45 degree socks

As a partner pattern to my 22.5 degree socks, I’m also working on this 45 degree sock pattern. While the 22.5 degree sock pattern has two heel options, this pattern almost doesn’t have a heel-the sock does bend and change direction, but it’s not through doing anything that would standardly be recognized as a heel. Instead, the leg of the sock is knit at a 45 degree angle, and then the foot is knit at a complementary 45 degree angle, so that they mitre together to form a 90 degree angle at the heel. As with the 22.5 pattern, I love the little rows of yarn overs, though here they’re even more pronounced as they’re every other row instead of every 4th.

This pattern has been so much easier to write up than the other, in part because of the heel. The previous pattern involved a lot of careful number crunching to make sure all the numbers in the pattern were correct, whereas this pattern could almost be written without numbers, until you get to the toe.

I’m planning on knitting up a few more pairs of these socks before opening this pattern up for test knitters, so that hopefully this will be a super smooth test knit!

22.5 degree socks

I mentioned that I was working on writing up this sock pattern, and it’s currently being tested! It’s always so exciting to see everyone’s yarn choices, and to see the pattern that I dreamed up being implemented by others. I decided to knit a second pair of socks from this pattern-this time a kid’s pair from the extra small size.

One of the things I really like about this pattern is that it does cool things both with self striping yarn and with hand dyed skeins. With the self striping yarn you get shallow ‘v’s on either side of the foot, while with hand painted yarn you can either get perfect pooling or stripes. I’m still trying to figure out the exact repeat needed to get pooling on yarns other than the one I designed it for (Round Mountain Fiber’s Alder base) in size medium. The for a given yarn, pooling will depend on the size sock you’re knitting (number of stitches around) as well as on the gauge and the thickness/stretchiness of the yarn (how much yarn each stitch uses). Also, different dyers use different skein lengths, which also will effect how it pools. I think the pattern looks good with or without the pooling though, so I’m happy with the results regardless!

Hawthorne socks

One of the lovely things about the new job/move is that we are now about a 1.5 hr drive from a large chunk of my family, so that when they have monthly get togethers to celebrate birthdays, we can now go. This does mean coming up with suitable birthday presents for people, though. This particular pair of socks is a present for a cousin, but since I fail at planning ahead, he got to unwrap a ball of yarn instead of a finished pair of socks. It did allow me to check in on desired yarn color and size first, so I suppose that was a win?

It’s been awhile since I last knit a pair of socks from this pattern, and I’d forgotten how much I like it. I find something really satisfying in how the cables decrease down to a point, and I feel they’re a great manly sock pattern. I made this pair out of some Knitpicks Hawthorne sock yarn I had sitting around, and I made the cuff so long I had to dig back through my stash to find the second skein! Happily I did find it and was able to finish the socks. Now we just get to wait to the next family get together to deliver them!

traveling stitch knee highs

Another pair of twisted/traveling stitch knee highs! This was the first pair for a pattern I’m working on writing, that will allow for whatever calf shape you have. This not at all overly ambitious goal has been a bit tricky, but I think I’ve finally figured out all the correct arithmetic… it’s tricky not quite knowing how everyone’s legs are shaped. I have an idea of the range of max calf circumferences, and max ankle circumferences, and I assume the person with the smallest ankle doesn’t have the largest calf, but who knows? How large is the largest calf for the person with the tiny ankles? Hopefully this pattern will be such that everyone can have a well fitted sock.

The yarn for this pair is a heavier fingering weight. It’s the Forest base from the Green Mountain Spinnery, in a lovely natural grey color. The fiber content is a blend of wool and tencel, so it feels different from a standard sock yarn. I was almost done with these socks (working down the foot, doing two at a time) when I realized I would need a second skein. It was listed as out of stock on their website, but happily when I called they still had some in stock! I was super grateful, as this pair of socks needed to be done and given to their new owner before I moved.

Lilac hats

Next in our special on baby hats is a series inspired by a friend’s new baby named Lilac. So, obviously, this kid gets a baby hat from this lovely Jaggerspun Super Lamb yarn in the color-wait for it-Lilac! My mum came to visit us this summer, shortly before we moved, and I feel that part of the reason for her visit was so that she could go to the Jaggerspun factory store… she’s been dreaming of going there for years, ever since she first met their sock yarn and found out the store existed. So when the family was visiting us this summer (not just for yarn store visiting, especially since sister and dad don’t actually like going to yarn stores) my mom and I took a quick trip up to Maine and dropped by. I wasn’t planning on buying this yarn, but when I saw it I realized it was exactly the color we had been planning on making Lilac’s (the baby’s) hat from, so I had to get it. Along with a whole bunch of sock yarn. And weaving yarn. Because, well, it is a yarn store…

I’ve been enjoying playing around with using patterns of purl stitches to add interest, and that’s what I settled on for this series of hats (I couldn’t just buy the one skein, and then I had enough yarn for more than one hat, so what else was I to do?).

