the Soxophone Player

Here is a sample of the Eye of the Partridge heel I knit in undyed sock yarn straight off the cone. It ain’t pretty – but shows the stitch better than I am able to photograph in dyed yarn.

I made this pair my size – I want to see how the stitch feels in a sock, and see if there really is a benefit to durability. I may not be the best tester for heels – I’ve never been hard on heels – if I break through a sock its at the big toe. Still, I want to do a test drive so see if the extra work in this heel is of any practical benefit.

Since I was banging off some test socks, I did another pair in the undyed yarn with a variation in the heel stitch:

The heel on the right is a Square Heel. It is a simplified version of the Eye of the Partridge Heel – instead of raising alternate needles on every second row of the heel flap, it is knit straight back and forth with no needle raising for the same number of rows, so is a quicker albeit plainer knit.

Found this on Ravelry this morning. Interesting!

Here is a different twist on the hand knit style square heel: the Eye of the Partridge:

The square part of the heel is double knit.

To begin the heel, instead of stopping my yarn carrier at 6 o’clock position and raising the back half of the needles out of work, I stop at 12 o’clock:

The back half of the needles will be raised as in other heels, but first I prepare the needles that will knit the heel. Beginning at the left red hash mark, I raise the first needle on my side of the red mark, and then every other needle until |I get to the other red hash mark on the right hand side. I am working on the 72 needle cylinder, so I will have 36 (half of 72) needles knitting the heel. Because that is an even number, it means if the first needle is raised, then the final needle will not be raised.

I start my first pass, then stop at 6 o’clock position and raise the back half of the needles out of work.

This heel is double knit, so each row is knit twice: once clockwise with every other front needle out of work (this is besides the back half of the needles that are out of work for the whole heel making). Then once counter clockwise with all the heel needles lowered in work (as in the above photo).

So – once back, and then once forth will equal one row of double knitting.

(A watch point - make sure the first and last stitch knit properly – it is easy to miss one without dropping it – see the first stitch to the left of the red mark above – you can see there are two stitches on that needle – I need to flip the lower one over the top one in order to complete that incomplete stitch.)

After the double knit row is done, I raise every other needle again EXCEPT – this time I raise the second needle (instead of the first) by the left red mark, and then every other needle…so this time the final heel needle will be down,  and then when this row is knit clockwise, again we lower all the heel needles and knit counter clockwise to complete the second double knit row.

I continue this back and forth, until I’ve completed 14 x back and forth.  So – on the 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13 pairs of rows I raise the first needle from the left, and on the 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, and 14th pairs of rows I raise the second needle from the left plus every other needle.

(Another watch point - on the even numbered rows where the last needle is up – when you put that needle down to do the clockwise pass with all heel needles down – the yarn will be on the front of that needle when you push it down. That will drop the stitch – SO – slip the yarn to the backside of that needle so it will catch. )

As this heel square grows I use two heel forks, each with a single weight, to keep the work taught.

I finish my 14th pair of rows with my yarn carrier to the left. The Eye of the Partridge square is now complete and next is to knit the flap that will go under the heel. The Eye of the Partridge section is 36 stitches wide, but the heel flap will be only one third of that, or 12 stitches wide. So….while the yarn carrier is on the left side, I raise out of work the last third (12) of the heel needles on the right side.

Then I knit across to the right side.

And then lift right off the cylinder, with stitches still on the needles, one third of the heel needles on the left side, and one third of the heel needles on the right side – so 12 out from the left, 12 out from the right, and 12 remain in work. (Don’t be scared…you can do this!)

Now – I need to knit the heel flap, AND I need that flap to ‘turn under’ – so:

Take the first removed needle that is sitting inside the cylinder on the left side, and put its stitch on the first needle on the left side that remains in work. AND take the first removed needle on the right side and place its stitch on the first needle in work on the right side. So – the two outside needles in work each now have two stitches on them.

Knit back, and then forth.

Then grab the next stitch off a removed needle on the left and right and park them, once again – on the same outer left and outer right working needle, and again knit once back and once forth.

Keep doing this until all needles sitting inside the cylinder have had their stitches knit onto the centre flap.  I took out 12 needles on the left, and 12 on the right, so I should have completed 12 back and forths for my under heel flap.

Next, all those removed needles go back into their slots. And then we pick up the stitches from the side edges of the Eye of the Partridge square and park them on those empty needles.

