My first post to my blog. I actually figured out how to make the thing. Well, I like to make things so yippee for that. I make lots of things, but lately I knit..obsessively perhaps. I may talk about other things I make here sometimes, but mostly knitting. Yes, I know my picture is needlepoint. I like doing that too so expect to see more of that stuff sometimes.
I collect yarn. I have more yarn now than I can knit in my life. I like to look at it and touch it. It is all beautiful. I knit socks and sweaters and scarves and bags and throws and anything else I can think of. I also read knitting books.
I love starting things. I have "issues" sometimes with finishing them. I am working on that. Perhaps having this blog will help me with my issues.
I've been knitting off and on since I was five years old. My great aunt taught me the knit stitch. Everything else I know how to do I taught myself. I never took any classes and didn't even know such things were possible until about 18 months ago. I'm in my late 50's now, so I pretty much knew things before then.
I just started knitting socks last winter. I hate dpns so had always decided not to do socks. Then someone in a shop said "magic" loop. It is magic. I watched her for 2 minutes. Then said, where is a needle and I was ready. I've made over 20 pairs of socks since then and usually have 3-4 pairs going at any one time. It's turned into another obsession.
So, I'll share, on this first post, one of my pairs of socks made of some of my favorite yarn. Cider Moon. Love this yarn. It is so soft. It is in the Habanero color and I used the sport weight yarn called Glacier. These are toe up socks. I didn't have a pattern specificaly.
I used things from two books. First, I have Sensational Knitted Socks, perhaps my sock bible is how I think of it. These are toe up socks on magic loop. SKS doesn't help with the start for this but I started with a 4/4 magic loop cast on and then increased to 44 stitches and worked even stockinette for the foot. It has a flap heel and gusset. I put a K1S1 on the back of the heel to keep it snug. I didn't decrease back to 44 stitches on the gusset because of what I wanted to do for the leg. I was going to need 48 stitches there.
For the leg lace pattern I went to another book, Favorite Socks from Interweave Press. I used the lace pattern from Evelyn Clark's Go With the Flow socks.
I think these worked out pretty well. They feel wonderful and will be great if winter ever gets here.
With the toe up construction I was able to use every bit of this great yarn in the socks, not wasting one bit. I know it's not really visible (I will get better at the photo thing), but I bound off at the top in purl to show the bumps on the outside. I like how that looks at the top of my socks. I also usually use a needle one or two sizes larger than whatever I knit the socks with, just to be sure the bind off isn't too tight.
