Agate Socks: Captured in the Wild

I finished my Agate socks in plenty of time to wear them to Squam. And that was about the first time I had a good chance to photograph them.

I have belaboured the details in previous posts but will sum them up again here.

The socks were knit from Schoppel-Wolle's Fliegende Untertasse, which is a sturdy German wool/nylon blend. Two strands of the yarn are wrapped around a spool before being dyed. This will yield two identical socks. Some people are bothered by "fraternal twin" socks. I am not, but this was fun to try.

After a long false start (I got past the heel on both socks, since I was doing them two-at-a-time), I redid the socks and ended up with a pair that fit very, very well. :D That makes me happy.

*"unvent" as in invent or discover something on your own that has been done by countless other people already.The socks are very plain, as far as the knitting goes. The colours are happy, though, and they were fun to knit. (And the point was to try to get the pooling shown on the label.) I did get to unvent* a new short-row toe that is more rounded and avoids the sharp 45^ angles of my previous toes.

I did a heel flap heel with a small short-row area to round out the bottom shape.

The socks have several distinct pattern areas obeying the whim of the yarns's dye. Twirling candy cane stripes, narrow stripes, lightning pooling, and whatever you want to call the "agate" pooling.

Of course I can't finish without mentioning again that the dye didn't reach the center of the spool, and the cuffs are obviously lighter. They look like the colour has faded out. But really, that part is generally covered by pants and it's not really a big deal. Really. (One more time--really--and now you'll believe me.)

The wool was purchased on a family trip to the Lake Superior shores in the U.P. (Michigan) last summer--my sister insisted because the pooling looked like agates, which she is always looking for on the beaches there. Wearing these will be a lovely souvenir of the trip!

Project Stats
Started: 10 Sep '12
Finished: 1 May '13
Pattern: Plain stocking stitch sock from my own brain
Materials: Schoppel-Wolle Fliegende Untertasse (colour Sonnenfleck 2116), 1 skein ($23)

Swirling and Twirling and Fading Out

Allow me to talk about my Agate Socks before they are finished, paraded, and then dismissed from this blog forever. Last time I mentioned them, it was to say that I had to completely rip them back. I did so with much bravery and forbearance. And we are both much better for having done so.

I changed the way I do my short row toes, and I get a much rounder toe, which I like a lot:

The pointier toes fit well enough because knitting is stretchy and forgiving for the most part. But off the foot, they look rather anti-anatomical.

The other thing to note on the picture above is the delightful swirly pattern I was getting on the sock. The first version just had random thin stripes and was rather boring. When I started over, I increased the number of stitches and apparently hit just the right number for a candy cane effect. Until it wasn't:

This is the next section of the sock, right above the swirls, with the same number of stitches. Boring thin stripes again. This confused me for a while because if a certain number of stitches produces a pattern with a set dye pattern, then it should continue. Until it struck me that the dye pattern was changing.

You may recall that this yarn came wrapped on a spool, two strands together, and it was dyed that way so the two strands would be identical. Well wrapping out from a central core makes each pass around longer. And if you dyed a quarter of the circle red and a quarter orange, etc, each part of the "quarter" was shorter in the center and longer on the outside. And this all meant that even if you found a perfect pattern for some part of the skein, it wouldn't work later in the skein. And then I stopped worrying about it. (But it was nice to know why.)

Continuing up the sock, when I started to do the gusset increases, the pattern changed again:

and this is where it most resembles the agate pattern promised by the picture on the label.

Through the heel it was all stripey again, and above the heel, I got some aggressive flashing:

From there the sock went into some stripes again, and then a little more flashing before muddying up in the ribbing:

At the top layer of flashing and into the ribbing, you can really see that the dye had exhausted itself before getting into that part of the skein. The rest of the colours are so great, it really is a shame that they fade into this drabbiness. ... I just spent some time looking for the previous post where I talked about this so I could link to it, and it looks like I haven't talked about this yet. Well, let me get started! ...

My original plan--a set up to knit directly from the spool,
knitting the socks two at time. I could use both strands
at once and not have to re-skein the yarn.

When I frogged these socks because they didn't fit, I had to give up on my plan to knit from the spool, knitting up both strands at the same time. I had way too much raveled yarn to be able to deal with that.

So I wound them into two balls, like you were supposed to do. This meant I got to the inside of the spool for the first time, and I discovered that the dye did not get that far--the center of the ball was barely dyed at all. It's a yucky grey non-colour. Very disappointing.

You can see here the different between the "outside" and the "inside" of the ball:

 I know it looks like there's a big bright light on the right, but that's just the yarn fading out.

Here's a shot of the two skeins, wrapped in opposite directions so that one has the dye on the outside, and one on the inside:

What a difference, eh?

Although I made a point to comment about the yarn on its Ravelry page (I've heard nothing back from its makers), I've put on my perspectacles and am aware of and content with the fact that this is not really a big deal. With the colour fading out as it makes it way to the cuff, there's a really, really small chance that anyone will ever notice.

Of course, if I only did things so that people would notice, I wouldn't be making socks, now would I?

You can tell from the last sock picture, that I am very close to being done. When I got my Mock Monkey socks done, these ones graduated to the car and became my main "travel knitting." They've had a lot of attention on the way to church, at small group, etc, and are just about finished. They fit perfectly now, by the way, so I am really looking forward to wearing them.

And then Troy's Anniversary socks can move into their place. I feel bad that I haven't worked on them since our trip. (!!) Part of the problem was that he had to try them on, and to do that I had to take the stitches off the needles and put them onto a piece of yarn. But we've taken care of that, they fit great and now I am set to continue knitting them (once I get this pair done).

Clickety-clack!

