I have been away from home this week, teaching my lace classes, so I haven't had much sock knitting time. But I want to tell you about a pair that I made on Sunday last week. Two or three years ago I bought some pure wool sock yarn off e-bay. It has a label on it written in Russian and it came from a seller in Hull; I bought five 100g balls for a good enough price to risk the fact that it is supposed to be hand-washed, whereas I will wash at least the first pair on a machine wool wash. I don't do hand washing unless it is essential, and I know my machine is gentle. But of course, I had never gotten around to using it.
In the light of my current enthusiasm for the Griswold I brought down one of the Russian wools, and rewound it ready to knit. As I wound I came to a knot, but decided that as I was about half way through I probably had enough for one sock, and set to work. I was nearly right and it knitted a beautiful sock up to the end of the foot and the first two or three rows of the toe.
At this point I wound some more, until I met a thin bit of wool that just fell apart in my hand. Looking at what I had wound, I decided it was more than I had the first time so should do the second sock, which it did. I grafted the ends together with a long overlap so I had a smooth but strong join on the toe, finished sock one and knitted sock two.
I am now getting to the point of the tale. The dyed pattern on the yarn was a splotch of blue then pink, yellow, pink, yellow, pink and back to blue. The complete repeat knitted just over a round (on the 72) with the blue starting a few stitches past where it had been on the previous round. There was enough blue to knit about 20 stitches, so the blue spiral was about 6 rows deep. It was fascinating watching the blue 'moving' round the cylinder as the handle cranked.
Sock two seemed to be just the same, with the blue moving around the cylinder row by row, but as it came out of the bottom I realised that the blue spiral stripe was much narrower. The blue section was much shorter, so it didn't knit as many stitches; this meant that the overlap only took about three rows. I think that the pink/yellow sections must be slightly longer each time giving a total repeat of the same length or the blue wouldn't overlap in the same way. I now have a unique 'pair' of socks and I don't want any jealousy.
As a first experience of this make of wool it is not impressive. However Helen has had a similar experience with the far more expensive Opal where she found that her best laid plans of a beautifully matched pair of socks went awry when the pattern repeat was reversed at a knot!
I have another ball of Russian yarn to knit next, by request of Richard who complained that his socks are boring compared to mine, so I will report back about the quality and also how it copes with being machine washed. If it turns out that all the different colours are dyed using the same pattern repeat it will be interesting to see the different patterns that result when knitted on other size cylinders. The seller is still on e-bay with the same yarn - currently Buy-it-Now for around £5 for two 100g balls, plus shipping of course.
I still have to do the toes on the cotton socks, and I have noticed I have a repair to do. I must have dropped a stitch as I finished the heel and pushed the needles back down into action - operator error not feeling a closed latch - but easy enough to repair as I saw it before I sewed the toe.
In the light of my current enthusiasm for the Griswold I brought down one of the Russian wools, and rewound it ready to knit. As I wound I came to a knot, but decided that as I was about half way through I probably had enough for one sock, and set to work. I was nearly right and it knitted a beautiful sock up to the end of the foot and the first two or three rows of the toe.
At this point I wound some more, until I met a thin bit of wool that just fell apart in my hand. Looking at what I had wound, I decided it was more than I had the first time so should do the second sock, which it did. I grafted the ends together with a long overlap so I had a smooth but strong join on the toe, finished sock one and knitted sock two.
I am now getting to the point of the tale. The dyed pattern on the yarn was a splotch of blue then pink, yellow, pink, yellow, pink and back to blue. The complete repeat knitted just over a round (on the 72) with the blue starting a few stitches past where it had been on the previous round. There was enough blue to knit about 20 stitches, so the blue spiral was about 6 rows deep. It was fascinating watching the blue 'moving' round the cylinder as the handle cranked.
Sock two seemed to be just the same, with the blue moving around the cylinder row by row, but as it came out of the bottom I realised that the blue spiral stripe was much narrower. The blue section was much shorter, so it didn't knit as many stitches; this meant that the overlap only took about three rows. I think that the pink/yellow sections must be slightly longer each time giving a total repeat of the same length or the blue wouldn't overlap in the same way. I now have a unique 'pair' of socks and I don't want any jealousy.
As a first experience of this make of wool it is not impressive. However Helen has had a similar experience with the far more expensive Opal where she found that her best laid plans of a beautifully matched pair of socks went awry when the pattern repeat was reversed at a knot!
I have another ball of Russian yarn to knit next, by request of Richard who complained that his socks are boring compared to mine, so I will report back about the quality and also how it copes with being machine washed. If it turns out that all the different colours are dyed using the same pattern repeat it will be interesting to see the different patterns that result when knitted on other size cylinders. The seller is still on e-bay with the same yarn - currently Buy-it-Now for around £5 for two 100g balls, plus shipping of course.
I still have to do the toes on the cotton socks, and I have noticed I have a repair to do. I must have dropped a stitch as I finished the heel and pushed the needles back down into action - operator error not feeling a closed latch - but easy enough to repair as I saw it before I sewed the toe.
I've had a similar encounter with some random dyed sock yarn. The pattern spiralled in the foot (heel tension still on), but not the leg. Didn't do it in the second sock as for some reason I had missed one of the thread-up holes, so I re-wound that. back to the rib, picked up the stitches and started again. On this sock I got the more desirable spiral on the leg and not the foot! I've let it go at that now.
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