Tube Socks

The pattern I chose to make these socks has a bias on one side, making the whole thing spiral without needing to shift the stitches. In other words, as the tube progresses the fabric naturally starts to turn. Notice that the pattern begins in the same place, with the p4, on each needle.

Pattern over 13 sts. and 4 rows. I cast on 65 stitches for these socks. They look narrow but have a lot of stretch.
row 1 - *p4, yo, k4, kt2og, k3,* repeat
row 2 - *p4, k1, yo, k4, k2tog, k2,* repeat
row 3 - *p4, k2, yo, k4, k2tog, k1,* repeat
row 4 - *p4, k1, yo, k4, k2tog,* repeat

So the challenge is figuring out how to place the heels if the fabric keeps turning. JWR had the brilliant idea to make after-thought heels. So here, two long tubes with waste yarn to mark where the heels are going to go:

Lots of things about these socks are kind of tricky. Starting but not ending with dealing with the Zauberball color shifts. Here, picking up those stitches to begin the heel:
Also, it's hard to gauge how long to make the foot without having a heel to fit into. So: Heel almost done:
Holes to sew up at the sides of the heels, which is no problem since I left plenty of ends hanging:


Doing the heels is one thing, but since the fabric is twisting, the next challenge is placing the toes properly so they line up with the heels.

To be continued. . .

Hat on a plate

This was very fun to knit. I guess I am still not tired of colorwork...
It's is a local pattern from the women at Rosies Yarn Cellar. It seems that they have started a business representing a yarn company called Kelbourne Woolens. They have a nice site with some really good free patterns. Take a look here.

Done, done and done.

Finally finished a few projects. Really, I just finally got the time to do some blocking...

And Four Hours Later

The Zauberball is a really great yarn -- very subtle color shifts like Noro but much softer. Those are the plusses. The minuses are that there are knots in the yarn and the yarn is spliced together with no real care for continuing the color shift. So as I found out, even if you unwind the entire ball to figure out the progression of the shifts (see my little piece of scrap paper below: dark blue-purple-magenta-red-orange-yellow-orange-red-magenta-purple-dark blue), depending on how the yarn is spliced, you might end up with a good part of the skein that merely repeats what you already have rather than continues the progression at the beginning or the end.

So, unwinding:


More unwinding:


And more:
Where I ended splicing, at the orange:

And four hours later (seriously):


Two really nice balls of yarn. One starting with the yellow inside, the other with the purple inside. I'm making birthday socks for my mom (more on that in a later post). She's crazy so she'll love them even more because they won't match. But I can see how others have gotten really pissed about this yarn. Once you get knitting, it's great to work with. But it's a real pain up to then.