knitabit

Road Trip

There's nothing like a road trip to get in some quality sock-knitting time!

My daughter and I were passengers with my parents down to Albuquerque, NM to shop for a new violin. She recently outgrew her 1/4 size instrument, and we decided to pick out the 1/2 size in person instead of going the mail-order route again. Mom and Dad offered to drive since we have relatives in Albuquerque that we don't see often enough.

On the way down, I had my oldest son's socks finished by early afternoon:

He has worn them already and in fact, after I shot this photo this morning I dropped them in the laundry basket for their first washing.

I then started on some socks for my daughter. I wanted to use some Sockotta I got as a gift (Hi Lisa!) and I also wanted to try out some techniques from the Lucy Neatby book "Cool Socks Warm Feet." I tried some Sockotta previously on Size 1 needles and felt that Size 0 would be more suited to this yarn. The Neatby book reinforced this conclusion - she says you should use the smallest needle size possible when making socks.

I dutifully swatched and measured with the intention of making the perfect fit. Unfortunately, the sock is too small (too tight around the foot.) Do I rip it out? Do I stick with it and make them for my niece instead of my daughter? I'm still thinking it over...

I also tried a short-row heel instead of the heel flap. This is a garter stitch version of a short-row heel:

It was a real pain to figure out how to do this on circulars as opposed to dpn's.

Working with the Size 0's has been difficult, too. Although the circ's are 20" long, the needles themselves are too short for my hands. My fingertips are getting sore from pushing the needles around (it's bad technique to knit that way anyhow) and my hands are getting stiff from holding the too-short needles awkwardly.

So I don't know where I'll go from here.

The sock sure is cute, though.

Comments

That is a very pretty girlie sock...with three daughters I might have to go looking for that yarn. I bet your daughters going to love it.

Posted by: Stephanie at April 9, 2004 07:09 PM