Sunday, April 20, 2014

Happy Feet 3 of 5


I was busy working on the Verdant Gryphon socks in that light weight Eidos yarn, and getting a bit impatient - I wanted them done, and I wanted to try another pair of socks.  Well - why wait!?  How about having two pairs of socks going at the same time, annnnd knit a faster pair in a much heavier, much warmer weight yarn!?

Bring on the Rowan Felted Tweed Aran in Cork and Soot!  This was some yarn I got on a steep sale last year, loving the colors, loving the softness, but not sure what I had planned for it.  This stuff comes in 50g balls (most yarn I've bought comes in 100g skeins), and is much heavier - so it called for bigger needles.  US7 on these guys, where the previous two pairs of socks were US1.5.  Between the felted nature of this yarn, and the super slippery Addi needles, this yarn practically flew on to (and off of, sometimes!) the needles!  Slick slick slick!


I stuck with Cat Bordhi's Magic Cast On, finding I didn't even need to watch her video this time around - yay!  I thought I would see what it would be like to knit a much longer ribbed calf area, especially since this slightly felted yarn didn't have as much stretch as the other yarns I'd been working with for socks.  (And remember, while I was knitting these, I was still also knitting the Verdant Gryphon pair).  While I'm not fond of the really tall ribbed area, it did give the calf area the extra stretch it needed.


As I said, these guys knit up FAST!  As in, excluding the afterthought heel, I knit the first sock in a day!  (Yes, a bunch of that was tv watching time in the first evening)

These socks are really soft, and really warm.  But not super dense - so they still let the feet breath a little.  If I wanted more dense, I would go with a US6 or maybe even US5.

But if I did the smaller needles, I'd also need more yarn to cover the same length of sock, and seeing how the Cork part of each sock took one full 50g ball of yarn (so that means two balls total here), I'd need more yarn.  It was kind of fun knitting until there was VERY little yarn left...

Not sure I needed the striping on the calves - that just made things a bit more work, with more ends to weave in - and that's never fun!

I did the afterthought heel on these guys the same as I did on the Verdant Gryphon socks - just knit a toe-to-calf tube with no waste yarn, then snip into the yarn where the heel is being added, pull out yarn, add in needles, then knit the afterthought heel.  This went MUCH easier on the heavier weight yarn in a lighter color with much fewer stitches to deal with.

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