Frankensocks

This month I've been participating in the Frankensocks KAL on Ravelry. The idea: use up some scrap stash yarn and knit yourself some socks! And, if you're into Mary Shelley, read-along in her Frankenstein. Now, for someone who enjoys knitting socks, I don't seem to knit very many of them despite the fact that I have a seemingly endless stash of sock yarn, so this KAL instantly appealed to me. Reading a little Shelley was just a plus. Admittedly, I've completely slacked on reading the novel. There's no excuse. It's right up my street century-wise, and is a very good and interesting read. I just never got around to downloading the Librivox audiobook and couldn't motivate myself to dig out my copy. Some of this has to do with a conference paper I wrote some years ago on an alternate point-of-view novel that was really quite bad (the novel, not my paper, lol), and the rest was being busy with other things. But I had time to knit!

I chose the Hat-heel socks from the Fall 2009 Knitty since I've been wanting to try this construction out and I figured I could use up quite a few of my leftovers in the process.



I used up nearly all of the Patons Kroy sock yarn I still had left in the heels, as well as the Four Seasons Gründl Hot Socks Othello I have in that blue-green jaquard colorway for the foot and leg. The toe and tip of the cuff I knit in Bernat Sox Multi and still have a bunch leftover.

At first I thought the heel and gusset flaps/hat flaps would look funky in the finished sock, and, admittedly, they did take a bit of getting used to. The heel, though, is very comfortable and form fitting. I wish I'd taken a picture of the little basket of heel and flaps grafted together, but I forgot--it's really cute! My only annoyance with this pattern is the amount of ends I had to weave in, what with all the breaking and rejoining yarn on the heel, leg, and gussets. Of course, I had a few more ends than normal with the different yarns used, but still, many more ends to weave in than I tend to like for socks. That doesn't mean I won't use this pattern again, and I'm going to see if I can find a way to remedy all that end weaving, but otherwise, this is a very nifty way to make socks. I even learned the figure-8 cast on for the heel, though I think I'll see how the magic cast on works out on this heel next time. Might be less fiddly.

Next on the knitting agenda is to finish sewing the sleeves in the Point Gammon (at least I finished knitting those sleeves!), and to get cracking on the baby gifts for my SIL since her baby shower has just been announced .... and I've got til just after Thanksgiving to knock out a baby blanket and hoodie cardy. To keep me sane in all that baby knitting, I'm going to take part in another KAL, this time Woolly Wormhead's Mystery KAL. I've always wanted to do one of these!

soldier on, dear knitter

Knits, purls, and cable crosses continue here in inkystick land. I'm happy to report that I did figure out the lace decreases on the Leaf Top Kimono with a little help from some scrap yarn and finished the back. But, now it's hibernating again as I try to finish the Point Gammon Pullover which is beginning to feel like The Sleeves That Never End.

I started the first sleeve three times because I, as usual, knit while paying attention to something on TV. First, I knit the pattern repeat incorrectly, then I knit the increases out of pattern, but finally, I got it right and the first sleeve is DONE. Now I'm working on the second sleeve and am really making myself stick with it. The idea is to finish the sweater so it can wing its way to my cousin at the end of October, but now the sweater messenger may not be traveling so I may need to hold on to this til I can travel myself. Unfortch, postal service is out of the question because of the very strange Customs laws in Argentina (recipients have been charged import fees on gifts before, and, from what I can tell from the swaps some Argentine knitters have been involved in on Ravelry, customs officials can be pretty anal about handknits). Still, if I keep at it, I should have the sleeve done by the weekend and can start blocking this bad boy. I am ITCHING to start my scrap yarn Hat Heel socks for the Frankensocks KAL!