

The tag that came on the skein didn't identify a colorway. Looking around a little on the web, I've found that a number of sites (like this one) say that skeins of Anne are one-of-a-kind, impromptu small-batch creations using dyes on hand from making other Schaefer yarns. Several other sites (like this one and this one, for instance) offer named colorways of Anne for sale, so I'm not really sure! In any case, this skein is in subtle, masculine greens, ranging from sages to olives to khakis. The true color is somewhere between these two photos. It has enough variation for interest and depth without distracting from the stitch pattern.

I used size 1 double- pointed bamboo needles (vs. the size 0 needles called for in the pattern). Bamboo needles are not a particular favorite for me. I find them too bendy, and I always feel like they could give way at any moment. It's like knitting with licorice sticks. But I knew this project was going on a vacation with me, and I figured airport security staff and fellow passengers would find the bamboo needles less scary than my trusty steel double-points. So bamboo it was.

I did modify the pattern somewhat. It had some very unusual features, including a "seam stitch" down the center back of the heel, unusually pointed shaping of the toe, and side-to-side grafting. In this book, Nancy Bush seems as much archivist as designer. I, however, was more interested in producing a comfortable, well-fitting sock than in recreating a museum piece, so I eliminated the "seam" and redesigned the toe to a more typical rounded shape.

In the end, I was very happy with the results. The yarn is lovely, the stitch pattern is attractive, stretchy, and accommodating, and the socks fit nicely. Hooray!

Scarf with Striped Border
from Victorian Lace Today, by Jane Sowerby

I made this simple lace scarf in Hand Maiden Sea Silk, a lovely yarn of silk and Sea Cell, a cellulosic fiber made with a smidgen of seaweed. In this case as well, I don't know the colorway. The tag from the skein says only "Hand Dyed in Canada -- one of a kind." This site has good photos of about 40 of its gorgeous colorways; from the picture, it looks like mine might be the Renaissance colorway.

I used size 5 Brittany birch needles. The pattern calls for size 7 needles, but I was looking for a finer texture without such large loops. (On the other hand, in the end, I over-blocked it slightly to open it up. Hmm.) In this project, the Brittany needles had their chance to shine. For most things, I prefer shiny steel or aluminum needles, smooth and fast, but in this case, the wood was perfect for providing a little grip on the slippery silk.

The pattern, which also seems to be referred to by many as "the page 80 scarf," was accurate and reasonably easy. I enjoyed the technique for knitting the borders sideways and the body of the scarf vertically without breaking the yarn. The only modification I made was to add an extra 25 repeats of the two-row pattern in the main body. This was necessary to regain some of the length lost because of the smaller needles. It came out just a little narrower than the width in the original pattern, but pretty close to the original length. It's a wonderful, versatile size that can be worn many different ways, simply knotted in the front as a decorative accent over a blouse, or wrapped around and around and tucked like an ascot.

And the scarf itself? I think it's glorious. After blocking, it has a lovely drape, and the patterned ends, which remind me of fishtails, show beautifully.

I'm absolutely in love with the colors, and the sheen of the silk, and the way they work in this pattern. I'm delighted with the pooling of the colors over the length of the scarf. I look at the striking rose/fuchsia streak against the deep, quiet blues and teals, and I see a slow flow of lava, glowing in the nighttime, turning this way and that to follow the terrain, crusting over a little as it cools, and finally disappearing into the sea in a cloud of frothy spume. I love the way the lava-flow contrasts with the short vertical dashes of color in the borders.

Most important of all, my Mom loves it.

Oh, What A Relief It Is!

Well, I went ahead and ripped out the toe of one of the pointy-toed Gentleman's Fancy socks and had another try. Here are both versions, modeled on my conveniently-available-but- smaller-than-intended feet. I don't know; do you think the redesign might have made a slight difference? :)

Seriously, with the original toe, I despaired of these socks ever fitting on a man's foot. But the one with the re-done toe seems like it might actually be roomy enough. Better, much better. Phew!

