« Retro Rib: the good and the bad | Main | Blarg »
March 1, 2007
Retro Rib Result
The most ingenious plan for solving my sock dilemma was coverting the pattern to resoleable socks - that way, the top of the foot would match the leg, but the bottom could be a different color, allowing me to stretch the precious STR a little further.
I bought Favorite Socks, which contains a pattern for resoleable socks, and I read through the instructions very carefully, so that I could apply the resoleable concept even though I am knitting socks at a much smaller gauge than the pattern calls for. I knit the top of the foot and picked up stitches all around, but it didn't take me too long to figure out that my knitting math skills were not up to converting the pattern without having knit it as written at least once. I should have taken a picture when all the stitches were picked up. It looks totally crazy. You have to use about 6 dpns just to keep everything straight. (luckily I always buy two sets of each size since I tend to lose them)
Since the resoleable thing wasn't working for me, I've decided the knit the heel in the contrasting black yarn, then I'm just going to try to get as far on the foot as I can with the regular yarn before switching to the contrast yarn for the rest of the foot.
Even though this little experiment didn't work out like I'd hoped, there was one bright spot. A new knitting book! I'm sure long-time Interweave Knits subscribers think it's chintzy that IK made a book full of reprinted patterns, but I only have one of the patterns in the book, plus from what I can tell, the book contains a lot of extra information about each pattern. Brenda Dayne wrote a really good review of the book here. I agree with her assessment that this book is definitely for sock knitting traditionalists, but I must fall into that camp because I love the patterns in this book! I especially like the fact that there are several more unisex or masculine patterns in there. Those are pretty hard to come by, in my opinion.
In non-knitting news - March came in like a lion in the Ozarks! There's nothing like waking up to tornado sirens at 4am to start your day off right! Luckily I don't think any tornadoes touched down, but it's still no fun.
Posted by zarah at March 1, 2007 6:17 AM
Comments
I'm glad you found a solution - but you're not fooling me! You were checking out that book at the Knit In! Very sneaky!
Posted by: Tammy ![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.beautyschooldropout.net/nav-commenters.gif)
at March 1, 2007 7:51 PM
Mom called about 1 minute before the sirens started because they got a Weather Bug alert on Dad's cell phone. It's been a looooong day, especially considering that Owen was wide awake and there was no convincing him to lay nicely in bed.
I'd love to look through Favorite Socks the next time we see eachother! Keep us updated on the socks.
Posted by: brianne at March 1, 2007 9:35 PM
that lovely weather is here now ... who know what madness it will bring by daylight.
yay! for a new book!
as a knitter, i never need to justify anything. at first, i thought the IK book was kind of lame, but as a sock knitter, i love having all that info in one place, plus the added new patterns, and it's spiral bound :)
enjoy your new book, and good luck with the socks.
Posted by: gray la gran at March 1, 2007 9:36 PM
Tornado sirens sounds like a really scary way to wake up! I'm glad everything is okay.
Posted by: Macoco at March 2, 2007 1:07 PM
The whole re-soleable concept kinda blows my mind. I'm impressed that you would even attempt it. Better luck next time!
Posted by: Meredith at March 2, 2007 11:17 PM
Post a comment
