Sunday, July 20, 2014

Socks Sunday: Honeycomb Socks WIP.

Well, despite the kitten's best efforts, I have managed to get a bit of knitting done over the past two weeks. Yuuret is all done, all blocked, and awaiting only thread and needles that are small enough to fit through the holes on the clasps. I'll have an FO post for it soon.

I've also picked this pair of socks back up. I started them for Bandit last summer and set them aside over the winter. When I first got these skeins of Koigu KPPPM, they reminded us both so strongly of honeybees and honeycomb that I decided to find and incorporate a honeycomb motif into the stitches. This one is taken from Apis Dorsata, a free shawl pattern from Knitty.

The toes and heels are knit from Saucon Sock by Kraemer Yarns - a cotton/acrylic/nylon blend. I wouldn't want to knit a whole sock out of it, but it's been good for contrasting toes, heels and cuffs, especially for skeins that run a little on the less-yardage side.

I decided to try out the Fish Lips Kiss heel. I'd had problems trying to figure out where to start the heel with my last pair of toe-up socks for Bandit, so I was super excited to see that the FLK heel provided an easy way of determining this. I traced Bandit's foot on cardboard, cut out the foot shape, and then used the mathematical formula provided in the pattern to determine where the heel hinge was. (That's the lighter pencil line on the cardboard, about an inch under where the darker one is. I had also tried to do it just by feel, but measured it incorrectly; that's what the darker line is.)

Just for comparison's sake, this is my own cardboard foot tracing next to Bandit's.

I knit the first sock up to the heel hinge line, fitting the sock over the cardboard form every so often to check my progress, and then started the second sock, to make sure that the body of the two would match. Yesterday afternoon I finally got the second sock to the hinge line as well... and then I began the heel. The heel was done by early evening.

The heel is called Fish Lips Kiss, by the way, because when it doesn't have a heel in it, it kind of flattens out and looks a bit like fish lips.

I have to say, this heel has been absolutely lovely to knit. The cardboard foot form, by itself, cut out a lot of the frustration and guesswork of knitting a toe-up sock. But the heel construction is a marvel. It's simple to memorize, involves no counting, and makes for a join that's surprisingly seamless and free of holes. And best of all, the pattern is only $1. A few of the sixteen pages, I feel, could have been left out entirely - they smack a bit of empty promotion and self-congratulation - but once one finds the real meat of the information, it's precious information indeed.

Keturah, by the way, got very curious about my lightbox while I was photographing the sock. I warned her that if she kept exploring around in it, I'd take pictures of her.

She didn't heed my warnings.

5 comments:

  1. That cardboard form idea is freaking BRILLIANT.
    I messed up my last pair of toe-ups (too exhaused by the look of them to frog and try again), and making a cardboard guide would 10000% do the trick to make sure my mistakes don't happen again.

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  2. "She didn't heed my warnings."

    Cats rarely do! She's adorable. Those socks look great.

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  3. How clever to have the cardboard cut out to measure for the foot and heel, brilliant!
    Love the color you are using.
    Hugs,
    Meredith

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  4. the cardboard feet show just how much dedication knitting man socks is!! I love the honey comb you have incorporated on these socks, its perfect!

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  5. The knitting jargon means very little to me, but the yarn is so beautiful and I love the honeycomb design! Wow. I think the yarn looks a little like the kitten. :)

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