Irish Socks

I finally decided to try and tackle a pair of socks. I've always just been so intimidated; they seem so complicated. But I still had some of the yarn from boyfriend's series of Irish garments, and I couldn't think of anything else to make him with the amount I had left, so socks.

Now I know worsted yarn isn't exactly ideal for yarn, but it's really just a practice pair, and it's what I had on hand. I wanted to do magic loop socks, but the smallest circular needle I have is US 6 and 29 in. While I didn't really feel comfortable doing two at once, I was determined to do toe-up magic loop socks. So I hit Ravelry where I found a toe-up magic loop sock pattern!

I had to learn a new cast-on for the socks. The pattern said to use the Turkish cast-on, but for whatever reason when I searched it, I ended up with Judy's magic cast on. I'm not sure if they're the samw thing or not because I never did look up a Turkish cast-on video after I watched Judy's magic cast-on. Now, that doesn't mean I understood the cast-on right away. I didn't. I think I re-started the first sock, oh, twenty times. Sometimes I messed up the cast on, or messed up the increases or got confused or just wasn't satisfied with the way it was looking. Even so (and maybe because), I still somehow ended up one stitch short on one of my needles, and I didn't notice until I was starting the heel, so that's just that. I added an extra stitch while I was doing the heel increases, and thought I had it fixed, only to somehow decrease back down to one stitch too few again on the same needle. So I don't know. Then boyfriend said he wanted the cuff to be rib stitch, so I did a few rows of that, and gave it to him to try on one last time.

It may sound like I have a finished sock. Well, that's not exactly true. You see, when I gave him this sock to try on, we realized a couple of things, the first being that I don't understand socks. The socks was actually too big. Boyfriend was very kind and said he would just use them as boot socks, but I take pride in my work, and I wanted it to be what he wanted and not something he settled for. And of course I messed up the heel. As I said, the sock was too big, so when I was doing the increases for the heel gusset, I didn't increase as much as I should have for the size of the sock because it would have been just one more part of the sock that was much too big. I didn't think anything of it (again, no understanding of socks) but as many of you can probably imagine, it was a big problem. The heel was crazy uneven and weird looking, and then I had made a mess of the ribbing I was doing for the cuff. All told, it was not a successful first attempt at socks.

However, I pushed the hours of work and what seemed like millions of attempt at restarting already to the back of my mind and frogged the whole sock. And made the whole socks again.

This time, I cast on 10 stitches per needle because boyfriend has wider feet, and only increased to 44 instead of 48. As I knitted the body of the sock, boyfriend said the fit was much better, and I could see it was, and i had increased to the appropriate amount on each needle. For the Fleegle heel, I actually followed the instruction and increased to the correct amount and decreased to 40 to really make the cuff fit. The cuff on this one is still a little loose on boyfriend, but the rest of the sock fits so well that it doesn't matter.

I've even started on the second sock!

I'm a little disappointed because I wanted to have the heel also be white, but I really just couldn't figure a way to do it, so I left it be and now I'm over half way to having knitted my first pair of socks!

Happy knitting!

New Colors in the Scrap Blanket

I've been excitedly working on my scrap blanket as projects have come off my needles leaving me with not quite enough yarn to really make anything else. I have since finished boyfriend's green and white Irish mitten and the black from the slippers, and so I've put those two colors into the blanket.

However, as I started boyfriend's orange and white Irish mitten, I realized that I'm going to have more orange left than I anticipated; way more than I can conscionably put in the scrap blanket. This has left me with a choice: either find something else for the orange or rip apart the whole blanket for the green and make one last Irish themed project. I think I have enough yarn for socks, but up to this point I've been avoiding socks because I'm scared of them. I guess now is as good a time as any to start on some.

And I guess if I rip apart the blanket, I can do a different pattern. I am less than pleased with how this one is turning out. I didn't think about it, and now my edges are curling in. There are also a couple of places where I messed up, and I would like to go back and fix them. Then again, they're places in the green, so I guess it won't be an issue with the green gone.

