The Thrill of Victory...

I finished my Jaywalker socks!


These were fun to knit, and I am fairly hapy with the way they turned out. There are a couple of things that I don't like:


The ribbing at the top tends to slouch down. I think if I knit this pattern again I would knit the ribbing on a size smaller needles, or I would do a different treatment at the top (maybe a picot hem or something).

The fact that this fabric has little give is a problem for my particular shape. While my legs aren't particularly skinny my ankles are, and my feet are generally narrow except for across the ball of the foot, thanks to my bunions (I had bunion surgery at 16 and will probably have to have it again!) I chose to make the larger size and I'm glad I did, but the sock is a little loose through the ankle and foot. I think I'm better off with a fabric that I can make with negative ease to stretch over the bigger parts and is still snug through the narrower parts.

Specs:
Jaywalker pattern
Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock yarn, Black Watch color, two skeins (with plenty left over)
Size 1 birch double point needles

AND THE AGONY OF DEFEAT (I know, I'm mixing up the Olympics with ABC's Wide World of Sports, but it's all sports!)


I was making some progress on the Shapely Tank. The bottom of the tank is shaped with short rows to give a curved bottom with a smooth hem. I followed the directions in the pattern for wrapping the short rows - I should have known better (this is not to say that knitting patterns are bad, I just find that I sometimes have more stringent standards for how the details are done than a lot of mass market patterns do.)
I finished the short row shaping and took a good look at the way the wrapped stitches looked:


I know the picture isn't great, but if you look closely you can see that the wraps are crossed, and it was going to be really quite visible in the finished garment. In my opinion, if I'm making something out of solid yarn in stockinette stitch I'd better nail it on all the details, because that's what you're going to see. I decided I wasn't happy with it, so I hit the books.

First I went to the Montse Stanley book Knitter's Handbook : A Comprehensive Guide to the Principles and Techniques of Handknitting, which I know lots of people are fond of. It's not my favorite book: I find it hard to get the specific information I want and the instructions aren't always clear or detailed enough.

Fortunately, I am lucky enough to own the mother of all knitting reference books, June Hiatt's The Principles of Knitting: Methods and Techniques of Hand Knitting. Yes, that's right, the out of print book that people sell on eBay for $250. I'm not crazy enough to spend that kind of money, just lucky. Fifteen years ago I was hanging out with my mother-in-law to be, and we stopped in at New England Mobile Book Fair. This is a bit of a misnomer since it is not mobile, but maybe it used to be. Anyway, this book store sells first run books at a discount but they also have a huge remainder room. We were looking at knitting books and I came across this book that was so big and so extensive I knew I had to have it. I had to think because it wasn't cheap - it was $15 and I was in college without much money to spare. But I bought it. I've always been glad to have it, it's an amazing resource although sometimes there's so much information it takes a while to weed through. One day several years ago I was reading something on the web and read something about this book being out of print, so I went looking on Amazon and eBay and was astonished to see how much people were asking for copies of this book.

Sure enough, there were much more detailed instructions for wrapping short rows, which I tried out on a piece of sample knitting:


Much better. I ripped back to the beginning of the short rowing and did it all over, and I'm much happier with the results:

I know that you can still see the wrapped stitches, but it is just because of the distortion which I think will smooth out after washing and blocking. Unlike the first attempt, the stitches aren't crossed or twisted, which looked much worse to me.

And now I'm pretty much back where I started.


SOCKAPALOOOZA UPDATE
There's not really much to say. I did buy a bunch of sock yarn at the SuperBowl sale last week:


The orange striped yarn on the left is for Punkin, and there's yarn enough for socks for the Hubby, my mother, myself and the Sock Pal in the rest of the pile. The Cherry Tree Hill yarn is gorgeous, let's hope it's nice to work with since I bought a bunch (and all at 50% off! Wheee!)

And a few random photos to finish with:

The view out my front window:


Winter weather=fog. I like northern California. It sure beats the 12-14" of snow my parents are expecting this weekend.

The view in my living room:


Isn't that the cutest tie-dye? This is the first time Buddy's worn it (it's a hand-me-down) and I just love the way the design is just about centered on the butt.