Tag: Socks

Forgotten Socks

Recovering a lost sock project and finishing it in three days.

Sometimes I take a look at my works in progress in Ravelry and decide that I have too many on. I then go to search around for projects that I either feel like completing or that need to be frogged. In this case, I frogged three and found one project that was already 80% or more completed. I’d forgotten I started them a day after completing the previous sock project in October 2021. It also uses the same self-dyed yarn but uses a different pattern. This pattern is called Hexenzirkel by Sonja Köhler and has a very cute zig zag cable pattern. The Ravelry project can be found here. I chose to do the pattern on the side of the foot.

When I recovered the project, it was in a bag with a print out of the cable chart with tick marks. Past me was more organized than current me expected, that’s for sure! I decided to complete a few more rounds of the chart and then start the 2×2 ribbing. It didn’t require much time at all to complete and I’m unsure why it ended up in a bag in the bottom of the box of shame. Hopefully I’ll get around to wearing these every so often, however, I expect a fate similar to the other ones. Nice to look at, very few wears because I’m just not used to hand knit socks.

Rainbow Socks

Double experiment with dye and with a knitting machine.

I recently acquired a Knittax S knitting machine and to thank the original owner, I am making him socks.

The yarn I’m using is Alpaca 4ply Sock: 60% Superwash Merino 20% Superfine Alpaca 20% Nylon sock yarn, purchased from Chester Wool. This yarn is so soft, I love it. It was hand dyed by using it as the ‘cleaning tool’ when making up some pots of citric acid with Eurolana dyes. The spoons that were used to put the dye in the pots, was wiped on the wet yarn. The distribution of colours is basically ‘which bit is still too white’. Colours are black, brown, grey, orange, yellow, soft yellow, red, magenta, violet, blue, navy, turquoise and green. They came out quite muted, but I do like them. When knitted up, they are more obvious than on the ball.

As for the socks, the instruction booklet for the knitting machine came with patterns in the back so I chose to make the basic socks for men. The pattern is in the images (in Dutch, translation for the image below). For the first try, I cast on exactly as intended, but chose setting 5 on the machine. These socks turned out quite large so I frogged them and started again on a setting 4 on the machine. The length that came out on setting 4 matched the book, so that seemed to have gone well. I’m not sure if I’m seaming them right, they feel quite bulky and I’m not sure that’s nice on the foot. I’ve also discovered that knitting takes about as much time as the seaming. The knitting is very quick, this machine goes a hell of a lot faster than I ever can by hand.

Image translations (left). Hiel: heel; Ondervoet: bottom of the foot; Teen: toe; Bovenvoet: top of the foot; Beenlengte: length on the leg; Naad: seam; Verkorte toeren: short rows; Open steken: provisional stitches.

After finishing one sock, I brought it to the original owner to try on. He claimed that they were indeed the right size and that the ridges of seaming wouldn’t be annoying. As he’s been wearing machine knit socks like this for a long time, I’m inclined to believe him. So then I set out the knit the second sock with the same settings. It took me a few goes and a lot longer than it should have but in the end, sock number 2 was finished. Before seaming it together it does look really strange and not what you expect. Once the seaming is finished however, it does look like socks. I’m amazed.

Sock, pre-seam
Knitting machine in action
Knitting machine, lengthwise

I really enjoyed the process, can’t wait to make more things on this machine!

Rainbow Spot Socks

Using your self-dyed yarn to make some socks is very satisfying.

So next to having a stash of yarn just pre-dyed, I now have also accumulated a stash of undyed yarn. There was a temporary stash of self-dyed yarn, but I’ve knit most of that up by now. It made the starry night sweater, the red-black neck warmer and this new addition: rainbow spot socks. I chose some yarn called Blue Faced Leicester Superwash / Nylon Sock weight for my new sock project. The yarn was dyed using this tutorial by Nicole Frost.

  • Coloured spots!

The plan was to create a yarn with different coloured spots on a black background. So 10 cable ties were wrapped on the dry yarn, which I then dumped into some black dye in my pot on the stove. I let it simmer for a little bit and then put the newly dyed yarn onto some plastic wrap. The cable ties were removed and different dyes were squirted onto the still white spots. Red, yellow, green, turquoise and blue and those repeated. It worked out really well. This sock yarn was then wound up into two little connected balls and left to languish in the hoard for a while.

  • Cardboard feet look so weird!
  • Finished pair.

Recently, I decided that I did want to knit it up and see if I can still knit some socks, this time preferably some that I could actually wear. At some point in the fairly distant past, I bought the Fish Lips Kiss Heel by Sox Therapist. It’s basically a recipe for making a heel in a sock and uses a cardboard cutout of your foot to get the proportions right. I paired it with Two at Once, Toe-Up Magic Loop Socks by Knit Picks Design Team for the details on how to make a toe and cuff. First time, I knit about halfway up to my foot, tried it on and it was just too big. So I frogged the whole thing and started again. Sweet spot for this yarn seems to be cast on 10 stitches per 3 mm needle (20 total), and increase to 22 per needle, around 50-55 rows before the heel. These ones are a tiny bit loose in length, but perhaps some laundry will be helpful for that. I have worn them for a day and they were comfortable so I’m pretty happy. They did only take about a quarter of the ball of yarn, so I should have enough to make another pair – that I’ve totally already cast on… Hopefully I get those sorted soon too!