Friday, October 6, 2023

Mackintosh Socks - Cast On!

This one took a couple of tries to get a result that I was happy with.  This is another pattern from the Art &  Sole Sock club by Janel Laidman.  As can be seen, it is knit from the toe up, and it comes in two sizes small (8” circumference) and large (10” circumference).  I started out working as per the pattern, with a symmetrical toe, casting on 24 stitches (12 on each needle), and working the increases to get to the stitch count of the large size (based on my experience with the Damselfly socks).
But when I started working the foot after completing all of the increases I was just not happy with how it was fitting.  This yarn is a bit different from other sock yarns that I have worked with.  It is Alisha Goes Around Tracks of Bison Fingering, and it contains no nylon.  It is 90% Merino, 10% Bison, and it just behaves a bit differently.   So I frogged and started over.  This time I decided that I would tackle the asymmetrical toe shaping, so I pulled out my notes from Damselfly and cast on on 34 stitches (17 on each needle) and then worked two sets of increases where I increased on both ends, and then continued with increasing only on the right, as this will be for my right foot.  When I got to 30 stitches on each needle I stopped working any increases, having determined that for my foot (at least) the small size was going to fit me perfectly.  I will see what happens when I get to the cuff, I may need to do some increases there, but fortunately the cuff charts make it easy for me to do that.

This is the club yarn that came with the pattern, and it did take some damage from bugs, but I decided to cake it up and see how bad the damage was.  It turned out to not be too bad.  I have two good sized cakes (40 grams & 30 grams), plus some smaller balls.  Given how much yarn a typical sock takes, and the fact that this pattern is toe up, I decided to use the yarn.

Pattern:  Mackintosh by Janel Laidman
Yarn:  Alisha Goes Around Tracks of Bison Fingering
Needle:  US 1.5 (2.5 mm)

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