Mosaic 21: disheveled octothorps

I think that this pattern looks like poorly drawn tic-tac-toe boards (octothorpes). The yarns are the same as in mosaic 19: the navy is from Kim Dyes Yarn, colorway: String Theory-blue, yarn: sourdough sock, and the tweedy white is from Yankee Dyer Yarns, colorway: In the buff, yarn: yankee tweed. This pair is pretty standard-striped bottoms, pattern on the top. Nothing particularly new, other than the mosaic itself. I do like having a bit of variation in the stripe width though, particularly when there is so much contrast between the two yarns. 

Mindless socks

This is my standard sock pattern-I've made enough of these socks at this point that I can easily do them without thinking. This is also my starting point for designing any sock, be it lace socks, cabled socks, or even mosaic socks. I knit this pair of socks while I was on vacation, and needed something to do while walking along the beach or if the lighting was bad-the one disadvantage of mosaic socks is that I need to reference the mosaic pattern, particularly at the start, and that I can't knit them in poor lighting. 

The yarn is from Gypsy Stardust, colorway: Gypsy Dance
75% Wool - Merino
15% Manufactured Fibers - Nylon / Polyamide
10% Manufactured Fibers - Tencel / Lyocell

Mosaic 20: cable

This is the last pair of cascade heritage sock yarn in red and white-I'm making these socks a bit on the small side (women's size 6 or 7?), because that's all the yarn I have. With this pair I did two new things, both relating to the bottom of the foot. First, I used the reinforced bottom again, though this time I put stitch markers around the bottom 28 stitches, using only them for the reinforced bit, and did my decreases into the pattern. It meant I had to carry the white yarn all the way down the side of the sock (approx 18 stitches?), since I didn't want to cut it and then have to weave it ends. I think I prefer this location for the decreases though, when doing the reinforced bottom. Second, I did the knit-slip-knit-slip rows on the first row with a given color, and then knit straight across the bottom on the second row. You can see how the stitches don't line up into a perfect row, like they did with the previous sock.

TDS 2018: Stage 2

The pattern for stage 2 had me learn a new cast on. Both this pattern and the stage 1 pattern had me use a slightly different gusset in doing the decreases after the heel. Here the decreases go down to a point. I might try this with the mosaic socks, doing the pattern on the outside of the decreases and the reinforced stitch on the inside.

I like this pattern, though I'd make some slight changes to it, and probably pick different cables. It worked really well in the blue Holiday Yarns sock yarn I used, as well as the solid green Jaggerspun yarn my mom used. The yarn color isn't right in any of these pictures, unfortunately.

I finished these socks in 11 hours, 14 minutes-4 minutes faster than the stage 1 socks. That earned me 8th place. First place took only 9 hours to knit the same sized socks, which is significantly faster. While I am enjoying TDS, I'm also bummed to have it proven that there are people who can knit much faster than I can.

Mosaic 19: Basketweave

The navy is from Kim Dyes Yarn, colorway: String Theory-blue, yarn: sourdough sock. The tweedy white is from Yankee Dyer Yarns, colorway: In the buff, yarn: yankee tweed. When I realized I'd run out of navy for mosaic 13, I went to my local yarn store to see if they had a navy sock yarn. They didn't have a solid navy, but they did have this lovely tonal, and they helped me pick out the tweedy cream to go with it. (My mom's local yarn store didn't have a solid navy either, nor even did my my mom's stash (or at least the portion of it she searched), but a thorough search of my own stash (clearly only the last resort-we had to exhaust all other options first) revealed a navy that I used to finish up the socks.) I have a fondness for tweeds, but even my mother, who says tweed yarns look like they picked up all the waste bits of fluff off of the floor and spun that into the yarn, really likes how these socks turned out.

The name, basketweave, is what Barbara called it, and I've been unable to come up with anything more interesting. I like it though, even if I can't come up with a good name for it. I put a thick, reinforced bottom on this pair, by which I mean that for the first row with a color I simply knit across the bottom, but for the second row I knit, slip, knit, slip, etc. all the way across. It's the same stitch I use on my heel flaps. I make sure to slip the stitches in the second row of a color so that there are distinct rows. Maybe next time I'll try doing it the other way, for interest. I think the next sock might have to have this type of bottom on it, because there's something else I want to try out-I want to just have a solid width of the reinforced, and have the pattern come all the way down, which means that the decreases will have to eat into the pattern not the stripes.  

Mosaic 18: diagonal boxes

Another sock out of the cascade heritage sock yarn in red and white. I think I have enough yarn for one final pair of socks, but it might have to be a small pair-maybe another set of anklets.