What amazes me is that, by my reckoning, the re-done toe on the right has only two more rows of knitting than the original on the left. Really. That's how much the extreme tapering of the toe was affecting the size of the sock.

Further field testing with a suitable test subject confirmed the initial findings. The new high-capacity design can accommodate a reasonably typical man-foot. Now that engineering design and validation are complete, production roll-out to Fancy-two can proceed post-haste.

I have re-checked the pattern for this sock in the Knitting Vintage Socks book, looking for any possible misunderstanding or error: the number of rows, the number of stitches at each stage, the length in inches. Everything checks out. It's just simply a pointy-toed sock. And even with 20-20 hindsight, the photo just gives no earthly clue that there is anything unusual about the shape of the toe. That sock must have been blocked within an inch of its life.

In any case, the finish line is in sight. Just a little more wanton raveling, some picking up of itsy bitsy stitches, and straightforward re-knitting, with an easy mind.

For the next project, after all this time spent with colors so subdued, I have a feeling I'll be in the mood for something brighter. And speaking of subdued, playing now and then around these parts is a band called the Subdudes. I can't say I know a thing about them, since I've never gone to see them play, but I do know a great name when I see one. :)

Bless Your Pointy Little Toes

Why, why, why didn't I trust my gut feeling a little earlier? I had a suspicion there was something a little odd about the shaping of the Gentleman's Fancy socks. But I was so happy to knit away thoughtlessly that I really just didn't want to dig too deeply.

In knitting the first sock, I noticed that the pattern had some, ahem, peculiar features. The heel turn starts with an unusually small number of stitches. The toe tapers down to an unusual degree before calling for grafting. The grafting weaves together the left and right sides of the toe, instead of the top and the bottom. These are not errata. They are all perfectly, precisely designed and specified. It was what you might call an interesting sock to knit.

When it was done, I tried it on myself, noticed a little room in the toe. OK, that was good. Extra room in the toe was exactly what I wanted to see. I was just hoping it would be large enough for a bigger foot. Not caring to examine the matter too closely, I focused instead on how handsome the stitch pattern looked when stretched out on the wearer.

As always, I went ahead and rushed headlong into the second sock. I knit my way through it quickly, blithely, unknitting and reknitting when I encountered the inevitable minor second-sock mistakes, untroubled and happy, until the thing was complete.

I held it up, looked at it, before asking for help from world's-most-patient-husband in testing it for size. I couldn't avoid noticing any longer; it did look a little odd.

Only then, finally, did I face the facts. OK, I admit it! The toes are a little pointy. Really pointy. Awfully pointy. Pointy enough to poke someone's eye out.

Just how pointy?

This pointy. Oh, my goodness.

This view is of the bottom of the foot. (Don't ask me why; that's just how it decided to pose for its portrait.) You can sort of see the side-to-side grafting, too, which only serves to emphasize the general abundance of pointiness.

Well, it's an adaptation of a vintage pattern; maybe people's toes were pointier then. Or maybe it was a perfect match to the pointy evening pumps late-Victorian gentlemen might wear with their tightly tapered trousers. But it's more a curiosity than a comfortable match for a moderately rounded set of modern human toes.

And as you can see... the heels are pointy, too.
But I really think that will just kind of stretch away when the sock is on an actual foot, won't it? Yes, I thought so too.

So, it's taken a lot of consideration and more than a few heavy sighs, but....

Dear Fancy-one and Fancy-two,

I'm sorry; I don't know how to break this to you gently, so I'll just have to say it straight out. I'm going to rip out your pointy little toes.

I know it sounds painful. But I assure you, it's going to hurt me more than it hurts you. After all, you'll soon be as good as -- no, better than -- new. You'll be getting proper toes, like all the other socks have. But I will never get back the time I'll be spending cross-eyed, picking up 140 teeny-tiny little stitches in tiny little skinny yarn on tiny little needles. I'm only doing it out of an abundance of love.

Thank goodness, at least I haven't already woven in the ends!