Danube Socks - Finished!

The second sock went quickly.  I typically do not have second sock syndrome.  Once I get one finished I typically knit the second one up right away, buoyed by my success with the first one.  I’m not really sure why I abandoned them the first go around ten years ago, but I’m glad that I finished them.  I am also glad that I recharted everything, even though I had the file electronically and had created the project in knitCompanion, I like my charts better.  I could have done some things in knitCompanion with the original charts to create cuff charts for the front and the back, but with my adding some ribbing to make them fit better I really needed to recreate the charts.  Each of these club patterns came with both a sock and a shawl or scarf pattern, and in the past I have used the club yarn for the sock and stash dived for the other pattern.  I do have the scarf that came with these socks in progress, and may get back to it at some point, but that yarn cake looks like it took some bug damage as well, and I haven’t check it out yet.

This photo was taken right after joining the toes and weaving in the ends.  You can see just a little bit of Jezebel in the upper right corner, curled up on the Comfort Blanket, which she has claimed as her own.

Pattern:  Danube by Janel Laidman

Needle:  US 1.5 (2.5 mm)

Yarn:  Dirty Water DyeWorks Lillian in Sea

 

Danube Socks - One Sock Done!

I finished up the first sock this past Monday.  After all of my previous attempts, this time went well and very quickly.  An interesting fact that I discovered when I got to the foot is that, according to the pattern, the foot has 66 stitches, whereas the cuff has 60.  I suppose that because the foot, per the pattern, is ribbed everywhere outside of the pattern panel on the top of the foot, the extra stitches don’t matter from a fit perspective.  My sock foot has 68 stitches, 33 stitches on the top and 35 stitches on the bottom, which is the same stitch count as what I have in the cuff.  You can see the extra stitches that I added into the pattern in the top photo - the column of twisted stitches that goes from the cuff down to the column of twisted stitches that delineate the decrease line on the top of the foot.  Those extra stitches are mirrored on the back of the leg.

My heel flap has 35 stitches, and when I turned the heel I worked 23 stitches in row 1, and then followed the pattern directions for the wrap and turn rows.  I picked up 19 stitches on the gussets and decreased 1 stitch on each gusset on the first round to make sure I did not have a little hole where the gusset joins the top of the foot.  I kept the heel turn stitches in stockinette, so the sole of the foot is in stockinette as I didn’t think I wanted to walk on ribbing (this was a tip I picked up from one of the finished projects on Ravelry).  As I worked the gusset decreases on the top of the foot, per the pattern, I shifted stitches from the bottom foot needle to the top needle to keep the 33 stitch count on the top of the foot.  After all of the decreases I had 33 stitches on the top of the foot and 35 stitches on the bottom of the foot.  I continued with this stitch count until I reached the decreases for the toe, at which point I did a set of decreases on the sole, where the stockinette meets the ribbing, to get to 33 stitches on both needles.  I kept all stitches in the established pattern as I decreased to the toe.

I have already started the second sock and am almost done with the cuff.

My go to method for knitting socks is to use two 16 inch circular needles.  These are Knit Picks needles, which have a nice flexible cord and sharp tips.  I have a bunch of these in the small sizes used for socks.  After I finish this pair of socks I will continue working through the Art & Sole patterns, which were for the knitterati sock club 2012.  Three of the five skeins of the club yarn that was sitting out for a decade are a total loss, but I have plenty of sock yarn in my stash, plus the extra skeins of this sock yarn that I bought to get the free shipping, so I have plenty to pick from.  The next pattern I am going to work is the Dragonfly socks, and I think that club yarn is going to be okay.  Curiously, I only have a paper pattern for that one, I do not have an electronic copy in my Ravelry library, although I have the others.  For the cuffs of those socks I am going to try out my ChiaoGoo mini needles with the short cables so that I can work the cuff on a single needle in the round, given the patterning, which is quite extraordinary.

Pattern:  Danube by Janel Laidman

Needle:  US 1.5 (2.5 mm)

Yarn:  Dirty Water DyeWorks Lillian in Sea

Danube Socks - One Cuff Done!

