Lorna's donates 20% of all sales of this sock yarn to breast cancer charities.
I want to see what I can do on my sock machine with one skein and a handful of Miracle Beads.
Friday, June 29, 2007
Lorna's Flamingo
Here is a skein of the new Shepherd Sock colour from Lorna's Laces - Flamingo Stripe - colour # 507; 80% superwash wool & 20% nylon; 215 yards; 7 stitches/inch
Lorna's donates 20% of all sales of this sock yarn to breast cancer charities.
I want to see what I can do on my sock machine with one skein and a handful of Miracle Beads.
Lorna's donates 20% of all sales of this sock yarn to breast cancer charities.
I want to see what I can do on my sock machine with one skein and a handful of Miracle Beads.
Vogue-ish Key Lime Treats
Here is a pair of socks I adaped from Vogue Socks II. Not quite so many colour changes as the original pattern and I went to a regular interval shift in the main body to keep my head clear: 4 rows main colour, 2 rows accent colour, repeat going through rotation of 4 accent colours. Number of rows rotations worked out perfectly for a Medium sized sock.
The yarn is my own sport weight 100% Columbia lamb from our farm. It is very very soft but strength and softness are sometimes mutually exclusive so to be safe I knit wooly nylon, in the closest colour match, into the heels and toes.
The colours were pot dyed with Washast Acid Dyes: Lilac, Key Lime, Raseberry Sorbet, Saffron, Turquoise, and Bright Orange.
The top is a double hem, done in a 2:1 mock rib with a pico edge.
In this picture I've turned one sock inside out so you can see the colour joins. On the CSM (ciruclar sock machine) I cut the yarn colour I'm guitting, leaving a 4" tail. I pull that tail through the yarn carrier to the work side and lay it backwards under the latchhooks of the needles that have just finished knitting. I feed the new colour through the yarn carrier, and through the loop made by folding the old colour backwards, and lay the first few inches of the new colour forwards under the latches of the needles that will knit next. With this little trick there are no ends to sew in - they are knit-in as I go. Imagine having to sew all these ends in!
This method gives a precise colour change as each colour only overlaps on itself. This also gives an area of about 10 stitches where the yarn is double thickness. For this reason I did all my colour changes on the sole of the foot. With so many changes in this pattern it has the effect of creating a cushion sole!
I use a lot of self patterning yarns and one thing that drives me crazy is when there is a knot - which always signals an interuption in the pattern and sometimes even a complete change in direction of pattern. Manually changing the colours is certainly more labour intensive, but satifies my OCD need to 2 socks to perfectly match ;o)
The yarn is my own sport weight 100% Columbia lamb from our farm. It is very very soft but strength and softness are sometimes mutually exclusive so to be safe I knit wooly nylon, in the closest colour match, into the heels and toes.
The colours were pot dyed with Washast Acid Dyes: Lilac, Key Lime, Raseberry Sorbet, Saffron, Turquoise, and Bright Orange.
The top is a double hem, done in a 2:1 mock rib with a pico edge.
In this picture I've turned one sock inside out so you can see the colour joins. On the CSM (ciruclar sock machine) I cut the yarn colour I'm guitting, leaving a 4" tail. I pull that tail through the yarn carrier to the work side and lay it backwards under the latchhooks of the needles that have just finished knitting. I feed the new colour through the yarn carrier, and through the loop made by folding the old colour backwards, and lay the first few inches of the new colour forwards under the latches of the needles that will knit next. With this little trick there are no ends to sew in - they are knit-in as I go. Imagine having to sew all these ends in!
This method gives a precise colour change as each colour only overlaps on itself. This also gives an area of about 10 stitches where the yarn is double thickness. For this reason I did all my colour changes on the sole of the foot. With so many changes in this pattern it has the effect of creating a cushion sole!
I use a lot of self patterning yarns and one thing that drives me crazy is when there is a knot - which always signals an interuption in the pattern and sometimes even a complete change in direction of pattern. Manually changing the colours is certainly more labour intensive, but satifies my OCD need to 2 socks to perfectly match ;o)
Thursday, June 28, 2007
Schaefer Anne
I love the feel and the colours of Schaefer Anne. For some reason unbeknownst to me I sometimes have a real fight winding the skein into a ball, using my swift and Royal ball winder.
Finding the right guage and pattern can also be 'interesting'. Here is an example: I had two skeins that appeared virtually identical. I wound both into balls and made two pair of socks, making one sock of each pair from one skein, and then the other.
For many self patterning yarns a 54 stitch sock gives a nice look and makes a perfect ladies medium. So far I have not been happy with the pooling that Anne gives with the 54.
On this pair I removed every 4th needle, giving a 3:1 mock rib. I replaced the bottom half of the missing needles 15 rows before the heel, but left the other missing needles out for the foot until 5 rows before the toe (so with all needles in it makes it easier to kitchener). Some folks seem to like colour pooling, and in this example at least it looks like striping, but in general, I hate pooling!
On this pair, I removed every 6th needle, giving a 5:1 mock rib. The colour patterning is more pleasing to my eye, although the leg isn't as snug as I prefer for a medium size.
Finding the right guage and pattern can also be 'interesting'. Here is an example: I had two skeins that appeared virtually identical. I wound both into balls and made two pair of socks, making one sock of each pair from one skein, and then the other.
For many self patterning yarns a 54 stitch sock gives a nice look and makes a perfect ladies medium. So far I have not been happy with the pooling that Anne gives with the 54.
On a 72 stitch sock, Anne looks fantastic. But alas, this is a larger sock and not suited to a medium lady size. So I tried some variations and here are the results:
On this pair I removed every 4th needle, giving a 3:1 mock rib. I replaced the bottom half of the missing needles 15 rows before the heel, but left the other missing needles out for the foot until 5 rows before the toe (so with all needles in it makes it easier to kitchener). Some folks seem to like colour pooling, and in this example at least it looks like striping, but in general, I hate pooling!On this pair, I removed every 6th needle, giving a 5:1 mock rib. The colour patterning is more pleasing to my eye, although the leg isn't as snug as I prefer for a medium size.
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