the Soxophone Player

I’ve been knitting yarns with turquoise for over a week.

Pat Fly’s Cashmara Robins Egg Blue isn’t really a turquoise, but its very much like a pale turquoise (close enough!) so I’m having at it.

This is the Lace Weight Cashmara – 80% superwash merino 10% cashmere  10% nylon; 590 yds/4 oz

I wound up two skeins.

Here’s what I knit:

3 pairs of size Medium, and with enough left over to do heels and toes on a few pairs of another colour.

Recall that I knit size Medium lace weight on the 72 needle cylinder instead of the 54 and at 14 rows per inch this is some mighty fine stitchin’ !

When working with such fine stitches I make sure I use a very contrasting colour for my scrap yarn so that kitchener isn’t any more difficult than it needs to be.

Here are some more socks I knit with Fly Designs Cashmara Lace Weight using the 84 needle cylinder on the Legare 400.

The above pairs are both size Large. The top pair is Lavender with Plum accents, and the lower pair is Plum with Petrol accents.

And here’s an XL pair, also knit with the 84 cylinder:

The main colour is Petrol and the accents are Lavender.

I guess these 84 stitch socks take a little longer to kitchener, but the stitch definition is very good even though they are tiny, so I’m not finding it any more difficult than a 72 stitch sock.

But I when I’m in a toe closing session – usually while parked in front of the tv at night, I like to do the 84′s first before my eyes are too tired.

My gauge on these is 12 stitches and 14 rows per inch. Something I’ve discovered (I think) is that once I get to 12 stitches per inch that seems to be the limit of the Legare – or in particular, its cams – no matter how much tighter I make the tension. My rows per inch can seemingly increase more and more even after the stitches per inch has hit the wall.

Cashmara Lace by Fly Designs – 80% Superwash Merino  10% Cashmere  10% Nylon; 590 yds/ 4 oz.

This is a pair of Size Large socks, knit in colourway Petrol with Plum accents, and knit with the 84 needle cylinder on the Legare 400.

My Legare 400 is normally home to the 54 needle cylinder, so I make my tension references relative to that.  With a ‘typical 4 ply fingering weight yarn’ I would set my tension 8/4 looser for the 84 cylinder than the 54.  But since I’m working with a lace weight, I set the tension 4/4 looser than my normal 4 ply 54 needle setting.

At that setting I get a leg about 4.25″ wide, which is perfect for size Large. I thought it might be a little loose for the foot, so I switched to a 3:1 mock rib 20 rows before the heel.

(See how the colour patterning changed when I went into mock rib!)

In the end, I’m not sure that I needed to narrow the foot. It would be a little snug on a wide foot at the top end of the range, but well suited to a regular or slimmer foot width, or a wide foot at the smaller end of the size range.

I don’t use the 84 cylinder a lot (well, until this week) and with the lace weight yarn I’m working with tiny stitches – 14 rows to the inch.

Here are two more colourways in Cashmara Lace Weight from Pat at Fly Designs.

80% Superwash Merino  10% Cashmere  10% Nylon

The top pair main colourway is Petrol, and the accents are Plum.  In the lower pair these are reverses. I really like how both the multi colour and the variegated colour behave.

Both pair are size Medium and are knit with the 72 cylinder on the Verdun 72.

These colours are intense, and as one would expect, demanding of a wee bit easier tension than the light and bright colours I knit last week.  A quarter turn looser did the job – so 4/4 tighter than my 4 ply fingering weight ‘normal’  instead of 5/4 tighter.

So now you’ve seen all the colours of the lace weight Cashmara that I have in my stash. A mere smidge of the colours Pat offers mind you, but these colours will be just dandy for summer at the Farmer’s Market.

I haven’t knit any other sizes than Medium so far. I think the Large will have to wait until I swap out a cylinder from one of the machines and install the 84 cylinder.  I’m not sure yet where my M+ will want to be knit….probably the 84 if I can keep my circumference where I want it.

Here are some more lace weight Cashmara socks.