What an ordeal this sock has been!  The first in progress one damaged beyond repair by carpet beetles (that’s what I get for letting it sit around for a decade!), and then started over five more times.  The first time was when I added extra stitches to get a better fit but kept the same needle size and ended up way too big.  The second and third times I went down a needle size and added the extra stitches (cast on 78 and 80, respectively), and then ran into trouble when I got to the pattern and was trying to figure out how to work the extra stitches in, partly because you don’t have the same number of stitches for the front and the back, there is one more for the back.  The fourth time I decided to go back to the original needle size and cast on the number of stitches called for in the pattern, but I also decided to try the two at a time magic loop method.  Ugh, that was fiddly, even after I had worked a few rows and I felt like I was spending too much time adjusting the cord and shifting things, so back to the frog pond I went.

I then decided to add some extra stitches back in, but use the needle size called for in the pattern, so I sat down with my graph paper to figure out the best way to do that.  In the end I added extra ribbing between the motifs on each side, but did not add any extra stitches on the edges (between the front stitches and the back stitches).  I added four stitches to the front and four stitches to the back, a purl and a ktbl between the first and second motif and the second and third motif.  I also redid the charts in my Stitchmastery program, and when I did that I discovered a few things.  The printed chart for the top of the foot did not have the decrease stitches, it had ktbl instead, and the cuff chart row numbering indicated that not as many rows of the ribbing should be worked.  The chart for the top of the foot was correct in the PDF.  The instructions had you repeat row 3 20 times, but the row number of the row following row 3 (both printed and in the PDF) was 10, and I had decided that 22 rows of this ribbing was excessive (after working it 4 times!), and decided to only work 12 rows of ribbing before starting the pattern, which had the happy side effect of avoiding the fit problem on my muscular calves.  I did up the full chart for both the front and the back (33 stitches for the front, and 35 stitches for the back) and combined the top foot chart in with the front chart so it is all together.  That was another thing that was bugging me about the pattern, the cuff chart was only over 20 stitches, so keeping track of the pattern as you went around the cuff was a little bit of a headache, especially as you don’t have the same number of stitches on the front and the back.

Now, on to working the heel and figuring out the construction of the rest of the sock.  Hopefully I won’t have to frog again.

Pattern:  Danube by Janel Laidman

Yarn:  Dirty Water DyeWorks Lillian in Sea

Needle:  US 1.5 (2.5 mm)

Danube Socks - Take 2

These socks were started back in the summer of 2012, as part of Janel Laidman’s knitterati sock club.  This was right around the time that she developed other interests and vanished from the knitting scene for a while.  There were some questions about the pattern, which I’m not sure were ever answered.  I left the partially knit sock and the yarn in a sock project bag that had come as part of the club, on the floor, with some other stuff for a decade.  When I finally cleaned up that pile I discovered that carpet beetles had gotten at the yarn.  I cleaned it up and unwound the cake to see how bad the damage was, with the result in the picture above.

I am on a bit of a mission to finish up some of these old projects that have been lingering for a long time, or else frog them if I don’t want to finish them.  In the case of these socks I decided to finish them.  I do like her patterns.  At first I thought I would stash dive, as I do have an awful lot of fingering yarn in my stash, but in the end I decided to see if I could find some more of the same yarn, even if I could not get the same color.  I did find some and ended up buying 4 skeins of different colors to get free shipping figuring I can use them for other sock patterns that I have.  I settled on a color called Sea for this pair.

I have recently knit two pairs of socks (Celestial and Void) and determined that I needed more stitches in the cuff to get a good fit thanks to the fact that I walk a couple of miles every day.  For those socks I had cast on 16 mores stitches than the pattern called for, bringing the cast on to 80 stitches.  For this pair I decided to add 18 stitches bringing the cast on to 78 stitches.  I was using the original needles that the pattern called for (2.5 mm), but when I tried on the cuff after knitting a few rows I discovered it was way too big.  On trying on the original cuff again I determined that it fit, but the stitches were hugely distorted.  I decided to go down a needle size and see if that worked better, and it did.  I still have to figure out how I am going to adjust the pattern to take account of my extra stitches, and when I need to decrease to get a good fit, but so far I like how they are knitting up.

Pattern:  Danube by Janel Laidman

Yarn:  Dirty Water DyeWorks Lillian in Sea

Needle:  US 1 (2.25 mm)