Lindy's Knits & Laces

FO: Plain Vanilla Socks in Serenity Sock YarnFO: Plain Vanilla Socks in Serenity Sock Yarn

June 14, 2010 | Lindy | 0 Comments | 2:39 pm

I have finished my Plain Vanilla Socks knitted in Serenity Sock Yarn (Premier yarns), colorway Amethyst. This is the yarn that I wrote about in a previous post: “A Study of Pooling in a Variegated Sock Yarn”. As I discovered in my study of how this yarn pools, by using 54 stitches on size US 2 (2.75mm) needles, I got a “striping” effect as the yarn pooled. You can see the result in the picture above.

Serenity Sock Yarn is a variegated yarn with color changes that are fairly short and don’t necessarily produce stripes when the number of stitches increases. The yarn itself has a nice soft feel to it and it knits up nicely, but I did experience a tendency of the yarn to split at times. The yarn is 50% Merino Wool, 25% Bamboo and 25% Nylon and has sufficient stretch for a well-fitting pair of socks. Anyone planning on using this yarn should definitely knit a swatch with the number of stitches they are planning to use for their socks to see if it knits up in a way that they like.

There was a pattern printed on the inner label that called for a gauge of 9 spi on US 2 (2.75mm) needles. The pattern is based upon 64 stitches. Now, I got an spi of 6.25 on US 2 needles, which is a significant difference and I cannot speak to how it would pool at the stated gauge of 9 spi. I know that I knit more loosely and guess that in order to obtain 9 spi, I would have to use US 0 (2.25 mm) or US 00 (1.75 mm). I really prefer to knit socks on a little bigger needles. These socks were for me to wear around the house and they fit my feet perfectly.

As for the pattern used for these socks — I really didn’t use one. I knit a 3 X 1 ribbing for 1.5 inches, then switched to stockinette stitch and knit until the cuff measured 6.5 inches. I did a short row or mitered heel and then knit the foot and toe in stockinette and grafted the toe when I had 9 stitches remaining on each side of the sock. I used the Magic Loop method and knit the socks two at a time.

Mirrored Cables – Front Cross & Back Cross CablesMirrored Cables – Front Cross & Back Cross Cables

May 13, 2010 | Lindy | 0 Comment | 11:03 am

Front Cross and Back Cross Cable Stitches are mirror images of each other. The Front Cross cable twists to the left, while the Back Cross twists to the right. Both cables are done over four stitches.

In the sample – I have knitted a swatch with 3 Front Cross Cables and 3 Back Cross Cables to demonstrate how they mirror each other and also to show how these two cables would look in a ribbing. Remember that cables are usually separated by a few purl stitches in most textured pattern designs. In this swatch, I separated the cables by 2 purl stitches on each side. (I also blocked this swatch and stretched it to separate the cables. If you were using these cables as a ribbing, you would not want to block your garment this way.)

The Front Cross Cable is often written in patterns as “C4F”. To knit this cable, you slip the first two stitches onto a cable needle and hold them in the front of your knitting while you knit the next two stitches. Then you knit the two stitches off the cable needle. This results in the cable twisting to the left.

Tension can be an issue here, as many knitters tend to stretch the last stitch of the four a bit too much and end up with a looser stitch on the left edge of the needle. If you look closely at the left edge of the cable in the picture above, you will see that I do have looser stitches on the left edge.

Montse Stanley, in the “Knitters Handbook”, suggests knitting through the back of this stitch, rather than then front will tighten it up. You must remember to purl through the back loop again on the next row or you will have a twisted stitch if you do this, however.

The Back Cross Cable is often written in patterns as “C4B”. To knit this cable, you slip the first two stitches onto a cable needle and hold them in the back of your knitting while you knit the next two stitches. Then you knit the two stitches of the cable needle. This results in the cable twisting to the right. The same tension issues occur with this cable as with the Front Cross Cable.

In my swatch, I have varied the number of rows between cable stitch repeats to demonstrate how the appearance of the cables changes with the number of rows. The first two cables are based upon a four row repeat (meaning that the cable was done on the fourth row) and the last two cables are based upon a six row repeat.

These two cable patterns are very versatile – uses include: all-over cable patterning in a sweater (the popular “baby cable” sweaters found in stores today), a border for another textured pattern in an Aran style sweater, a decorative ribbing for a pullover sweater, the patterning found in my Cable Rib socks. I’m certain you can find many more examples as you look through sweater and sock patterns.

A Study of Pooling in a Variegated Sock YarnA Study of Pooling in a Variegated Sock Yarn

May 5, 2010 | Lindy | 0 Comments | 12:38 pm

Several days ago, I decided to knit a pair of plain vanilla socks using Serenity Sock Weight Yarn (Premier Yarns) in the colorway Amethyst. This was a yarn I had purchased at my local Hobby Lobby and had been sitting in my sock yarn stash for a few months. In the skein, the yarn appears to be a mix of greys and purples, and I thought it would result in a striping of the socks. The label does not indicate that the yarn is “self-striping”, but the picture on the label shows a sock with an interesting variation of stripes.