As the first pair I showed you the other day, these are all size Medium, knit on the 72 needle cylinder on the Verdun 47, at a tension 5/4 turns tighter than my setting for size Large in fingering weight.

I used Wooly Nylon in all the heels and toes, but already I’m thinking maybe this is overkill. This is a strong yarn even though only 10% nylon (with the 10% cashmere and 80% merino). With the tension set as tight as I do – to get my desired gauge – I have to put a lot of weight on to keep the work from rising up on the needles. I feel like I’m training for arm wrestling championship! And the yarn is definitely up to it.

I could probably knit these size Mediums on a 60 cylinder with a looser tension and get the desired width on the sock…but this fine stitch is just amazing (except for the going blind closing the toes thing) and give a fantastic fabric.

Main colour  – Robin’s Egg Blue; accent colour – Hyacinth.

Main colour – Lavender;  accent colour – Hyacinth.

Main colour – Lime Sherbet; accent colour – Hyacinth.It’s a cold, miserable, rainy May7th here at the farm, so its nice to be working with such sunny colours.

My latest parcel from Pat at Fly Designs…Cashmara in a lace weight.

Cashmara: 80% Superwash Merino 10% Cashmere 10% Nylon

The colours from left to right: Hyacinth, Robin’s Egg Blue, Lime Sherbet, Lavender

At 590 yards/ 4 oz this is much finer than the fingering weight yarns I typically knit. (Schaefer Anne is 560 yards/4 oz).

Feeling that I was pushing the envelope, I didn’t dive right in and knit a pair of socks. I actually swatched!

The result of my swatching? I decided to knit my size Medium on the 72 needle cylinder which is a first for me. If I set my tension 5/4 of a turn tighter (that’s a lot!) than my normal fingering weight setting, I get  10 – 11 stitches per inch and 12 – 13 rows per inch. That gives me a sock that is about 3.5 inches wide, which is what I shoot for in a Medium.

Well, having fussed over that, and calculated how many more rows in length the leg and foot should be…I hit the big dilemma…..which colour to knit first!

No problem:

All of them.

Stripes always take longer,of course, but this was fun.

The yarn is 10% nylon, but to err on the side of caution, I worked a pale blue Wooly Nylon into the heels and toes. It’s probably not necessary, but until I test drive a pair ;o)

This is another seriously yummy yarn from Pat Fly and I can’t wait to knit some more!

Here are some more socks knit with Fly Designs Cashmara – 80% Merino 10% Cashmere 10% Nylon.

(The horizontal line showing across the ankles isn’t in the yarn – I just pulled these off the blockers on the drying rack .)

The colourway above is Sagebrush.

And this colourway is Denim.

Both pairs are size Medium +,  knit with the 72 needle cylinder on the Verdun 47;  Eye of the Partridge heel with gusset.

This is Cashmara by Fly Designs, in colour Blood Red. 80% Merino 10% Cashmere 10% Nylon.  390 yd/ 4 oz. Washer and Dryer friendly.

Cashmara is a little heavier gauge than some of the fingering weights I knit, and in my notes I have suggested, to myself, a tension of 1/2 turn looser than my standard setting. Deep Red is a pretty intense dye, and I probably could have set the tension a further 1/8 looser, but I started with 1/2 and so that’s how I continued… it was a wee bit stiff to crank at that setting but not too stiff to manage…I did hold my weights down with more force is all.

And by stiff, I don’t mean the feel of the yarn… this stuff is about as sweet as it gets!

This pair is size Medium +, knit with the 72 needle cylinder on the Verdun 47. It has a 1:1 cuff, and an Eye of the Partridge square heel with gussets.

I’ve done quite a bit of tweaking to the original pattern I had adapted. I’m very happy with this now. It still certainly takes longer than a standard CSM heel, but at least the fighting part is over.

OK. So I made a ‘real’ pair of socks with the heel/gusset pattern of my last post.  Since I’m still in the learning curve, I made them my size. But confident they would be wearable – if not not flawless – I used some yummy yummy Cashmara by Fly Designs in Stonewash: 80% Merino 10% Cashmere 10% Nylon. I decided to make fairly long legs on this pair to wear when I go cross country skiing with Jesse, or just in my hiking boots that are fairly high and which I use as my ‘goin’ to town’ boots.