But then pulling the green out leaves me wondering if maybe I put the purple into this scrap blanket before it was really finished. I'm not sure what I could make with it, but I could probably make something. Should I pull that apart and set it aside, too?

I've got some decisions to make about this blanket, and I'm leaning towards pulling it apart and using the remaining green, orange, and white to make socks, but we'll see if I can bring myself to do it.

Happy knitting!

Problems with Sister's Lace Scarf

After I finished my sister's headband a few years back, I started on a scarf. Originally, I followed the pattern which basically said to do to repetitions of the lace. And the picture below is the size the scarf sat at for more than a year. 

A week or two ago, I picked up my sister's scarf again. I knitted through the pattern once or twice and happened to glance at my ball of yarn only to realize there was no way I was going to be able to make anything scarf length the way I was going with the amount of yarn I had left. So I frogged the whole thing and started over only doing one repetition of the lace.

As you an see, I got a fair ways in the scarf before I realized that the scarf was curling in way more than I wanted, and I also got to thinking about how the pattern is not reversible. I decided that while this had been a good pattern for a headband, it was probably not the best pattern for a scarf, and I frogged the whole thing again.

Now comes yet another question of what should I make for my sister? I do want to use this yarn, and I already made her a headband. Maybe a scarf with a different or more plain pattern so she could still wear it with the headband? Maybe not a scarf at all. I guess I have been making mittens, although I suspect my sister will want fingerless gloves or maybe fingerless gloves that have a mitten part to cover the fingers. I'm not sure yet, but it's on my mind.

Happy knitting!

Re-Starting Dad's Scarf

If you read my post about my October Knit-a-long project, then you know that frogged all the progress I had made on my dad's scarf because I couldn't find yarn to match the original. I wasn't as upset as I could have been because I haven't worked on it for a while, and also the elongated chevron looked pretty silly on the end of garter stitch.

My dad's scarf before I frogged it.

I'm notorious for just buying a skein of any yarn that I think looks nice if I have some spare cash on hand. Just one skein. Rarely do I buy yarn with any specific project in mind, but rather because I think I'd like to make something for a specific somebody. This often lands me in some trouble because I'll get the yarn home, make a project with it, and then have some left over, but never quite enough for whatever it is I want to make. This has happened to me with multiple scarves because looking at the yarn left after another project it seems like there's going to be enough for a scarf, and then I end up having to start over making a thinner scarf or give up entirely. This is the situation I'm in with my dad's elongated chevron scarf. But I thought to myself, "Hey, I know where I got the yarn, so I'll just go back and buy another skein and I can finish this scarf up." Unfortunately, my lack of planning meant I went to the store without the yarn and came home with a similar skein of yarn that didn't actually match the original.

Now not only am I going to have to start this scarf over, I'm going to have to start it over with the new yarn and leave a decent quantity of the other yarn without any idea of what I want it to be. At first I thought the old yarn would be a perfect candidate for my scrap blanket, but it just seems like there's something else I could use it for first because there's more than I really want left for me to add it to the blanket. One of the previously finished projects I have that I have not yet had the chance to post about it the hat I made for my dad with this yarn. I don't want to make another hat with it, but I'm not sure what else I could use it for. That is, until I found the October Knit-a-long.

October Knit-a-long project made with the old yarn from my dad's scarf.

I'm not sure if the cuff is going to use up enough of the yarn, but that's a problem for November. Now that I have that yarn in something, I just had to decide if I wanted to continue my dad's scarf with the elongated chevron patter. Well, I didn't really because the pattern is a pain to knit, and I think I'd have to do the whole scarf in it to make it look even reasonable, and I'm not sold. Maybe it would look better in a blanket. I have been drooling over the brioche stitch recently, and I think that's the way I'm going to go with this scarf. I'm pretty nervous about doing the actual stitch for no particular reason, but hopefully it will work out, and I'll have a scarf I can actually give to my dad.

Happy knitting!