This pair has the pattern going all the way around the foot. I made the heel flap a bit longer than normal, and when I continue the pattern across the bottom I only decrease every 4th row, or every time I do the second row of the white. So the decreases go on for quite awhile-at least 1/3rd of the length of the foot. The socks are quite comfortable though, and I like how they fit my foot, so I don't think it's an issue. Normally I try to do a bit shorter of a heel flap on these socks since I do the decreases more slowly. I tried doing the decreases every other row, as I would do on non-mosaic socks, with mosaic #2, but I decided that was too quick. I could try doing the decreases every third row, but that means they are constantly changing which color and row number they're in-by decreasing every 4th row I can more easily remember to simply decrease on the second white row every time.

As this is a pattern with a strong diagonal, I made sure that the second sock is the mirror of the first, so the diagonals go the opposite directions. I really like the look that gives the socks, and how the diagonals meet when you put the two feet/socks next to each other. The strong diagonal nature of the pattern also makes it a great candidate to turn into a zigzag pattern, like I did with mosaic #2 and a few others. I'd like to come back to this pattern at some point to do a zig-zag version, but for now I must press on to pattern 19!

TDS 2018: Stage 1

Since this whole mosaic sock project started with the Tour-de-sock (TDS) last year (2017), when my mom convinced me to try knitting my first pair of mosaic socks, this year I am participating in the TDS. TDS is a sock knitting race in six stages, that raises money for Doctors Without Boarders. Winners (those who can knit a pair of socks the fastest) get skeins of yarn, plus bragging rights. For each stage a brand new sock pattern is released at a set time, and then everyone can start knitting. When you finish knitting the pair of socks you send pictures to TDS staff and post on Ravelry. They then check that you did do the pattern, and knit at least the required minimum amount.

For the first stage we were told to pick a crazy colored yarn, so I picked out this handpainted watermelon colored knitpicks stroll sock yarn. I'm not sure it did the best job of displaying the pattern though-I kinda wish I'd picked more of a solid color. The pattern is a lace pattern, with diagonal lines of yarnovers. If you squint carefully you can see it

I finished these socks in 11 hours, 18 minutes, and finished in 7th place out of around 600 people.

Mosaic 17: the maze

I had a really tough time trying to figure out what this pattern reminded me of. Someone said it reminded them of a maze, so we'll go with that. I decided to try something different, so the bottoms of these socks are solid red. In order to make sure the top wouldn't be too long, every other time I did the white rows across the top, I also did red rows across the bottom. It turned out to be way more fiddly than I expected, and I didn't particularly enjoy it. If I did the needles on circulars, with the top half of the sock consistently on one needle and the bottom on the other, that would have made it easier. On double points I found it more tricky than I expected. Also, it became more challenging to tie the top to the bottom consistently. Ideally I would knit the pattern across the top in the white, then purl across the bottom with the red. Next I'd twist the yarns together, before purling back across the top with the white and knitting back across the bottom with the red. I'm not sure I remembered to do that more than a handful of times though. I played with several other techniques to make the transition between top and bottom seamless, and in the end I pretty much decided it was too much of a pain to bother with. If I really wanted the solid bottom with this pattern in future, I'd probably modify the pattern, and make the long white stretches only one row thick, while also making the long red stretches three rows thick. By thus decreasing the ratio of white to red I should be able to only keep the white on the top without having to do make-up red rows on the bottom.

I ended up working on these socks while attending a reunion at Cornell, and was able to claim that I was doing red and white socks on purpose! It wasn't true, of course-this yarn (cascade heritage sock yarn) happened to be the next thing on top of my stash, so I'd picked it, and I'd already used it for the handcuff socks last week. I still have some left over, so it will appear again, but two pairs in a row with the same colors is enough.

O Tannenbaum

The first mosaic I ever designed from scratch, that is. Why I feel the need to knit Christmas trees in July I don't know, but I was overcome with the urge to knit trees. There are some things you have to keep in mind when designing mosaic patterns. I had to design the trees upside down, to make sure they would be rightside up on the socks. I also made sure I never had to slip more than three stitches at once-that seems to be the limit that Barbara has set for her patterns, so I stuck with it. The major trick though, is that with mosaic knitting, you're slipping stitches to pull the color from the previous row up into this row. So if the color isn't in the previous row, you can't pull it up.

The green yarn is Knitpicks alpaca sock yarn, and the white is Dye For Me dancing toes. I ended the socks with 8 yards of the green left-perfect! I think I have enough white for only one more pair of alpaca mosaic socks. I may have to go in search of more white alpaca sock yarn!

Mosaic 16: Handcuffs

These ones look like handcuffs to me. No one else has been able to convince me otherwise. The yarn is all cascade heritage sock yarn, and I'm really pleased with how the colors work together. You can't really tell in the picture, but I went with a striped bottom for this pair.