Friday, June 3, 2011

so close

I haven't been able to add anything to my FO list recently, which for some reason makes me feel as though I'm not getting anywhere. In truth, I'm seriously close to finishing not one, but two pairs of socks.

The socks for Twin2 have been Kitchenered at the toe, and stitches loaded up for the after-thought heel. I was ready to Kitchener the toes Sunday, but I was without my tools, not having had the foresight to bring more than the actual knitting with me to mom's. I probably could have hunted up a yarn needle and such, but I was watching The King's Speech, and Kitchenering toes takes more concentration than just knitting, so I'd have had to stop watching the movie, and, well, I didn't want to. The fact that it took me almost a whole week to get back to the socks might just tell you what kind of a week I've had. (not good)
Still not entirely sure there will be enough yarn to finish off the heels, but I'm willing to forge ahead with it and find out. (pattern is Paul Atwell, yarn is Kroy Socks FX in Camo Colors)

 The Furrowed Iguana socks (pattern is Cornrows, but worked toe-up, with a (modified) Fleegle heel, yarn is Maizy in Iguana) are finally at the ends of the cuffs, where I'll work how ever many rounds of 2x2 ribbing I can until I run out of yarn (designer suggests 15 rounds, but that seems like a lot to me). I could be done with these already if it weren't for the fact that I decided to shift the ribbing to better line up with the twisted rib pattern of the body of the sock. (It would have been nice if the designer had thought of that.) She just has you do 2x2 rib starting at the beginning of the round, which is fine, but if you shift that one stitch, start (and end) the round with k1, then carry on with p2, k2, etc as per usual, the ribs on the top seem to grow out of the cornrows. (I suppose you could start (and end) with p1 and carry on in k2, p2 from there as well - for a slightly different effect.)

ribbing as written - looks a mess

ribbing shifted to "grow" from the cornrows
Who's going to notice? Me, I guess. But I think it makes enough of a difference that I'm re-knitting every other stitch from the last two rounds of ribbing to have it come out this way. (Yes, I realize that with the crazy coloring of the yarn, you may not be able to see what I'm talking about here unless you know what you're looking at. But I can see it.)
Basically, by shifting the ribbing, the stitches that were pulled to the outside edge of each cornrow become the knit stitches, and the stitches in the center of each cornrow become the purls. Which to me, makes total sense. Having once realized this, it was pretty much impossible for me to go on without "correcting" it, as I know I would have just ended up staring at the cuffs and muttering every time I wore them, wishing I'd just taken the time to "fix" it when I had the chance.

Excessive? Maybe. But when I'm done, I'll have pleasingly symmetrical sock ribbing, which I'm sure will at least make me feel clever every time I wear these socks.

Who's a clever knitter? Oh, ME, that's who. So there.

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