I finally had a chance to crack into the box I received from Lorna’s Laces.
This is re-stocking (oh. pun) my stash. In the foreground – colour Rainbow. Behind, from the left, Bold Red, Carrot, Sunshine, Carol Green, Pond Blue, Grapevine. These are all in Shepherd Sock 80% Merino 20% Nylon. 430 yards/100g
These are Size Large, knit with a 72 needle cylinder and 36 ribber on the Verdun 47. The topper is done in 1×1 rib, and the balance in stockinette.
My only New Years Resolution – to not buy more sock yarn until I make a bigger dint in my stash – has already failed ;o(
I take comfort in knowing that most of you reading my blog have also failed in this goal.
Here’s a few things that I simply had to have:
A few bags of Koigu to replenish the gaping holes in my Koigu bins. Especially the multi-multi mixed colour skeins. (KPPPM – 100% Merino)
And this, a gift from Taiu at Koigu, is a sample of a buffalo yarn they are custom dyeing for Buffalo Gold. I don’t have the exact stats on it – butit is 50% Buffalo and 50% Mulberry Silk. Its a lace weight – I would compare weight to Cashmara Lace from Pat Fly.
Neither buffalo nor silk have much elasticity, so I’ll knit this up with a strand of lycra and see what happens!
And fresh from Alaska. and in the nick of time, some more Qiviut sock yarn to restash that empty shelf. (35% Qiviut 40% Superwash Merino 15% Bamboo 10% Nylon)
I haven’t knit a sock since a few days before Christmas. I hope I remember how.
My first project will be to knit this up:
I have a few bags of Lorna’s Laces Shepherd Sock in natural (un dyed) left over from a project a few years ago. I’ve dyed a bag in washfast acid dye Jet Black. (80% Superwash Merino 20% Nylon)
The Prochemical website suggests using Jet Black at 5% WOF which works out to about 4.5 teaspoons per pound. I find this way-y-y-y too strong. The last batch I dyed at that rate went in the garbage after 10 washes and rinses failed to get rid of the excess dye. I find 2 – 2.5% much more satisfactory – it gives me a good deep black plus rinse water that is almost clean.
And here’s a Happy New Year from Jesse (100% Superwash Dog). I got my self a new (to me, from EBay) zoom lens for my camera. Merry Christmas to me, from me. I don’t really need a zoom to photograph Jesse, but I hope to get some better closeups of the sheep, and maybe even the deer that so often graze my fields.
Here’s another new colour from Lorna’s Laces 2012: Pioneer.
This pair of size Medium socks is in Shepherd Sock – 80% merino 20% nylon.
I find the colours a lot like one of my LL favourites – Jeans, with the blues and greys, but with browns added. Nice winter colours.
One of Lorna’s Laces new colourways this year is Pocket Square.
Another reliable striping hand paint, here shown in Shepherd Sock.
It always fascinates me how the colours change their behavior in the short rows of the heels and toes, and to some extent in the hem tops.
Cool!
This pair is size Small + – that is to say, a half size between my Small and Medium.
I knit this size on the 72 cylinder as I would a Medium, but the rows of the foot are half way between what I would knit for a Small and a Medium.
Sometimes I’ll either rib or mock rib the leg and instep so that the leg and foot are also half way between the two sizes in width, but in this case I’ve used the full stockinette.So this would be suited to a Ladies size 8-9 B, or EEE, but not an A (narrow).
This is a colourway I really liked last year so I got some more to replenish up my stash. (In Shepherd Sock – 80% Superwash Merino 20% Nylon, 430 yds/100g)
I’m not sure how they arrived at this devilish name for a yarn, but after a leisurely cruise through google images, I think I see the connections.
I’m sure the dude would look a lot happier if he was wearing a nice pair of socks.
Here is a pair of Size Medium, knit with the 72 cylinder on the Verdun 47.
The striping with this yarn has been very reliable for me. No blobbish pooling. I like the more complex dark colours juxtaposed against the less complex lighter tones. The result is the strong stripe of a two colour sock with the beauty of a mutli colour hand paint.
This is one of Pantone‘s IT colours for this fall and winter: Tangerine Tango. Shown here in my home grown 75/25 wool/nylon fingering weight sock yarn. The colour is accomplished with Prochemical‘s Tiger Lily in wash fast acid dye, at 1% of the weight of yarn.
