Walking on Sunshine

My "Mini Mochi Circle" socks are finished. They feel fabulous and were a lot of fun to knit.

I got a little carried away with the length. I just kept knitting and knitting on them as they were a great "take along" project and I guess I was going places. I was also thinking that I was going to knit til I ran out of yarn. After all, that's part of why I knit from the toe up so that I can use up all the yarn.

But at some point I realized that just because I could doesn't mean I had to and that knitting toe up can also just prevent you from running out of yarn before you're finished. You don't have to use up all the yarn. So I tried the sock on one more time and then finished it off. (And then finished the second one to match.)

I used a folded over hem to finish. The "fold line" was made with a row of yarn overs which gives a nice picot edge. I took the time to Kitchener the live stitches to the purl bumps on the back. It turned out fantastic. Sturdy, stretchy and comfortable.

At its most basic level, the pattern on the leg of the sock is alternating knit and purl rows. This makes it want to stack up on itself (picture the slouch socks from the 80s). I hope it won't be too bad when I'm wearing them. The good thing, I made the socks long enough that even if they do sag and slouch, I think they'll still protect enough of my leg from cold drafts.

The raveled black wool worked out perfectly for this project. It sets a nice backdrop for the colourful circles. I think they look like stain glass windows.

For those of you who like the details, I used my current favourite short row toe and heel for the socks, disregarding whatever the pattern told me to do. (I didn't even read it, so I don't even know what I was "supposed" to do.)

I thought the short row heel was especially called for to keep the colour changes as continuous as possible.

I think that's all I've got to say. The weather's gotten quite a bit cooler the last week, but not quite cool enough to wear these yet. Can't wait!

Project Stats
Started: 27 Jul '11
Finished: 01 Sep '11
Pattern: Circle Socks by Anne Campbell (free)
Materials: Mini Mochi, 2 skeins in 108 Neptune's Rainbow ($18.40) and 21 g of lambs wool raveled from a sweater

Travel Projects

I brought a few projects with me on a driving trip last week. Most importantly, I got my secret project completely done and it is currently at the fair.

I brought along the red triangle stole and it is getting very near the end. The knitting part anyway, which is good because it's at the point where it is just kind of going on and on and on....

Thankfully, I also threw in some Mini Mochi sock yarn I had bought way back when I went to the Yarn Gourmet for the Super Scarf knit-along in February, my pack of sock needles, and a pattern. It's a good thing because I would have run out of things to do!

It took a couple tries to get the right combination of needle size and number of stitches, but once that was set, two feet flew off the needles. When I had one done past the heel, I put it onto some scrap yarn and made a second one to match.

I had noticed on Ravelry that this yarn didn't stripe quite fast enough for the pattern on the leg to work right. I wanted to follow a couple other people's example of using a second colour.

I thought I might have to buy one skein of black to finish off the socks, but before I did I decided to do some stash diving. When I got to the bottom of one bag, I found this sweater that I had bought to ravel:

It's a Ralph Lauren Polo lambs wool sweater. Or it was. Yesterday I made short work of it and got over 400 grams of usable 2-ply lace (or fingering?) weight wool.

It doesn't feel especially nice by the strand, but the knit garment was so soft. Mmm. I only needed a sleeve for the socks, but I went ahead and did the whole thing so it would be done:

Aren't they pretty all wound up and labeled?

I thought I would need to double it to match the Mochi yarn, but one (2-ply) strand will do. Hurray for me. With the added yarn, my socks will also end up a little longer which is good. I had noticed others that used this yarn had socks that were a little short for my taste.

Tonight I'm sitting at the fair for three hours with nothing more to do but sell raffle tickets. I think there'll be some knitting time!