A Marathon of Knitting

About eighteen months ago, I took a sock knitting class with Cat Bordi who is a big name in "sock-i-tecture" as she calls it. I learned her method and then after the class, tested different ways of knitting socks using double pointed needles, two circular needles, two socks on two circular needles, from the cuff down, and from the toe up along with various methods for casting on the toe and turning the heel. It was intensive sock research with no real results since I made all the samples with bulky, throw away yarn. I just wanted to learn how AND THEN...

... it was time for "real" socks. In stash, I had a gorgeous ball of self striping sock yarn that was a gift from a friend. Toe up was my favourite method so I cast on, knit about six teeny, tiny, little, hard to hold, difficult to see, rows and loved the look but hated the feel. The yarn and the needles were so small that they hurt my hands. I gave up and gave the yarn to a woman at Arts & Crafts club who recently immigrated from India. She can knit AMAZING. I've learned an incredible amount sitting next to her.

The next time I was in the yarn store, I mentioned how disappointed I was and ended up coming home with some chunky sock yarn for some of those I'm freezing, curl up and be cuddly kinds of socks. I also picked up Wendy Johnson's book Socks From The Toe Up with patterns for chunkier socks. That was months ago because...




... as you know, I only knit one project at a time BUT - YES YES - I'm so close to the end of my sweater that I can begin to dream about my next project. It needs to be something a lot quicker - much closer to instant gratification - so I'm going to knit two socks on two circular needles from the toe up. The color is VERY similar to the rayon-boucle yarn for the sweater but thankfully the feel of the yarn is vastly different. It won't feel like the same project. I tested gauge in-between...

... knitting and sewing on the button band. I'm learning how to do an invisible seam using a method that reminds me of slip stitching. You catch a little bit of each selvage and then pull them together. I knit the first and last stitch of each row. This creates a garter stitch selvage with little knobs along it. As I stitch the seams together, the knobs fit into each other much like the teeth of a zipper. It looks great.

On the pattern, the button band was ribbed. I've done that several times so this time, I tried a moss stitched band. I like the way it looks, especially the button hole openings. Next time, I'll just knit it right on and avoid that long seam. The band can be knit onto the front up to the shoulder seam and then additional length knit to go around the back neck. Only that section would need to be hand sewn. Ribbing is my favourite stitch and moss (or seed) stitch is my next favourite. I really like the firm look and spongy feel.

Sewing on the button band gave me lots of practice using the invisible stitch - practice for the sleeve caps. In the image below, the parts are pinned wrong sides together and I've begun seaming around the cap. As I pull the edges together, the seam becomes invisible even when sewing from the right side.




This week has been a marathon of knitting and I'm still not done the sweater but I'm REALLY close. There are one and a half sleeve seams and two underarm-side seams left to do. Now that I've got the hang of the invisible stitch, it's starting to go faster but I am SO READY to be done. For the socks, I'll need some smaller needles to get gauge so most likely I'll go over to the mall later today and knit in the yarn store with Brenda. I've been there a lot this weekend. It's nice to have company.

Talk soon - Myrna

Grateful - a gorgeous, sun shiny day