I’ve got a 50 row top and 90 rows legs on these size Large socks, and so I was well into a second skein in the knitting.

One of the pluses of this pattern – the sole can be ripped out and re-knit (Lord knows, I did that several times on the first test pair!) so – this may be a good pattern for higher end yarns ;o) The froggin’ can go back to the end of the heel reduction, or even back to where the heel begins.

Do you know what? After taking three years to get the hang of this pattern, I decided I don’t like it.

I do like the gusset. It’s extra work to be sure but I think can be handy for those thicker ankled folks. For me, it is probably more attractive to have as a feature with lower wool content fibers that don’t offer as much give in that area of the foot – like cotton, silk, bamboo and, ugh, acrylic.

But I don’t like the rounded heel. At least I don’t like it the way I’ve done it. I don’t know if you can make out at the red arrow in the above photo, but the reduction in the heel flap goes to far and you get this bulbous thing going on. One idea was just to not reduce down so many rows, so that the flap ends sooner. That might work so I’ll probably give it a try.

That would also address, to some extent, the second thing I don’t like which is having to pickup almost 40 stitches from the edge of the heel flap plus heel short rows all onto 20 needles. That’s a lot of spreading out.

(I don’t discount that I may be still doing something wrong!)

Another idea:

I think this may be my winner.

First – instead of knitting the full insole separately from the sole, I knit only 14 rows of it… enough to make way for my gusset (shown by the red line).

Then I used a Square Heel as I did in the Eye of the Partridge.  But this time is kind of a Half  Partridge…. instead alternating the needles raised in the slip stitch rows,  I raised the same needles each time. But the Full Partridge or straight stockinette would work the same. The other thing different is that I added more rows to the heel flap – the flap is 36 stitches wide (half the cylinder) and in this instance I knit 38 rows (A – B), giving me 19 chain stitches on each side of the heel flap.

Then, instead of short rows, I did the heel strip (12 needles) on the middle third of the heel stitches, and turned the corner the same was as in the Eye of the Partridge, by taking the outer 1/3 needles out of the machine and rehanging those stitches concurrently with knitting the strip (B toC)

Then I put 20 needles back into the cylinder on each side of the heel flap and rehang the stitches from the sides of the heel flap.

Since I had 12 needles for my heel strip – that makes 6 on each side from the centre, and I added 20 needles, so that gives me 26 stitches on each side of the heel – 6 from the heel strip and 20 to rehang. And I have 19 chain stitches on each edge of the heel flap (D to C) so those go 1:1 on the needles – no spreading out stitches to compensate for different number of needles than stitches.

And the bonus – that leaves me one empty needle – so I can M1 (Make 1 stitch) by putting the bar between the last stitch on the heel and the last heel of the insole – which gets rid of  ‘the hole’ at the joint. (at D).

Then I work the gusset rows as in the Heel with Gusset on the previous post. This will work because when I put the 20 needles on each side that gave me 26 needles per side of the heel, and on a 72 needle cylinder the heel or 36 (half) and so each side of the heel ends up as 18 needles. So my gusset rows (K2tog, K1, K2tog, knit to last 4, K2tog, P/U stitch from insole) will be worked to reduce from 26 needles on each side down to 18.

After the gusset reducing rows, two more rounds brings my sole to where my insole left off….so I rehang those stitches and then can motor on with the foot in the round instead of doing the whole separate insole thing.

So far, this is just a test piece – no actual socks tried yet…. but I think this is shaping up to be something I like.

I knit this pair of socks for DS’s FiL.

They are Fly Designs Cashmara – 80% Superwash Merino 10% Cashmere 10% Nylon.

My main colour is Ebony and the accent colour is Stonewash.

Knit to size Large with the 72 needle cylinder on the Verdun 47.

I can think of no better way to make a new ‘wool convert’!