Several weeks later and I’ve finally managed to limp across the Winter Ravelympics finish line with my Earl Grey Socks!
Earl Grey by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee
Yarn: Regia Stretch ColorRavelled here
I made this pair for the Boy, and I haven’t managed to get a shot of him wearing them yet, so I’ll just have to make do with my foot making these socks look ill fitting! Hum ho.
Despite this taking me well over a month to complete, it is a really quick pattern. The cable designs are a fun. lovely little detail that breaks up the monotony of the stocking stitch nicely. I love knitting socks that have a clear repeatable pattern in them as it makes it so much easier to make them the same size – just count the repeats of the first one and repeat as many for the second! I may be alone here, but I’m weirdly paranoid about making socks odd lengths, and have been known to take to obsessively measuring the second sock only to have it still turn out a different length, so this works a treat for me.
I followed the pattern pretty much as written, with the only exception being the cast on – I used Eskimimi’s stretchy cast on for this. It’s a very simple concept, but most ingenious ideas do tend to be! The link takes you through to her instructions on her blog, but essentially you’re provisionally casting on the correct number of stitches, working a few rows in stocking stitch before switching to ribbing for a few rows, and then joining the live provisional stitches to your working stitches by knitting the two together. Phew! I think it sounds a lot more complicated than it actually is, although it is a little fiddly. It is crazy stretchy though, more so than long tail and it has the added bonus that it snaps right back into place and doesn’t stretch out, so it is a good technique to bear in mind if you’re knitting socks for someone and you’re not too sure of the leg size. The only negative I have to say about this, is that it did leave a little bit of a bump on the cuff of my sock, which I think you can just about make out in the photo, which was a result of the double thickness caused by this technique. The next time I try this cast on I’ll try either working the cast on fewer rows, or working it for the whole of the ribbed cuff, which should hopefully make the join a little less noticeable.
And as far as new projects go, I’ve cast on and am almost done with knitting a Totoro hat for my goddaughter! It’ll be the first in a whole series of them, as I want to make one for her big sister, and as soon as the Boy got wind of all this he demanded one too. More on that later!
I also started a new blog last night for my other huge obsession: beauty and make-up! I don’t know if anyone actually reads this blog, but if anyone does I assume they’d be knitters, and I wasn’t too sure how many knitters would appreciate being bombarded with posts about make-up so I’ve forged out another little internet space for myself right over here :)