The sample pair is size Medium (surprise), knit with the 72 needle cylinder on the Verdun 47.
By way of contrast – the ball of wool on the right is my Bright Orange that I use for my ginger socks. Tough to establish the contrast with my humble photography, but I would describe the Tangerine as being less bright, and a little more ‘bloody’ orange – so, a warmer tone.
As fate would have it, I was also knitting with Lorna’s Laces Shepherd Sock in colour Tomfoolery this week.
This is a pairing that works well. I thought about using the two together – maybe my Tango as heels and toes on the Tomfoolery. Not sure if I’ll follow through with that – my yarn is a bit heavier gauge than Shepherd Sock and my nylon content is a little higher.
I’ve certainly mixed a lot of colours in my knitting, but not weights (that I can recall). It could be that a higher nylon/weight for heels and toes would be a good thing – anyone tried that?
I haven’t made leg warmers for a while.
Here’s how I made them, before:
I made these from the Ankle up. In the closeup photo you can see I did a double-double hem. The inner hem was to go inside a boot, and the outer- a pico hem – went over top of the boot.
The top was a 3:1 mock rib. Done in reverse (since going from the ankle up). To do that, I knit in a constrasting colour of yarn 80 rows before the end. Then, after off the knitter, I would stitch the final tail of yarn sort-or-kitchener-ish joining the last row knit to the row marked with the scrap yarn. The challenge in that was to make sure I didn’t muck up which row I was joining to. Not so much difficult as very slow.
I found these leg warmers took about three times the time to make, compared to a pair of socks and I didn’t feel they could command three times the price so I only made them when I really needed a break.
I modified my pattern recently to come up with a decent leg warmer that didn’t take so long to knit.
Lorna’s Laces Shepherd Sport – The L
In this version I’m knitting from the top down. I’ve got the same 3:1 mock rib top, but joining first row knit to the last row knit – easy peazy. The body of the leg remains full stockinette as in previous pattern. And the bottom cuff is a 1x 1 rib finished with a Simple Purl Bind Off as used in my fingerless gloves here.
So these are knit right off the sock knitter. No scrap yarn. No stitching. Only the closing tail to weave in (10 seconds).
I could just as easily knit the topper as a rib rather than a mock rib. It would use less yarn if that were an issue. The mock rib top is reversible, so can be folded down, if desired, and still present the ‘good side’.
Lorna’s Laces Shepherd Sport – Jeans
Lorna’s Laces Shepherd Sport – Navy Pier
Lorna’s Laces Shepherd Sport – Buckingham Fountain
Lorna’s Laces Shepherd Sport – Skyway
Lorna’s Laces Shepherd Sport – 100% Superwash Merino; ~200 yds/2 oz.
I knit at about 10 rows per inch, which made adjusting for various sizes easy to calculate. I keep my topper and bottom the same size but alter number of rows in the leg body to change sizes from 15 – 18″ to accommodate most sizes.
I vary my tension as I knit these leg warmers, to assist in shaping the beasts. You can probably tell, by the changing pattern of the hand painted colours, where I made my adjustments.
These were fun to make and, deviously, knit to match some of the fingerless gloves I made.
I got some great tips from this You Tube video by erlbachergearhart: Simple & Full Fashioned Purl Bind Off
I thought this purl bind off would make a great improvement for my time consuming and tediously finicky Fingerless Gloves.
So this post is actually a Tutorial Addendum to my previous tutorials on fingerless gloves to be found here:
This finishing method will use the Simple Purl Stitch Bind Off as an alternative to finishing the thumb and open finger area with scrap yarn and hand stitching a finished edge and removing the scrap. The only hand finishing that remains to be done in this method is closing the sides of the thumb with a blanket stitch. For me, this is a huge time saver and uses a fraction of the scrap yarn (casting on only).
I adapted a wee bit from the video for the thumb but the concepts are all the same.
I’m going to split this tutorial up into several sections to ease the pain of my big files on those with slower speed internet service. (I know your pain!)
To begin, I’ve knit the beginning of the glove and I am just finished knitting the thumb flap. (I am working with Lorna’s Laces Shepherd Sport yarn, 100% wool, colour Jeans).
This photo is taken from the right side. So the yarn carrier is at 12 o’clock. The thumb flap is on the left of the photo, knit on 22 needles, finishing with a clockwise row.
