Knitting Projects

I'm continuing to make slow progress with my reproduction Swedish socks. I am decreasing now. At first I thought decreasing each time I came to the outer point of the decorative triangles would be enough, but it wasn't decreasing fast enough. I decided to also decrease when I reached the base of the triangles, but decreasing at that purl point was confusing me. I decided to decrease within the knit stitches.

Now my problem is actually remembering to decrease!

I have two other knitting projects underway. The first is a sock pattern from the book "New Directions in Sock Knitting." I bought the book because I am a builder at heart. I love exploring different ways to put things together. I chose this particular pattern because it looked like one of the easier ones in the book, meaning the sock construction, not the cables.

I completed the leg section without too many mistakes in the cable pattern. Rather than knitting the heel and then picking up stitches for the gusset, this pattern adds purl stitches every other row between the cables. This creates the gusset without having to pick up stitches later. I like the look of the sock, but I am not having fun knitting it. And isn't that the point? I'm considering ripping it out to the base of the leg and justcontinuing as an ordinary sock. In the meantime, I've stopped knitting. I know in my heart that I am unlikely to ever finish the second sock if I continue this way. Is it really worth it to keep pushing through? Maybe I should frog the whole thing and choose a different pattern?

My third project came about while I was researching for a nalbinding class I am teaching this spring. I came across a video for herringbone stitch. I love the look of it and decided to give it a try. I'll tell you the details in my next post.

My Swedish socks

I continue to work on my Medieval style knitting project. This first sock will clearly document my trials and errors, because I just can't pull them out. The stitches are too small - I would lose my mind. In fact, as I was knitting over the Christmas holidays, I was pleased because I had reached the 5 inch point - I was ready to start decreasing the back of the leg. Then I noticed I had dropped a stitch, within the triangle pattern. It was several rows back. I tried to pick it up, but it just got worse, so I unraveled several rows and put the knitting back on the needles.

It was a worse mess than before - I had missed several stitches, and kept splitting the yarn. It took me about an hour to get everything back on the needles correctly. That row looks awful. Sigh. But I am on my way again - almost back to the 5 inch point.

(The color is all wrong in this photo, as you will see, the yarn is red.)


Here you can see some of the choices I've made as the project progresses:

 

This is the center front of the sock. I added a little triangle, for just a bit of interest. When I started the sock, I only had 4 needles, and I had a very hard time with the tension, particularly going from needle to needle. You can clearly see where I stopped knitting until I was able to borrow a needle from a friend. The tension issue has gotten better, but it has not gone away. I'm not sure what else to do. Perhaps it is because of the small size of the stitches; perhaps it is because the silk/wool blend is not as forgiving as a plain wool yarn. I don't usually have this problem.

Here you can see the back of the sock. I began by purling the first and last stitch of each row, but after completing 2 triangles, I decided it didn't look right. Looking closely again at the photo of the artifact, I decided to purl just the first stitch of every other row. It seems more correct, but I didn't like how that looked, either. After one triangle, I switched again.

Now I am purling the first stitch, except at the beginning and end of each triangle. That stitch I am knitting so that I don't have 3 purl stitches in a row. It does not exactly match the artifact, but I like how it looks. One more triange and I should be ready to start decreasing!

Swedish sock

It was so nice to have a day off from work this week. I got to accomplish some planning for knitting the historic sock. First, my yarn came, and I love it - it is 70% merino, 30% silk. It is a joy to knit with. Counting the stitiches in the photo of the artifact, I believe the sock was knit at a gauge of about 20 stitches to the inch. The smallest needles I own are 000, and that knits up a sample at 18 stitches to the inch. Not quite small enough. And I have a project on those needles at the moment. So I've decided to knit the socks on 00 needles. They knit up at a little more than 10 stitches to the inch. That makes it easy - I just have to knit half as many stitches.

After I knit a gauge swatch, I had to figure out how to make the pattern. I tried a few different ideas:

Purling the first and last stitch of the round; knitting the first and purling the second; purling the first and last stitch of every other row. I decided purling the first and last stitch was the way to go. I also needed to figure out the best way to decrease as the sock gets closer to the ankle. I decided the best way is to purl 2 stitches together at the point of the triangle. It makes the decrease practically unnoticable.  I also decided to keep the top of the sock fairly plain. I have no idea what the top of the artifact looks like, but since the majority of the leg is plain, I decided to keep the top plain, too. So I cast on 166 stitches, and got to work:

As you can see, I've knit about half an inch. At this rate, I'll have new socks in a year!

Poof! September is Almost Gone

Sigh, September has been a busy month. Somewhere along the way I misplaced my spindle with the thread I was spinning for the Ribe mittens. And my lacis project. Hopefully I will find them soon. In the meantime, I'm meandering as usual. I found a picture of a late 16th century sock from Sweden that I want to knit.

 Isn't it pretty?

This will be a BIG challenge. First I have to figure out the pattern. So far I am counting stitches as I search for the perfect yarn. Perhaps by the end of October I'll be ready to start.