Blue treckking socks

What makes better vacation knitting than a pair of mindless self striping socks? I picked up this yarn along with the alpaca at Knitting Niche in Ocean City New Jersey, and enjoyed being at the beach. These socks aren’t anything fancy, but that was perfect for walking around and hanging out with the family

NIST baby hats

Speaking of baby hats, this summer my group at NIST had three babies, so I decided they all needed matching NISTy hats. Turns out that the NIST logo lends itself really well to duplicate stitch, though I don’t think that was one of the considerations they had when picking out that logo. For my purposes it was great though, because it made it really easy to knit a basic standard hat and then add on the NIST decoration after. I also appreciate that NIST’s colors are blue and white/grey, which I think is an excellent color scheme. My new institution is orange and black (go Tigers?), which I don’t think I will be wearing all that frequently.

Nerdy baby hat

So, when friends have babies, I typically try to determine if there’s a cool pattern that would mean something special to them that I could use, like the friends who got married at a strawberry u-pick got a strawberry hat, or my cousin who loves ladybugs got a ladybug hat.

This baby’s dad studies “the deformation response of polycrystalline structural alloys”. Apparently that involves modeling your solid with lots of hexagons in varying colors (except they’re called Voronoi tessellations).

So, I was informed that a cool hat would be one comprised of hexagons, using up all my different colored scraps. All well and good, until I realized how many ends that meant I would have to sew in. It was super fiddly, and I’m not fully convinced on how the attachment between hexagons worked out. I think that if I were to do it again I might just knit the hexagons flat and sew them all together after-I think that probably would have been easier than what I ended up doing!

I am very pleased with how it turned out though, and I’m glad I could do something involving his research for his baby’s hat. I made it out of knitpicks swish yarn, which I love for baby hats since it isn’t super expensive, it’s machine washable and it’s soft!

I’m still struggling with the best way to take pictures of hats, particularly kids ones. This time I tried a balloon, which sorta worked, but still isn’t ideal…

Out and Proud yarn from Round Mountain Fibers

I’m a sucker for rainbow yarns, and when I saw the limited edition ‘out and proud’ yarn from Round Mountain fibers, I just had to play with it. I really wanted to keep the colors separate, rather than allowing them to mix and become muddy. My first attempt was to try entrelac socks, figuring that the smaller squares would help get cool pooling.

I think it’s really neat how each square contains its own rainbow, but it wasn’t quite the overall effect I was looking for, so next I decided to try socks with a zig zag pattern on the cuff. I need to work on calculating the number of stitches better-on these the ankles are a bit on the big size, as I increased too many when switching to the zig zags. After the heel flap I decreased until the sock felt snug, so I now have a better idea of how many stitches I should have used!

My third (and final) attempt is the one I’m super excited about-I’ve written up the pattern, and should be looking for test knitters soon. I figured out how many stitches I’d need to get the colors to pool, and in order to use that number of stitches for the ankle, I did short rows so that I knit at an angle, increasing and decreasing two stitches every 4 rows.

I’ve written instructions for both a short row heel and a heel flap, though both heel styles had to be modified to fit the sock. The short row heel has a swipe of black that goes up into the top of the sock to make the geometry work out, and similarly the heel flap is shorter on one side than the other. Also, the socks are “handed”, with a right and a left foot. I considered writing them with a symmetric toe, but the “handed” toe follows so naturally from the rest of the pattern that it seemed a shame not to give it a try.

I’m really excited about this pattern because it not only looks really cool with indie dyed yarn (particularly this yarn from Round Mountain Fibers), but also in self striping sock yarn. The socks below are done in Knit Picks Felici, in the color “rainbow” (matches some of the hats I made last winter). I love how the stripes make ‘v’s down the cuff and foot. I did the heel flap for this pair. Normally I have a really strong preference for a heel flap heel, and I make it really long, but something about knitting on the bias seems to make both a short row heel and a short heel flap work really well for my foot. I love that these socks have a lot more stretch and give to them, just because the knitting is at a slight angle. My working title for this pattern is the 22.5 degree socks, as that’s the angle the stitches are tilted by. I’m still trying to decide if I should stick with that name or come up with something different!

Grapes anklets

As promised, I had just enough handspun yarn left from my ‘cluster of grapes’ braid from Three Waters Fibers to make these cute little anklet socks. I’m an expert at yarn chicken, and had less than 3 feet of yarn left over!

This rainbow roving (colorway ‘cluster of grapes’ ) was from Three Waters Farm. I spun it super fine, and plied it against a grey blend of shetland wool, alpaca and nylon that my mom had blended up for me to make socks from. The two singles were plied, and then I did a three-ply cable thing to make the overall six ply yarn. I love the texture of this finished yarn, and the depth that adding that grey ply added. I think the yarn does a great job of providing enough visual interest of its own, without a complicated pattern.