I am making a concerted effort this year to buy less yarn, use what I have, and finish things. So far I'm doing well! This is my first finished object of 2008 and I have yet to buy any yarn. Of course, we're only 22 days into the year, but I need to constantly congratulate myself in order to keep this up.
Some of you may have noticed these socks are knit sideways... What fun! I loved this pattern. Here are the specifics (I wrote basically the same things on my ravelry page for this project), with my comments:
pattern: sidewinders: a perpensockular pattern, from nonaKnits
yarn: Schachenmayr nomotta Regia Crazy Color 4-ply / 4-fädig
needles: US2 circulars
stared: 12/27/07
completed: 1/21/08
size: My foot measured up the longest length available in the medium width. I was very careful with my gauge swatch. I had the proper stitch gauge, but my row gauge was a little bit off, so I decided to knit the wide-width sock to make up for this. The socks fit pretty well, but if I did it again I would make the medium width so they would be a bit more snug.
mods: dear God, if I could have figured out how to modify this pattern in some useful way on my first time through, that would just be unholy, wouldn't it. It was exciting to follow a pattern sort of blindly - that's something I rarely do. Apparently, I like to mess with stuff, as Abbey pointed out (hi Abbey!). I couldn’t ever tell if I was going horribly awry or anything because it was impossible to tell what was actually going on most of the time! That felt weird. But thank GOD, everything turned out great.
regarding grafting: My seam isn’t beautiful, but it’s not because of my grafting, it’s because of my cast-on. I did the provisional cast-on on another circular needle of a slightly smaller size (it was an addi turbo US 1.5). When I’ve done provisional cast-ons in the past I’ve had to be careful to keep it loose, otherwise I can’t get the needle through the stitches later on. Well, I should have made this one tighter.
Would I knit this one again? Absolutely!!! What fun. I'd love to make ones with a sole and heel in garter stitch (why can't I remember if the bottom of a sock/shoe is a soul or a sole? graduate school is really breaking me down.) for added squishyness. Also, I saw a comment on one of Nona's posts wondering if she had considered working up both sides from the cast-on - in other words, starting at the seam on the back/bottom, working up both sides, and meeting in the middle instead of starting on the back/bottom and working all the way around your foot. That sounds like a great idea to me, so maybe I'll try that next time. And if you're the person who wrote that brilliant comment on Nona's blog and by some freak occurrence you are reading this, please let me know, so that I might acknowledge your brilliance.
And for amusement purposes, here's one of my reject photos from this shoot. Here's what happens when I try to take pictures of my own feet:
Pretty.
eta: Who knew - I finished some red/pink/orange socks just before the start of Project Spectrum 3.0! Cool.
Congratulations! They look great.
It’s not surprising that you like to experiment while knitting: you cook the same way, simplifying or elaborating on recipes as you go.
I’m more of a follow-the-recipe guy, especially when baking. It’s the same thing as these socks: I have no idea whether the bread (or cake, etc.) will actually work until I take it out of the oven, so I don’t have the confidence to experiment.
Great colors! And there is something to following a pattern without thinking about it too much — I just finished a cross-stitch kit last night and felt very accomplished even though I didn’t think about it too much. Keeps my hands busy and away from the Cheetos.
Peto — it’s best you bake by the recipe as it’s more about chemistry than cooking most “dinner” food. Though you can do things like adding spices or other flavorings without too much fear.
Wow, I’m redundant. It shows that I did four other things in the middle of writing that.
How cool are those socks!! Great job. I’m on a finish what I’ve got roll too. I’m busily working on the Sonnet and will continue through my stash until I have none (so far so good).
yay to us!