Three heels

That’s how many I’ve turned since the last time I posted. I seem fated to do each section of Pomatomus twice… I had to rip and redo the entire leg, then I knit the flap and heel turn as directed in the pattern, but didn’t like how they came out. So I ripped, and reknit using a short row heel – I really do just like short rows better. I’m afraid I didn’t take a picture of the flap heel, but here’s how Pomatomus currently stands:

And a close-up of the heel:

I think I’m getting a little better at this photography thing, and I’m starting to figure out some of the settings on my camera. I love that you can see the slight mohair halo in this picture. Although it’s still coming out a little too blue, with not enough of the purple coming through.

Anyway, that heel is my standard short row heel, wrapped but not picked up, except that to fit with the rest of the sock pattern all of the stitches are knit (or purled) through the back loop. It’s an interesting effect – it does bias the fabric slightly, but it’s stretchy, and on the foot it straightens right out.

Here’s the same heel in a solid color, and with no halo:

Yup, that’s Bayerische. I’m afraid the heel shot is all I’m posting today – all of the full-sock shots came out lousy, and I’m too lazy to take more right now.

Anyway, these socks are trucking right along, and I still love them both. I think it’s kind of interesting how I keep doing a section of one, then the corresponding section of the other – I don’t seem to be focusing on one or the other, the way I thought I would. Well, I guess that just means that two FO posts should be coming up pretty soon!

The Frater is visiting this weekend, so I don’t know how much more knitting I’ll get done. We’ll see.

Dead fish…

… but we can rebuild him. We can make him better. Bigger. (Stronger and faster don’t really apply, do they?)

Anyway, yes, I frogged my Pomatomus. I still love the pattern and the yarn, but it just wasn’t working quite right. I have very wide feet, and I think the Anne is a little thinner yarn than I’m used to using (no, I didn’t swatch… but 72 sts in fingering weight on size 1 needles usually works for me, and I’m exactly the sort of knitter who, at least for a sock-sized project, would rather wing it and hope it fits, and be willing to frog – like I just did). It barely stretched enough to get over my heel, and on the ankle while it felt fine, it just looked too stretched out – didn’t look right.

Also, I’m not a huge fan of the YO’s in this pattern. I like that they make it lacy, but I think it kind of breaks up the pattern – you get vertical biased stripes, rather than individual segments. I’d prefer to have the lacy edge all around each “segment,” or not at all. So on my rebuild, I’m going to do M1’s instead, and give up the lacy thing. I think that may work better on my sock, especially given the dark yarn that I’ve chosen.

So here’s my thought process on how to make it bigger:

- My goal is to add about 1 inch, or 8 sts or so.

- There are six repeats of a 12-stitch pattern.

- The pattern could easily be enlarged, since you’d just keep going in pattern for a few extra rows to take up the extra stitches. If you haven’t seen the pattern or don’t understand the chart, this won’t make sense – but trust me. The thing is, it has to be enlarged by 2 stitches (not just 1) so that it’ll still end with a knit stitch (since it’s based on ribbing).

- Because of the way the pattern travels around the sock, and the way the pattern row count is related to stitch count, I have to make every section the same size – I can’t enlarge, say, every other repeat.

- If I add 2 stitches to each repeat, that’s 12 stitches total. Way too big. It’d also add 12 stitches if I just added an extra repeat.

- So, what if I take out 2 stitches from each repeat? That gives me a 10-stitch repeat… if I do 8 repeats, that’s 80 stitches around. Perfect.

So. Pomatomus take 2 is OTN right now, and I’m almost done with the ribbing. It really is nice to have an entire day with nothing I have to do… I can just knit and reknit and reknit!

Progress!

The thing about insomnia? It sure does help me make progress on my knitting!

Thanks to everyone who gave input on what I should make next. There wasn’t much consensus on the patterns, but everyone seemed to agree that I should use the Anne. So, this:

… with the help of a cooperative roommate-swift and my trusty pen-nostepinde, became this:

… which, last night, started to become this:

Yup, I’ve started a Pomatomus. That picture is a bit dark, but the lighter ones came out really bright blue, and I wanted to bring across the deep purple that’s the base color of the yarn. I love it! The yarn is super-soft, and the pattern is gorgeous and works really well with the subtle variegations of the yarn. It’s light and airy, and even though it looks like a complicated pattern and a crazy chart (the above picture, my current status, is exactly one pattern repeat above the ribbing), it’s surprisingly easy to get into a rhythm with it. I started it on DPNs as suggested in the pattern, thinking that it might make it easier to keep track of the pattern repeats, but they’re so easy to see that I switched to my usual ML. Nothing against DPNs – I just have a tendency to drop them and lose them… can’t lose one end of a single long circular.

I know I like this pattern in this yarn, but I’m a little worried that it’s going to be too small. It’s super stretchy, so it’ll fit, it’s just that I don’t know if I want it to look as stretched out as it will have to be on my wide feet. I’m going to let it sit a little longer before I decide whether or not to rip it and start over, modifying the pattern to make it a little bigger. I do know how I’d modify it – the question is just whether or not I want to.

Also, as much as I love the Pomatomus, it’s just not satisfying my cable cravings. So when I woke up at 4:30 in the morning…

It couldn’t be helped. Really.

And this way, I’ve satisfied both the Pomatomus and the Bayerische advocates. Monkey comes next, I think – maybe with more of the Anne yarn. I do love that yarn – I think it really is worth the expense. The mohair and nylon in it should make it wear really well, and it works up so easily and beautifully.  I do tend towards solid or mostly-solid yarns, though – I should look into it.  Their colorways vary a lot, as I recall – I could probably find more that I would like.

For the curious, my Bayerische is in Knitpicks Essential, “Grass.” I think it’ll go nicely with the “Pine” one I made a few months ago.

I think it’s an interesting coincidence that both of these patterns are based on twisted ribbing – with all of the knit stitches worked through the back loop. I love twisted ribbing. I also love how both patterns flow so beautifully and organically out of the top ribbing of the sock. I have to give Eunny so much credit for making that happen! There are three different kinds of increases used in the setup row after the ribbing, and they work SO well!

So yes. Sock love.

And here’s what else I’ve been up to:

It has body! Well, some body, anyway. I’m guessing (and remember that this is my first sweater, and I haven’t done any actual calculations to back this up) that the body part is 1/3, the sleeves together will be 1/3, and the yoke will be 1/3. Which means that as I think I’m about half done with the body, the sweater itself is about 1/6 done! This is my mindless knitting – for conference calls and rehearsal downtime, and hanging out with friends. I have no idea how steadily I’ll be working on it – but my vague goal is to have it finished before Sock Madness, which (I just looked up) is tentatively starting on March 13… so that should be plenty of time. I think.

So yes, I have been busy.