Tag Archives: socks

Push me pull you socks

Pattern: push-me-pull-you socks

I’ve been working on these socks for such a long time that it seems impossible that I’ve finally stopped faffing with them and published the pattern :-)

I cast on for my first pair in December 2008, and finished the third (and the prototype of the properly-written-up pattern) in February 2014. And now the pattern is available, and I can stop fiddling with them:download it from Ravelry here!

These are two-at-a-time double knit socks, worked inside out, which means you don’t need to keep moving the yarn backwards and forwards (using English and continental knitting techniques). The fraternal rather than matching colour choice is partly because I like that, and partly because that makes it much less likely that you’ll accidentally twist stitches. So these should be a much easier, less risky version of doubleknit socks than the standard one.

Push me pull you socks

Joined at the ribbing

Working doubleknit ribbing

Suffragette socks in progress

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These are the four faces of my first suffragette cuff. Naturally, I prefer the purple side :-)

There are some mistakes in the white side, although I’ve checked and they’re mistakes in the knitting, not in the chart, so at some point soon I’ll publish the both-sides-right-way chart to go with the simple one. (It’s very exciting publishing a pattern on Ravelry and then watching people adding it to favourites and queue!)

I’m also planning some adjustments to the chart to suit a wider range of stitch counts – it should be fairly easy to narrow the pattern in several places. And I’m thinking about serifs…

Not enough to knit!

I currently only have one thing on the needles! And unfortunately, it requires too much looking-at to be practical to knit while watching TV or reading, but it’s moving along slowly:

Selbu modern in progress, favoured side

What had brought about this strange state of affairs is finishing off two things in the last week: the dragon’s breath scarf, and the swimming coriolis. This is the scarf in its unblocked state:
Unblocked dragon's breath scarf

And this is it held taut-ish to show the pattern off:
Dragon's breath scarf held taut
(That’s the edge of my Wisteria sleeve visible on the left, and the edge of Making Money by Terry Pratchett (which I haven’t yet read) on the right.)

I’m planning to only lightly block this – I like how it looks like very complex cables as it is now, and I think blocking it completely flat would lose some of its charm.

These are the swimming coriolis:

Finished swimming coriolis
They look rather more leftovery (which they are) than I hoped, because the roll of the cast-off edge obscures most of the second band of the variegated yarn, so I’m rethinking my original intention of giving these as a gift – I don’t think they’re nice enough :-/

I’ve got various other projects (all gifts) wandering around in my head, but I haven’t got round to doing anything concrete like swatching or sketching or even winding the yarn into balls. Unusually, I want to be already knitting rather than starting to knit, which is a bit of a problem when most of my knitting time isn’t well suited to my sole current project. I’m hoping that writing this post will serve as a kind of catalyst, and prompt me to go and do one of those things, but I’m sufficiently distrustful of today’s energy levels (I’m coming down with a cold) to avoid saying that I’m going to go and start something as soon as I click “publish post” ;-)

Catching up

This is Ella blocking, all flat! I’ve worn her a couple of times, and she’s nice and warm, and I’m pleased I paid attention to alternating the more- and less-variegated skeins in knitting her.

This is the Zauberball I mentioned in my last post, in the process of becoming the dragon’s breath scarf (so named because this is an adaptation of the flickering flames pattern, and red). I’m a lot further on now than in this picture – I just haven’t taken any photos for ages.

I’ve finally finished both Lucas’s Tomten and the red cardigan, both of which were waiting for fastenings, and I’d failed to find the green toggles and reddish-purple ribbon, respectively, I wanted, so in the end I plied some yarn (orange for tomten and the silk mix edging yarn for the red cardigan) against itself twice to make cord ties. The double plying means the cord is stable, and it’s four times thicker than the working yarn, which is a good thickness.

I’ve now got three knitting projects on the go, and they’re all actually in progress: yesterday I worked on all three of them, depending on how much my eyes were free to look at them:

  • Coriolis socks (almost no looking-at required) while working through some of the reading for the first week of my course

  • Dragon’s breath scarf (some looking-at required) while watching TV

  • Selbu modern hat (lots of looking-at required) while listening to music

Project promiscuity (swimming Coriolis)

While knitting Wisteria, I’ve also done some other knitting…

Swimming Coriolis in progress
After I’d finished the heel (eye of partridge, which looks gorgeous with this yarn) of the first sock, I weighed the remaining yarn, and discovered that it’s not going to be enough for two full socks, so I immediately put the live stitches on waste yarn and cast on for the second sock with the other end of the ball. These will have contrast legs, but I haven’t decided on yarn for them yet. The available one that goes best is the dark red Dream in Colour Smooshy that went with this yarn for the push-me-pull-you socks, but there’s more of that leftover – probably actually enough for a whole pair – so I’m reluctant to use it. None of my other sock yarn goes as well, so these might end up being very short socks. On the other hand, the DiC is a suspect in a hat-in-planning I’m thinking about, which would probably leave enough to finish off these socks…

Knitting while camping

Just back from a weekend of camping, swimming and knitting (report on the camping and swimming on my personal blog, and photos on Flickr), during which J and I both cast on for coriolis – she wanted to try a toe-up sock and had beautiful but very dark and rather subtle yarn, and I wanted some simple, portable camping knitting, so coriolis suited both of us. We spent a lot of time sitting at the tent or on the riverbank knitting, and both got to about halfway through the spiral increases. We’re planning to cast on the second ones together at the Reading Festival in a couple of weeks (even if we haven’t finished the first by then), so these should probably be called my “camping socks”, but the swimming trip was so much fun it’s taking precedence, and I’m calling them “swimming coriolis”.

(This is the variegated yarn I used in my push-me-pull-you socks, but it’s so much more beautiful on its own.)

Getting back on the horse

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I’m just back from a lovely week with some roleplayers, during which Frax and I compared notes on our lost mojo. She recovered hers during the week, and mine is now slowly resurfacing, I think. I don’t want to scare it.

In the couple of months since I last wrote here, I have done some knitting, including most of a cardigan, but it’s not gone well, and I’m not sure if the yarn (soft handspun singles) will stand up to frogging and re-knitting (not least because there has been quite a lot of frogging already), so at the moment I’m not thinking too much about that.

last pair of baby coriolis

While on holiday, I picked up the sixth and final baby jungle stripe coriolis, and forced myself to knit a few rows. Now, at home again, I’ve found that finishing it required less force than picking it up again did. And I’ve now wound my first skein of spinning oddments into a ball, and am starting to think about the shawl I’m going to knit it into…

ball of handspun oddments

Finished heel!

I haven’t done much knitting since I got back from holiday, so it’s taken until today to finish the heel:

All is not going smoothly, however – I twisted some stitches when starting the leg, and now have to do some complicated untangling. Writing this blog post is useful procrastination ;-)

I’ve also been doing some weaving on the red leaf wrap (no photos, cos they wouldn’t look any different from the last time I photographed it), after showing the loom off to my parents yesterday re-enthused me about the project :-)

Holiday knitting

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I’ve just come back from a week roleplaying in Lincolnshire, during which I did quite a lot of knitting – my second pair of push-me-pull-you socks, for R this time (on the equivalent roleplaying holiday last year, I also made socks for him). I took this photo as I was just about to turn the heel:

Ralph's blue stripy socks

The heel is progressing slowly so far, because I got my yarns mixed up and had to tink about three rows, but I think I’ve got it fixed now.