I Like to Knit

Ok, so that sounds like a statement of the very obvious. But I have become aware of the fact in new ways recently.

First, I present my "Lacy Underthing," an undershirt with lace details knit in a brown alpaca yarn:

Progress is being made at a satisfactory rate, and besides thinking it will be a little looser than originally planned, I think it will fit well enough. (Although I'm slightly concerned by the comment a fellow knitter said about alpaca not holding its shape like wool does. We'll see!) But it occurred to me at some point that there's a reason they make lacy underthings in white. (Besides the whole virginal thing.) You can see the lace in white. In this brown, it's going to be a very nearly indiscernible detail. But I still want to knit it. I simply like the process of knitting it.

Detail of neck crossover. (Picture is overexposed so you
can see a little of the lace!)

Let me say as an aside that one rookie mistake is to knit something in black yarn completely unaware that it will make the cables/lace/texture you're working so hard on completely undetectable. (I'd show you a picture of my black cabled cropped sweater from the 80s, but what's the point--you'd just see a black blob!)

This is not a case of that. I want to knit this, I know the dark brown colour doesn't highlight the lace, and really I don't even really care if the lace is clearly discernible for all to see. And that is not at all to say that I don't care how it looks, because believe me, I am still fixing mistakes whenever they occur.

Detail of vertical "stripe" pattern on back and lower front.

It just really struck me that I could be knitting this blind and never get to see how it looks and I would still want to knit it just to be knitting it. The whole world could be blind and I would enjoy knitting it. That's what I mean when I say I like to knit.

The other project that proved to me that I like to knit are these socks I've been working on. I've been doing them two-at-a-time (TAAT) and although 48 stitches worked for previous socks, it turned out to be too narrow for this pair.

Although the evidence was there fairly early on, since I could actually fit my foot into the sock, I kept going. Knitting...I like to knit. I don't like to stop and think and evaluate and measure. Just knit, knit, knit. And that is what I did until I was done the heel:

See? It fits! Well, sort of...

My foot is in the sock on the left. Can you see how much
the stitches are pulling side to side? Way too much
stretch for a comfortable fit.

When I finally stopped knitting long enough to consider how it was fitting I had to admit it kind of pinched...a lot. Part of the problem was that I wanted to see how the heel would come out. (Isn't that silly? I knew I would have to rip it out, but I still wanted to finish the heel first.) So when the heel was done, I tried the sock on again and had to admit--too small! Why was I going on? Because I like to knit. Sometimes to the denial that I would do better to get something useful out of it.

So I ripped it out. This should be a good thing--this means I get more knitting! (Ripping out means great value for your dollar because you get to knit the same yarn several times. Ha ha.) (BTW, I don't suggest making that joke to a knitter who is currently ripping out a project. It's not so funny then. If you go ahead with the joke because you are full of bravado, then please wear eye protection. Knitters always have pointed sticks handy, and I'd hate for you to be the blind person who couldn't see my brown lace.)

More on the "Little Projects"

I will update you on the commission sweater soon, but meanwhile what else have I been doing?

I started some plain socks from the yarn I purchased in the U.P. As planned, I am doing them two-at-a-time.

I went ahead and bought a long Addi Turbo cable needle in the size I've done my last few socks in. I couldn't use my interchangeable cable set because the needles don't come that small in my set, none of the cables are long enough, and the cable join isn't nearly smooth enough. Plenty enough reason to buy a new needle! :)

I've been enjoying the needles and the "magic loop" method isn't bad either.

I was disappointed that the colours are just knitting into regular variegated stripes instead of the agate look that the wool label promised. Then I looked at the picture again:

The feet on these socks are just regular stripes too. There's hope for my "agate" socks yet.

Usually this would be a perfect project for taking out with me: simple, small, and no loose needles to lose. But instead of winding two balls from the two strands on the roll (which is a bit of a pain by yourself), I set it up so that the roll can spin and I can work on the strands at the same time.

No re-winding necessary! It's been working really well. And even if it's not quite as portable, I take it out with me anyway. They didn't wrap the yarn perfectly so although I had the two strands lining up perfectly for a while, a couple of double wraps of the yarn have made them slightly misaligned. That's alright though; it's close enough. And I still think it's fun to work them two-at-a-time.

I did quite a bit of work on these as I waited on word back from my sweater guy on the redesign we had to do. Now that that project is up and going again, I have put these to the side.

Another project that has been going like gang-busters is a brioche scarf. Last time I talked about it, it looked like this:

It was using too much yarn, so I started over with fewer stitches, larger needles and two colours. It's going really well. Here's the "blue side" where you can see the original yarn:

and here is the "green side" with the new green yarn:

It is a wool/cashmere blend and much softer than the 100% wool variegated yarn. I figure the nice soft cashmere can be worn against the skin, and that will leave the pretty blue wool to show on the outside. Should be very nice.

With the changes, it now looks like I will have plenty of yarn. I haven't even knit up all of the blue that I had to frog back and the scarf is about 22 inches long. No more worries there.

The brioche stitch was a little bit of a slow start. There are two main ways to do it--one with yarn overs, the other by knitting in the stitch below--and I had previously done it knitting into the stitch below. I got Nancy Marchant's brioche guide book from the library to read through. It is pretty much the bible of brioche stitch and she teaches the yarn over method so I thought I would give that a go.

I soon discovered that knitting continental is the way to go with all the moving of the yarn from front to back. Here let me show you the difference:


So the only thing I don't like about it is that I have to watch my knitting because it is done continental style (it's still not "automatic" for me) and because of all the yarn overs I have to make sure I catch. Other than that, I wish I could work on it all the time!! It's very compelling.

PS: If you want to see that Norwegian purl better, I did specific post about it (with video) here.