Socks

[liralen]

With the weather turning, all the neighborhood kids have demanded socks as is their right.

*falls over giggling*

Well, they have! Mikayala was the first, asking for new socks because her old ones don't fit her any more, and she said, wisely, "Better make 'em a little big so I can grow some more. I want them to be pink and purple... or... hey, this is pretty!" As she picked up one of the Kool-Aid hanks with purple, blue, green, and bits of yellow. "Can you make 'em out of this?"

"Uhm... sure!"

Miss Macy wanted the fiery "Great Balls of Fire" yarn for her socks but then wanted the Tropical pink, teal, green, and purple Knit Picks hand dyed on-sale yarn as well. I said, "Your mom will have to hand wash 'em if they're from those." Macy just shrugged, "Sure!"

Tanner was surprised when I suggested another pair of orange socks for him, but he was all for it.

Jet says his favorite color is yellow and he loves the Big Yellow Taxi yarn, but he saw my Twist and Shout and now he wants socks out of that, too; but when he saw the Ain't No Mountain High Enough he said, "Eehh, those are girl colors."

Now I'm afraid to show it to Macy and Mikayla. *laughter*

Comments

[rephetibel.livejournal.com]

I was sitting with a friend yesterday and knitting a sock. She was surprised I would bother because it takes time and it's cheaper to buy socks. I handed her a finished sock and suggested she try it on. She pulled it on (after giving me a LOOK because I told her it was a right sock not a left one). A funny look came over her face and she said, "Oh, my God! It's orgasmic!"

[liralen.livejournal.com]

I love that story. Indeed, yes.

I think that the one thing I brought away from the book "No Idle Hands" is that handknit socks are just so superior to any machine socks that through countless wars it was a civic duty to hand knit socks for solders for *generations*.

Now your friend, too, knows why. :-)

[knappenp.livejournal.com]

I bet you've already put together a 'so you want to knit' thing for people who are inspired by your L33T knitting skillz. Can you point me at it? I want to make socks. :)

[liralen.livejournal.com]

Laughter! I have actually not done so, mostly because there's several sites who have already leaped far ahead of my knit-chronically web skills. Most of which are linked to the knitting community knitting.

My favorite site for beginning knitters is the Knitting Help (http://knittinghelp.com/) site which has actual VIDEO for every single instruction you might ever run across in a pattern. The simple, toe-up socks pattern in four sizes (http://www.wiseneedle.com/patternpage.asp?pattern=knitpatksox) linked to the help site is a great place to start as it's a variable pattern with larger yarn (a faster knit).

So I have not done it because others have gone before and done a great job. *grin*

[knappenp.livejournal.com]

Excellent. Thanks. :)

[liralen.livejournal.com]

Another interesting reference might be sarakate's site explaiKnit (http://explaiknit.typepad.com/), which does explain a lot of things about knitting. It's very cool.

[rephetibel.livejournal.com]

You need to be warned. I knitted one pair of socks (just to be able to say I had done that) and I was hooked. They are so comfortable that now I HAVE to replace ALL my socks with handknit ones.

I have an elderly friend who, as a child was spent several weeks in a hospital. She was bored and lonely so one of the nurses taught her how to knit a pair of argyle socks as a first knitting project. I'd like to knit argyle socks one of these days but I can't imagine them as a first knitting project.

The knitting video would be good for me. I read instructions for how to knit a short row heel (that's the kind of heel store socks have) and I can't, for the life of me, make any sense out of them. I think the heel I knit is called the continental heel or the French heel or somesuch. It's supposed to be sturdier anyway.

The directions I use are "Knit to Fit Ankle or Calf Socks" by Nancy Lindberg.

[knappenp.livejournal.com]

Just what I need - more things to fill up my time. But thanks for the warning, and the pattern.

[liralen.livejournal.com]

Mmm... yeah. sarakate mentioned an argyle project she's thinking about when I was talking about all my other projects. Her project sounds absolutely amazing. Mmm... argyle. Think of it, though! if you could do argyle socks right off the bat, everything else would be easy! *grin*

[sarakate.livejournal.com]

I was just going to chime in about this, and then I scrolled down and found that you'd mentioned me already! :) I've started them, and they are *so fun* -- purple socks with light pink and hot pink diamonds, and green crossing lines. They're not *all* that intimidating -- you do the colorwork part flat, and don't work in the round until you switch to the solid-colored foot -- but there's a lot going on, with many different strands, in this particular incarnation, so it *looks* complicated. They *could* be done in a simpler manner, though, with just the diamonds being knit in and the lines being duplicate stitched on after, and I've seen some charts with only one color of diamonds on a background color, so that really wouldn't be horrifying as a beginner project. I forget now where I saw this, but one of the sources I read as I was plotting my project quoted a yarn store owner as saying he had women coming in, saying, "I don't know how to knit, but I *did* make argyle socks for my boyfriend in college," so apparently that once wasn't all that uncommon.

[liralen.livejournal.com]

Ooooo... *grin* I like that last quote a lot. Wow. Now I'm sooooo tempted to do argyle with my crazy "Big Yellow Taxi" against something purple with red crossing lines.

As part of my exploration on how to do the crochet steek on the sun/moon sweater, I bought a ball of "argyle" yarn in a tweedy purple that would be perfect. Hm....

Mmm... the best part of temptation is falling to it. *grin*

[sarakate.livejournal.com]

One of the things I was contemplating when I was choosing colors was doing them with some of the diamonds in a self-striping sock yarn. Specifically, I've got some Regia Ringel in shades of brown, and some solid sock yarn in compatible gauge in cream and in chocolate. But I decided that even if I want to use those together for argyles, I'd probably rather do them for my husband than for myself -- I want bright Show Off Socks for me. :) But I'd have to play with it a bit -- the intarsia diamonds will do funky things with the striping, and I'm not sure if it will be the good kind of funky or not.

[liralen.livejournal.com]

Cool to know! I like knowing what you thought about with regards to that. I'd love to hear about how the playing with turns out.

The handdyed/handspun stuff I have doesn't have a regular repeat or lengths, so the diamonds might not affect it the same way. I'll have to try it, now, and see how it turns out. *grin* Play a bit to see...

[silkiemom.livejournal.com]

I am quite amused at how willing kids are to volunteer their moms to hand-wash laundry. :)

[liralen.livejournal.com]

Exactly. *grin* I was rather amused as well, and asked Mom about it before actually committing to the socks. She said that so long as throwing 'em in the COLD wash by accident would be okay and pulling them out to line dry would be okay, she was okay with them.

[incandescens]

The Socks are coming! The Socks are coming!

(In other words, brilliant. ;) And I still have the pair you made me, too!)

[liralen.livejournal.com]

yay!! I'm glad that you have them! I should mention that anyone that has a pair of my socks gets a re-heel and re-toe any time they need it. *grin* So if they are wearing through along the bottom, feel free to send 'em back and I'll fix 'em up and send 'em back.

[incandescens]

Woo! Thank you. I shall check. ;)