Small difference from earlier method – I knit 29 row thumb flap instead of 28 so that my yarn would finish on the left side. The purl cast off can be done in either direction, but I want to work in my ‘normal’ direction of cranking – counter clockwise so this is how I go about it.
The non-thumb needles were already raised out of work while I knit the thumb flap. Now, to prepare for the purl cast off I:
You can see my working yarn is just to the left of the final thumb needle. (This row was knit clockwise.)
Coming Next: the all important first stitch!
OK. Scratch my cylinder set up from yesterday. I am going to change the location of the lower Green Marks. Recall that I started my decreases of the heel triangles (wedges) at the upper green marks, and stopped at the lower green marks.
Checking with Cat Bordhi, and re-reading (trying at least ) her dp pattern, I see my wedges should have been longer – to the extent that the back section between the wedge on one side and the other (knit by the needles between to lower green marks) should only be about an inch wide. With 24 needles between those greens, and knitting 9-10 stitches per inch, I was clearly cheating the wedges.
So my revision: I removed the two lower green marks and placed the two Blue Marks down on the 6 o’clock side of the cylinder, leaving only10 needles between the two marks (vs 24 in the earlier trials.) Note that this is narrower than the 16 needles that would normally be set as the end of standard short rows on the 72 cylinder.
Do this means that now I will have 19 decreases on each side (from the top green to the bottom blue = 19 needles).
Other than that, the heel pattern remains the same. In a nutshell:
knit a wedge; knit two rows; knit a 2nd wedge; knit two rows; knit the 3rd wedge
This Pair 4 is knit from Lorna’s Laces Shepherd Sock colour Buckingham Fountain.
Note that the back of the heel – to the right of the red triangle markings – is much narrower and my wedges correspondingly wider than yesterdays samples.
The red asterisk is to draw your attention to the point at which the heel is finished and the foot begins. I’m fairly happy with this but I do find in this pair there is a very small bulb of knitting that remained even after blocking. In Cat’s pattern she offers the suggestion to alter the number of rows/decreases in the final wedge if necessary to fit. So for this yarn, knit in this size and at this tension, I figure the final wedge should be a few rows shorter.
And another small change. Yesterday I found that I needed to subtract about 5 rows from the foot as compared to the same pattern with a standard short row heel. That made sense as there was more rows of knitting in the heel.
Now with today’s modifications, there is actually even more rows in the heel, yet I found couldn’t reduce the foot by 5 rows. Possibly 2, but no more. Not sure what that’s all about – but seems the area of knitting is diverted more into the width of the heel.
So… here we arrive at Pair 5 – this pair knit with Lorna’s Laces Shepherd Sock colour Navy Pier.
In this pair I reduced the number of decrease rows in the final wedge by 3. So, looking at the cylinder photo above, I ended the 3rd wedge decreases at the YELLOW marks instead of the blue marks.
And I knit the same number of rows for the foot as I would with a standard short row heel.
The slightly smaller 3rd wedge gives a very smooth transition from heel to foot. I suspect the rows decreased may vary from yarn to yarn or with variations in tension or shoe size. (That’s one reason I knit all my trials with the same yarn and same size.)
Weights – I used the same single weight on a two pronged hanger as I use on everything else. I placed the hanger in the same position I usually do, maybe a wee bit lower – so approx between the blue and yellow marks and down about 3/4″. With adding my hand a little extra weight, I only had to move up the weight once for each wedge.
Decreases – for each decrease row I raised one needle on each side, so reducing two stitches per short row. This will give you a slip stitch/skip stitch combined on the leading end (the side that will knit first), and a skipped stitch on the opposite end. On the final row of the decreases when there are no more needles to be raised, I wrap the last needle that was raised on the left side before knitting across to the right (so there is always a slip stitch leading a short row.)
Time – this heel, at least by the fifth pair – takes only a little more time than a standard short row heel.
Watch Points -
remain alert and remember that a toe is no longer just another heel and so to shift back into standard short row mode.
and, at the end of each wedge in the heel you are putting all the needles down into work, so many opportunities to drop a stitch to an un-lowered latch. Vigilance required!
And finally, if you haven’t checked out Cat Bordhi’s eBook, especially if you knit with sticks, I encourage you to give it a look.
I’ve been playing with Cat Bordhi‘s Sweet Tomato Heel construction.
Skulking around Youtube, I found this csm rendition of the heel posted by ‘gobbism.’ I wanted to explore further so picked up a copy of Cat Bordhi’s eBook of Ravelry.
