Friday, August 21, 2009

Scrappy Socks Red & Blue

Scrappy Socks BR foot See, I can't blog about France if I don't write the posts about the trip during the evening at home. I'm going into such excruciating detail, they just take too long for a lunch hour post.

I've been writing in a Word document at home, then just formatting and tweaking them during lunch.

Instead, today I offer you knitting content!

Stash Busting
One good thing about this yarn diet is it is forcing me to use my stash and work on some of the projects I've been meaning to get to.

I was so tired of working 2x2 rib socks that I've reacted in the opposite direction to plain stockinette stitch.

These are one of the pairs of socks I've been meaning to make from my leftover Jitterbug yarn. I believe I've mentioned them before. You might even remember, back when the economy was good, I even bought some more Jitterbug for the express purpose of having more leftovers.

These are a combination of the Blue Jitterbug, which I think is the first color I bought, and the Red Jitterbug. I have 36 grams of each. The original socks took between 76 and 80 grams to make. The amount I have (72 g) should, in theory, be enough for a pair of socks. Just probably shorter than I usually make.

I'm planning to work the toes, heel, and cuff with the Blue and the instep and leg with the Red. When I first switched to the Red I was a little disappointed as I didn't see much difference between the two colors. Now that I have some length worked you can totally tell.

Seeking Balance
Scrappy Socks BR intI don't know how well you can tell in either of these pictures, but I have a funky set up going on. Since I'm using up scraps, I'm working these toe up. It made the most sense.

However, I was about seven rows into the Red on the first sock when I thought, "Drat! How will I be sure they come out even? I should have divided the ball first." (For some reason the leftover Blue is already in two separate balls.) I realized my only option was to work them at the same time, since I didn't want to have to frog just to weigh and divide the yarn.

I have not worked socks two at a time on two circulars. In fact, I don't own two pairs of any of the small circulars to be able to do it. Also, I don't get second sock syndrome, so I don't have the need/desire to work them simultaneously as a preventative measure. However, I have seen other people do it. And since I'm a terribly clever knitter, I was able to figure it out.

To Clever for My Own Good
I don't know how well you can see my set up in either of those pictures.

Since I don't have two circular needles, I'm using one circular and five dpns. hehehe! So half the socks are on the circ, the other halves are divided onto two dpns, and the fifth dpn is my working needle.

This is working out rather well for me. Seems to me, when I see people having trouble with 2 socks on 2 circs it's because they forget which needle to knit with. That is something that has put me off as it hurt my brain trying to figure out which direction they were going. But with my set up I know to work circ to circ and dpn to dpn. I've also kept a row counter on each sock so I can be check to make sure they are tracking the same. If the counters don't match, I know to stop and check for errors.

The foot is just about done. I'm going to work short row heels, because they are easier. I think, just to be safe, I won't cut the Red yarn until the heel is done so I can double check the foot length with a more proper fit.

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