12/19/2010
I recently found the Will Work For Yarn! group, and I jumped at the opportunity to make socks for boutiquegirl with this lovely yarn she bought at Stitches East.

I’ve been swatching for several ideas. Here are the ones that seem to be working, as far as getting a good gauge and showing both the stitch pattern and the lovely variegation.

The 4th picture from the bottom is a swatch of the stitch pattern in Leyburn Socks. I’ve made a pair of these for myself before. I did this swatch with size 1 1/2 needles, and I’m getting the correct gauge.

The 5th from the bottom is Show-off Stranded Socks. I got the correct gauge with size 0 needles.

The 6th and 7th are both sides of a stitch pattern I came up with myself. Nothing terribly new, but I was going with the theory of slipped stitches shoping up well in variegated yarn, so I tried this. It’s actually two swatches in one. The bottom half has the slipped stitches every 4 stitches, and the top half has them every 8 stitches. I got 10 and 9 stitches to the inch on these stitch patterns, respectively.

The 8th and 9th from the bottom (the top two at the time I’m writing this) are similar. I just crossed the diagonal lines I was playing with on the previous swatch to get cute cables with the slipped stitches. I got 12 stitches to the inch on size 1 1/2 needles. This is a little too tight for this yarn, so I’ve go up a needle size or two, which would also enlarge the diamond shapes the cables make. I think that would be an improvement, too. This swatch, while it stretches decently, pulls back in rather strongly. I think this would great if you like tight socks (I do!), but if you don’t want them too tight, it would be a nightmare.

So, boutiquegirl, what do you think?

12/28/2010
I started actually knitting the sock on Christmas Eve, and although it took several tries, I figured out how to transition from the toe to the foot on Christmas. I think I’ve figured out the right number of stitches. At least, I hope so…

1/12/2011
I have the first draft of the first one finished. I’m trying to figure out how to make everything work together. Nothing seems to work like I thought it would, but I love the process of figuring it out. I’m not entirely sure what I think about what I’m doing with it at the moment. We’ll see what boutiquegirl thinks!

The white thread is a lifeline, but I expect to frog past that, honestly. I wanted to start the extra columns of slipped stitches farther down, but to keep them spaced evenly, I had three choices. I could use the same stitch count and let it pull in more. They’re already pretty snug, so that wasn’t really an option. The second choice was to add increases at the new columns, but I’d have to pretty much start the sock over to change the number of stitches between the columns. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be evenly spaced. But this kept the sock the same width. I don’t really mind doing this, but I didn’t want to do that without knowing I need to, because that delays her getting her socks by a large margin, and it puts a little extra wear on the yarn, so that needs to be her decision. Besides, I might as well work out the other kinks first if I’m going to do that, so I don’t have to do it yet again. The third was to add increases at the new columns and at the already established ones. This made the sock wider. I didn’t want to do that until I got to where the calf widened. I also had trouble coming up with a good way to do the ribbing.

Now that I’ve done a temporary bind off and tried the sock, my thoughts are completely different. This stitch pattern pulls in snugly enough that I didn’t have to worry about the sock widening. I don’t think you’ll be able to tell once it’s stretched around the leg. And I really don’t even know that it will need ribbing. Right now, the ribbing is the loosest part of the sock! But, of course, this isn’t my sock, so I need an opinion from the person who’s going to be wearing them first.

I also have enough yarn that I can make the sock taller, or I can obviously shorten it, too.

1/22/2011
Okay, I like this a lot better. I started the extra columns of slipped stitches earlier, and I did 1 X 1 ribbing. The ribbing does seem to be completely optional, but if she wants it, this looks a lot better than what I had before. These are pictures 14-17.

I’ve started on the second sock for now, until I hear back from her again. Most of the sock is worked out by now, so it’s going really fast! I started it this afternoon, and I may very well be ready for the heel before the day is over.

1/29/2011
I’m nearing the end! She wants the socks to be taller by 2-2.5 inches. I have more than 20 grams left, so I think that’s doable, but I’m not positive. So just in case, I wanted to find out how much yarn I needed for the ribbing. There isn’t enough yarn used in a round to go by weight, so I just ripped out the ribbing of the first sock and measured. It only took me a little over 10 yards. So if it comes down to it, I can knit back and forth between the two socks until I have just enough for the ribbing to make it as tall as possible.

I already have the second sock longer than the first one, and I think I’ll knit faster in anticipation at this point, so I should be done in no time!

2/4/2011
I’ve got three new pictures of the current socks. They are in a finished form, but I don’t know if this is final. Let’s see what she thinks!

Later…
She likes them! Time to get them in the mail.

3/2/2011
She has the socks, and she likes them! I sent her a copy of the pattern, too. At some point, I’d like to modify it just a little bit and write up the pattern and make it available on Ravelry. I realized I don’t have enough of the yarn I had in mind for it, though, so I’m not sure when that’ll get done.