My first pair, above (knit with Lorna’s Laces Shepherd Sock – colour Skyway) I knit more or less using gobbism’s video. I extrapolated from her 54 stitch demo to use my own 72 cylinder.
In the middle picture above I am trying to illustrate that you make three triangles for this heel construction, with two full rows of knitting between the pairs of triangles. (This, instead of the standard two-triangle short row heel).
And instead of the standard short row – one triangle made by decreases, then another made by increases, this method has three triangles that are all decreases only. In the video she knit toe up socks, using increasing triangles. I knit my sample cuff down, but also using increasing triangles.
In the picture of my sock knitter: the red and yellow marks are the standard heel markings – ie knit decreases from the red marks to the yellow marks, then increases back to the reds.
For this construction, the heel is done dividing the stitches into thirds. On the 72 cylinder that gives me a group of 24 at the 6 o’clock position and another group of 24 at the 12 o’clock postion. – indicated by the green marks. Half of the remaining third is on the left side, and half on the ride side = 12 and 12.
In the pair above, because I was doing INCREASING triangles, I took the top 24 plus the two side groups of 12 out of work, and then knit my short row increases by raising and wrapping one needle on the side closest to the yarn carrier, while also pushing down three needles on the opposite side – so net gain of two stitches per row. And doing this back and forth until I get to the top green marks. Then, push all needles down, knit 2 rows and begin the second triangle.
In the middle photo you can see that my triangles are increasing rather than decreasing if you look at the top right corner of each triangle – as you move down from each top right corner you can see there are more stitches in each subsequent row.
On the outer edge of that photo, you can see I’ve drawn what these triangles would have looked like if I had done DECREASING short rows instead of INCREASING.
When I bought Cat’s eBook, I saw that she works in decreases instead of increases, so for my second pair I gave that a shot:
This second pair is knit with Lorna’s Laces Shepherd Sock colour The L.
The triangles are knit, basically, in reverse to the above, which is to say I raise only the top 24 needles, and then take two out of work each pass. So in this case you look at the top LEFT of each triangle, and you can see each row grows shorter.
Overall, the triangles look pretty much the same, but they are not. If I had shot the photos before blocking, it would be more clear that the top edge of the first triangle is more perpendicular to the leg in the DECREASE version than in the INCREASE version.
In this second example, instead of raising one needle and pushing down 3 for each pass, I wrapped the last already-raised needle on the yarn carrier side, and raised two needles on the far side – net decrease of two stitches. The purpose of wrapping that single needle to to give a cleaner join later when knitting the two rounds between triangles.
I prefer the look of the second even though the differences are few. I find there is less ‘stretching’ after blocking along the top edge of the first triangles.
However! The second version was a LOT more work, what with wrapping stitches on ever short row.
So,
This third sample is knit with Lorna’s Laces Shepherd Sock – colour Grant Park.
I’ve knit DECREASING triangles, as in the second pair and as in Cat’s pattern, but I’ve fiddled how I bring that all about.
I start, as in second example, with top 24 needles raised (= 48 in work).
With the yarn carrier at 12 o’clock, I wrap the last raised needle at 2 o’clock and knit around clockwise to the left.
Then I raise one needle on each side – at each end of the remaining in-work needles and knit across. I repeat this back and forth until I’ve completed the short rows, which will finish me with the yarn carrier at the left side.
I wrap last raised needle (about 7 o’clock), push all the needles down – including the wrapped one, and knit around two rows before beginning all again.
So the key labour difference is wrapping only one stitch at the beginning of the heel and one at the end of the heel, instead of one on every pass.The wrapping of the other stitches is accomplished when that first needle on each pass is raised.
All in all,
each triangle on the 72 cylinder takes 14 short rows. So, three triangles = 42 short rows. And there are two rows knit around between each pair of triangles, so 4 more rows for a total of 46 rows or on the heel. Standard short row heel on the 72 would be 20 decreases plus 20 increases for a total of 40. So rows knit for the foot need to be reduced by 5 or 6.
Those full rows between triangles add some dimension to the top of the instep and I think this gives almost a gusset type of effect – in any event the heel is wider – so I think this heel would be good for high instep, tree trunk heels like mine, etc.
And esthetically, Cat’s construction virtually eliminates short-row holes.
In her eBook she gives some tips for adapting to larger or smaller ankles.