Remember when we knit that square we did 14 back and forth rows. And we have 12 empty needles on each side.  So that give one stitch to hang on each of the 12 needles, plus an extra stitch  that we can put on the first needle before those empty 12, and the first needle after those empty 12 – to lock the work in place and minimize holes at the joints.

That’s it – knit the foot and toe with your own recipe and have a great sock with a doubled hand-look heel.

Here’s a way to do ad hoc ribbing:

The pattern I used for my Clay Clox has 2 rib stitches, four knit, then 2 rib.  The pattern is repeated on both sides of the sock.

I am using the 72 needle cylinder on the Verdun 47.

The problem (well, the first problem!):  the ribber dial that goes with the 72 needle cylinder has 36 slots. So, fine to do many different patterns, but not the 2:4:2 pattern I wanted. With two rib stitches in a row the ribber needles were too close to the neighbouring cylinder needles to clear…..ie, if I set the timing for one ribber needle to not bump into its neighbouring cylinder needle, then the 2nd rib needle would bump into its neighbour.

My solution (well, one solution!): I used my 50 slot ribber dial that goes with my 100 needle cylinder on the Legare 400. The dial interchanged easily onto my Verdun, and the needles are that much closer together that they knit perfectly and cleared the neighbouring cylinder needles well enough to knit along at a reasonable clip.

The ribber dial does complicate fiddling the 4 cable stitches around, but hey, who said it was easy!

I experimented with Clox Socks (also known as Clocks) about a year ago, using purl patterns. I wanted to try a different variation, and this is what I ended up with:

This is not my first attempt! But I’m pleased to say that is didn’t take too many.

It took me a while to figure out the cable stitch. (Laurie planted this seed well over a year ago, and I’ve been staring at dpn pictures/diagrams from time to time ever since.) I actually ended up figuring out two different stitches. I used the two together on one of my failed projects and I didn’t like how they turned out, so I went a little simpler with this project, using only one variation.

Here’s a sock looking from the inside:

I worked a pattern 8 stitches wide on both the left and right sides of the sock. You can see my red hash marks on the cylinder which are the exact mid points of each side, and then you can see I used white liquid paper to temporarily mark off 4 stitches in either direction of each red mark.

The first pair and last pair of stitches within the 8 are ribbed on every row of the clock, and the middle 4 stitches are knit stockinette for 6 rows, and then my cable stitch is done on the 7th row. There are 9 repeats in my clox, plus a few rows of the rib just before the first cable, and just after the last cable as a segue.

I don’t know if this stitch has a ‘real name‘ – maybe you dpn-ers can help me out here. I tried to copy some things that were called Cross Left Front and Cross Left Back and Cross-this-and-that. I tell you, my head nearly exploded trying to extrapolate from dpn (ie Greek) into Sock McGeek Speak! In the end I think it does what a cable stitch would do, but I’m not sure if it is structurally similar enough to call it an existing name.

For this version of the stitch:

I knit stitches 1,2,3,4 ‘normally’ and then stopped knitting when I got just past them. (Illustrated by the clear numbered circles in the picture – which you can click to enlarge).

Then, I removed stitch one and two completely off the cylinder.

Then I MOVED sitch 3 and 4 to the place previously occupied by stitch 1 and 2 (while 1 and 2 are still sitting in the inside of the cylinder) and

Then I MOVED stitch 1 and 2, passing behind the newly deposited 3 and 4, and into the spaces originally occupied by 3 and 4. (The new homes of the stitches are shown in the solid numbered circles.)

My other variation of this stitch, no photo, is to remove stitch 3 and 4; move stitch 1 and 2 to the place previously occupied by 3 and 4, then move 3 and 4 across the back and into the place originally taken by 1 and 2.

The socks are knit in my own 75/25 wool/nylon fingering weight, colour Clay, with the 72 needle cylinder on the Verdun 47 CSM. They are (my) size Large.

This is a project that was bound to happen.

I am using my own 75/25 Wool/Nylon fingering weight sock yarn, worsted spun, in Clay (main colour), Mauve (2nd colour including heels and toes), and Mouse Grey (3rd colour). All three colours are hand dyed in a low value to give a more subtle type of presentation.

Here’s is a view of the sock machine looking at ‘argyles in progress’. The clothes pins help keep the leading end of yarn changes from getting too slack. Once that leading end has been knit in for a few stitches, the clothes pin can come off.