Since I had never knit with this yarn, I knit a circular swatch to determine needle size and gauge before starting on my socks – and this is where my study in “Pooling” began. I started with US 2 (2.75 mm) needles and cast on 64 stitches (which is what I would use for my socks with a gauge of 7 stitches per inch). As I worked on the swatch, I noticed that the yarn was not knitting up in the stripes the way I had anticipated – in fact, it seemed to be predominately purple on one side of the swatch and predominately grey on the other side.

Obviously, I had some “pooling “ going on. Pooling is an effect that occurs when a variegated yarn knits up in “pools” of color, rather than in stripes. Now, I wasn’t really sure I liked the effect – and my stitch gauge was 6.25 spi, rather than the 7 spi I wanted.

So, I decided to do a second swatch with fewer stitches, a smaller needle – and because I had read about pooling in a Rav thread, I also decided to knit from the outside of the skein instead of the inside. I cast on 52 stitches on size US 1.5 (2.50 mm) needles and knit away – and I got more striping – not even stripes, but definitely stripes on both sides of the swatch.

So, I took a picture of the two swatches and posted a comment on Ravlery under the thread, “Examples of Pooling Good & Bad”, stating what I had observed along with my assumption that the change was probably due to knitting from the outside of the skein – and completely ignoring the fact that I had changed the number of stitches in the swatch and this might also be contributing to the way the colors were knitting up.

I must admit, I did not anticipate much of a response to my comment in this thread. But I received several. It’s one of the things I love about Ravelry – fellow knitters are always willing to share and question things. Anyway – after reading the comments, I decided I needed to do a little more work before I could actually answer my fellow Ravelers’ questions.

Off I went to swatch again – this time I decided to start from the inside of the skein, use US 2 (2.75 mm) needles and begin by casting on 72 stitches. I knit approximately 1.5 inches, then purled and decreased the number of stitches to 64 stitches, knit another 1.5 inches, purled and decreased to 54 stitches and knit another 1.5 inches. Here’s a picture showing how the yarn pooled with different numbers of stitches.

So – in response to Robocass and Hypercycloid, who asked me if the difference might be due more to the difference in the number of stitches in my swatches: Clearly, the number of stitches used results in very different color patterning and it doesn’t really matter whether I knit from the inside or the outside of the skein.

Hypercycloid also asked about the length of each of the colors in the yarn. Hmm – I hadn’t thought about that, so I got out the measuring tape and discovered that each purple section of the yarn was approximately 19 inches, while the grey sections were approximately 12 inches. Not quite, but almost a 3 to 2 ratio. Statnerd suggested I count the number of grey stitches compared to the purple stitches in my wider swatch – I did and ended up with 27 stitches of grey to 37 stitches of purple. Again, this is close to a 3 to 2 ratio of purple to grey. All of you were correct in your observations that the colors shift around the circumference of the swatches – and due to the differences in the number of stitches, the colors stack up very differently for different numbers of stitches.

Zgma commented:

“It doesn’t look like a self-striping yarn to me. The striping you got in the top sample is a result of the colors pooling in a way that looks like stripes, not actual “self-striping”. When yarns are labeled self-striping, it is because the runs of color are large enough that for the project intended (as in, socks for self-striping sock yarn), the color will last for all the stitches in at least one round or row, usually more. When a particular color (for instance, the black in your sock samples) lasts for part of a row, but then in the next row the color occurs before or after it did in the previous row in such a manner that it looks like striping, it doesn’t mean that the yarn is self-striping – just that it is prone to pooling in a stripey way.”

Yep, you are right about that.

To each of those that took the time to comment — thanks! I learned a great deal about pooling and variegated yarns.

I did a little internet surfing on the subject, as well. I found two informative posts about Pooling — One from the Yarn Harlot and the other from Knitting Sutra.

So – I am not really sure if I like this particular yarn – but I have decided to proceed with using it to knit a pair of plain vanilla socks. I am going to use US 2 (2.75 mm) needles with a gauge of 6.25 spi and cast on 54 stitches (this should fit my foot). I’ll post pictures of the final result.

FO: Cable Rib SocksFO: Cable Rib Socks

May 2, 2010 | Lindy | 0 Comments | 8:00 am

I finally finished the Cable Rib Socks! Yes, this is the unfortunate pair of socks that was eaten by the Roomba. (See post here.).

I set this project aside for some time to work on other project. Typically for this kind of project, I would pick it up every now and again, but not spend much time on it — thus, progress was very slow. In addition, every since the Roomba incident, this pair of socks seemed to be prone to problems (errors?) — in fact, I think I frogged each sock back several rows at least twice. So, it is nice that they are finally done — and I am happy with the result.

The socks fit well, and they look nice on my feet. They were knit in Knit Picks Risata, Baby Doll colorway — it’s a nice cotton sock yarn and I love the bright rosy pink color. Pattern was Cable Ribbon Socks by Classic Elite Yarns.