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!

Another Finished Packer's Hat

After I finished knitting the other Packers hat and cut all of the yarn to make the braids and edging (which I have yet to deal with) I still had a ton of the Team Spirit yarn left over. I wasn't sure what to do with it because I don't even like the Packers (I like the Lions) so I didn't want to buy more and knit more Packers things, but there wasn't enough for a scarf left, I was not going to make another pair of mittens, and I didn't really want to make a headband. That pretty much just left making another hat.

Well, I sat down a few days ago and cast on the hat that I decided would go to boyfriend's dad who also likes the Packers and started on it. I wanted to get through the first green band because I was doing a rib stitch for that to keep in more secure. (The pattern I improvised was to cast on 90 sts on those US 9 circular needles and rib until the first progression of green finished. Then I knitted for five inches which worked out to be just over five stripes. Then it was round 1- K8, k2tog, round 2 and all even rounds- k even, round 3- k7, k2tog, etc. Eventaully I switched to the magic loop again, which sucked less this time on the 16 inch needles, until the last round where you k2tog all the way around and then thread the tail through the remaining sts, weave in the ends and done.)

I was just sitting on the couch knitting and watching tv and all of a sudden I was at the decreasing rounds. Once I get to the decreases, I don't like to stop lest I get confused and muss it up, so I just finished it. Because I now have these circular needles, I didn't have to seam up the back at all, so all that was left was o weave in the ends, and I'd produced a hat in an afternoon. I made this 10 sts bigger than my gut told me to because boyfriend assured me that his dad has a big melon head and would need the space. (Melon head is my family's word for many of the guys because they all have huge bald heads like melons) I'm pleased with this hat, and I hope boyfriend's parents like the things I'm making for them!

Happy knitting!

Green Bay Packers Hat

I've been trying to start knitting Christmas presents for everyone, and I do have something for most everyone. There are a few people left I'm still worrying about, but it just occurred to me the other day that I ought to get my sister's boyfriend something. She always wants to get my boyfriend presents, so I figured it was only fair.

Last week I was at Joann's looking for circular needles to knit hats for boyfriend and his friends for Dag anyway, and so I popped over to the Red Heart Team Spirit self-striping yarn. Then I realized that I don't know what teams he likes, so I texted my sister and asked her. I was a little appalled to learn that he likes the Packers and the Cubs, but I grabbed some green and yellow yarn and some Clover Takumi US 9 16 in. circular needles and was on my way. I was a little annoyed with Joann's when I got to the knitting needles section and found they only had two brands of knitting needles and a rather poor selection within those. I wanted some metal needles because that's what I'm used to and they're cheaper than bamboo. Unfortunately, they only had 29 in. and up lengths in the metal needles. I wanted (I was guessing) a 16 in. needle because I wanted to be able to knit hats on it without any fuss. I found what I was looking for in the bamboo  needles, and they were on sale, so I guess it was okay.

Next was for me to ask my sister if her boyfriend would wear a hat or if I would have to make him something else. She reported that he would, but he wanted it to be a sports team hat (check) with a pom pom on it (doable).

Yesterday I actually sat down and started his hat. At first I wasn't sure what kind of hat I wanted to make, and then I really looked at the hat pattern on the yarn, and decided that was the way to go. The pattern said to cast on 90 stitches on US 7 needles, and since I had US 9, I decided to cut it down to 80 stitches. I did check my gauge, but for whatever reason, each test swatch I did came out claiming I had the same gauge as the US 7 needles. I mean, I knit pretty tight, but not that tight. So 80 it was. However, I misread the directions some a little. It said to start the hat on straight needles-no big, I would just start on my new circular needles-and then purl one wrong sided row before switching to double pointed needles. This instruction for whatever reason didn't make sense to me at the time, and I got it into my head that what that meant was for the first row to be purled so the hat wouldn't roll because of the stockinette stitch. I later realized how incorrect I had been, but by then it was too far to go back, and it doesn't seem to make that much of a difference.

Yesterday afternoon I sat and knitted the first 5 inches of the hat, and then did the first couple decreasing rounds. While I was knitting those first couple rounds, I realized that I wasn't going to be able to finish the hat the way it was, but I don't have double pointed needles large enough to swap out, so I thought I'd learn the magic loop. I knew it was meant to be done on much (much much) longer needles than 16 in., but it was kind of late, and I couldn't think how I could get it onto my longer circular needles. So I pushed right on through and finished the hat using the magic loop on 16 in. needles. It was a pain, and then next time I make a hat on these needles, I am going to do something else, but I managed it, and the hat looks pretty good if i do say so myself.

Last night I also knitted the ear flaps onto the hat. I wasn't sure how it was going to work out, but I was really glad I used the thumb cast-on (the first thing she shows in the video-I know she says there are problems with it, but it's the way my grandma taught me to cast-on, and I really like it for hats and things that need a lot of stretch) because those stitches were so easy to see and pick up. They were so easy, and they looks so cute.

So after that, I was finished with the hat for the night.

Not because I actually hat finished it, but because I didn't feel like making the pom pom, and I don't have a big enough crochet needle to do the edging the pattern calls for. I've never done edging on a hat before, so I was on the fence about doing it at all, but I'm hoping it will make the hat stop rolling, so I'm going to set this hat aside until I can pick up the right size crochet needle. Okay, I might make the pom pom, and I did cut the lengths of yarn to make the braids which I can't attach until the edging it done.

Happy knitting!