When I do my hem tops I always lay the leading edge of the yarn in on the second row of knitting, which eliminated the task of weaving that end in by hand later.  No doubt I can do the same thing with many of the argyle ends, but for now that’s an extra thing to think about that  will muddy my poor brain, so I’m content to hand weave.

But Wo les moteurs….it’s a lot of weaving!

Its perhaps a good thing that these socks take much longer to knit in the first place, because all this weaving would certainly become a log jam in the production line.

I haven’t actually counted the ends, but it took me about 3.5 hours to weave in this pair of knee socks.

The socks are size Medium + (ladies 9 – 10ish) and on a 5’8″ish woman like DW with ‘average’ legs, the hem top should sit just below the knee.

Koigu KPPPM, 100%  Merino

Main colour – #P439; 2nd colour and heels/toes – #P219; 3rd colour -  #P402;

The heels and toes are reinforced with a pale pink Wooly Nylon (from Threadart.com).

Size Medium +, knit with the 72 needle cylinder on the Verdun 47 CSM.

OK. I’m transitioning from struggling/fighting/cussing aryle work to feeling a groove with it and enjoying it. (Well, except that black pair that kept trying to smack me down!)

The argyles are still taking a lot longer, as do any of the ‘special knit’ socks but I know this newly developing skill will provide respites from production knitting along my path.

Not to mention, a great new use for the scrap drawer – each diamond is taking quite less than 5 grams of sock yarn.

There’s a bit of a warm spell blowing in to the area. But the farm is on high ground and what falls as rain locally often falls as snow at the farm. This is looking out my front door yesterday. Today there’s a bit of drizzle, so the snow on the boughs will get very heavy and fall off. It’s amazing how evergreens know how to dump the load when its too heavy. (Something we could all learn from evergreens!)

Jesse is a good Canadian – he enjoys the winter.  Actually I think he enjoys all seasons, but I don’t enjoy the muddy season that precedes and follows winter, so he doesn’t get as many walks out the back.  But in winter I try and get out with him for a ski or snowshoe every day.

There’s a thicket about half way up the back knoll that always catches Jesse’s attention. Obviously something is living in there – probably a jack rabbit, but who knows. Every day that we go back there he rushes to that thicket and gets all excited. By the time I catch up to him he’s already stompted out the footprints of the thicket-resident so I can’t tell what it is. The tree behind Jesse is a wild apple tree, so I expect this is a good residence for something that likes to munch on the dead fall fruit.

Maybe one day my fearless hunter will catch whatever is living in the thicket.

Well, these socks aren’t up from the ashes, but my effort is.

I crashed and burned twice on this pair, and both catastrophes are, indeed, in the ashes. Frogging argyle is, um, not going to happen.

Still, three’s the charm and I’m very pleased with this pair of Medium + socks that more closely resemble the vision I had than the heap of yarn in the garbage  pail.

Black is truly a b*gger to knit. It doesn’t help that I broke my glasses three weeks ago and have been relying on Dollar Store magnifying glasses to see. (insert pity here ;o) )

Normally, dropping a stitch is no big deal because I see it and fix it on the fly. But those beastly little black stitches are so hard to see that its easy to miss one, and if you don’t see it and get the weights off – that sucker is gonna’ run from here to tomorrow!

All the more satisfying when the job is done right.

The socks are knit with the 72 cylinder on the Verdun 47.  The yarn: my own fingering weight 75/25 wool/nylon in Jet Black and Mouse Grey, and Lana Grossa Mielenweit, Meeting series, #7710.

Here are three more batches from the dye pot.  These are all 100% superwash Merino. My skeins are ~400 yds and these are running around 130 grams.

This first batch is colour Lobster Bisque. It is gently variegated and the colour on my screen is a little pinker than reality. I find it actually to be closer to flesh (as in high school biology book flesh).

This batch is Tan. It’s not what I was expecting, but I like the colour – its got a bronzy-gold thing going on – and I think it will work in the set of colours I’m preparing.

And this last batch, I’ll call Pewter.  The dye is actually Mouse Grey done at half strength, but I think it really looks Pewter. The variegation is ‘gentle and a half’ which gives it a real sense of depth.

That’s the last of my un-dyed Merino stash. I still haven’t recollected why I got it in the first place, and that’s just as well now that I’ve dyed it up to different purpose. I tried to select 7 colours for my series that will work well with each other in some kind of sock binge.