Monday, December 31, 2007

Cotton is bad for socks...

But oh, so good for the soul.

My parents, at a loss with what to get me for Christmas, sent me yarn. (I love my parents.) While talking to my mom, I mentioned that I would need to start knitting cotton socks soon, since I'm planning on moving back to Arkansas, where my stash of wool socks will be pretty useless. My mom relayed this to Dad, who, of his own volition, went to a yarn store and bought me yarn. Some of it's wool, some of its cotton. Two particular balls were Schachenmayr Nomotta Crazy Cotton. 100% cotton, fingering weight. Yarn that I know my parents bought for me to turn into socks. So I am. Otherwise, they may start having doubts about whether they're buying me "good" yarn, and never send me any again. Plus, I love the colors.

The downside to cotton socks is they have no natural stretch. I already plan to string elastic through the top, so they'll stay up, and, the fit is a lot more particular than any other pair I've ever made. Working toe-up, they were getting too tight, so I unvented the toe-up heel flap. (this is nothing new, but all the patterns I saw were size 0, fingering weight, and I couldn't figure out the formula. to apply to my own socks. So I guessed.) If anyone's curious how I did it, increase every other row until you're ready to start the heel, work a short row heel over the original number of stitches, (I had 44, so the heel was over 22), ignoring those that you've increased on. Once you've finished the short row heel, continue working back and forth, and knit the last stitch of the heel onto the added stitches. I like it. It has the added benefit of creating a deeper heel, which may be more aesthetically pleasing.
Feather and fan lace pattern, adopted from Kaibashira from Magknits, without the purl rows. Size 2 needles, 44 sts.

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