Holiday socks

How do you knit a sock? Let me count the ways. From the top cuff down? from the toe up? and then there's two at a time? either top down or toe up?  What about our choice of needles? Double pointed (DPNS, 4 or 5)? small circular? one long cable? or a pair of medium cables? and the new (to me) Addi flips. I think I have tried them all, including a version of two at a time that you will find on Ravelry, called War and Peace** socks (where you knit two at a time on one set of DPNS one sock inside another - yes, really). Lastly there is a choice of yarn, maybe pretty much anything goes as we all need socks for all sorts of footwear, from smart ones, to walking ones to wellies (you just need to match your needle size to your yarn and the tension/guage you want).

But this post is not about The Right Way To Knit a Sock, I don't really believe there is one and for me, I am not a monogamous sock knitter, I change the method from time to time as the mood takes me! 

No, this post is about knitting socks on holiday and chatting to friends over coffee about how I do it, which at the moment is top down one at a time on DPNs.

This is where I have been on holiday (lucky me)

And this was my view as I sat with my knitting

I sat at Kiki's Kafenion, Romantica in Lakka Paxos for an hour or so in the early morning knitting, drinking coffee, and chatting to Kiki's daughter Maria, and my friend Mary who works for a lovely local travel company.

Maria and Kiki

Mary

As we sat and knitted I rambled on about my sock knitting and before I left for home I promised I would write a post with links to all the places on the internet where I have found help and information on making socks. If you are an absolute beginner I would suggest having a look at Kate Atherley's patterns for training socks, all the techniques are there in miniature (basically fewer stitches and far less straight knitting) . If you actually knit up a pair they could make a sweet present for a new baby. 

A quick word about Ravelry - it is a fab resource for knitters of any level. To get the full benefit you need to register but its free and the search facility for patterns is fab, also the ability to log your knitting projects is so handy.  You can see my projects here. There are lots of free patterns on Ravelry, the sock pattern I follow for Vanilla socks is this one I like it but there are plenty of others. I'm not going to give pattern instructions here (they are all in Very Vanilla) just photos and lots of the links that we talked about last week.

Of course there is so much else to do on holiday, reading, swimming, snoozing, and eating - even walking a little! so I didn't quite get to finish even one sock, I got this far... The yarn is from West Yorkshire Spinners in the Blue Tit colour way with some plain blue for rib, heels  and toes

But I have finished the first of my Red Top socks 

So to show Maria and Mary what each stage of the sock process looks like (Kiki already knows, although she prefers 5 DPNS) here are some close ups

Casting on - most sock patterns suggest casting on a certain no of stitches, usually divisible by 4, then joining in the round at once. I suggest knitting a few rows, maybe 3 or 4 then joining in the round, this avoids accidentally twisting the stitches and if you make sure to leave a tail as you cast on you can use this to sew the first few rows up later. I cast on my Blue tit socks with a long tail cast on but for the Red Tops I have used a tubular cast on, there are a number of options suggested in various patterns but what is important is that it stretches as much as possible 

The ribbing is just like everything else sock wise - a matter of choice! I have done a K1 P1 rib on the blue tit socks and a K2 P2 on the Red Tops - there are also some fancy sock-top patterns out there. What is important is that the rib needs to be long enough to give the top of the sock some grip, I don't always measure but 2-3cm is about right then it plain sailing - knit stitches all round until you reach the back of the heel (no purl stitches in a plain sock as in the round you are always  have the right side facing you).

How long should the leg be? As long as you want, I like my socks to come to mid calf, just hold the knitting up to your leg and stop when they reach your ankle bone. 

By the way, I am knitting the Red Tops in a fancy vertical stripe but in all other respects they are vanilla socks

And so you have reached the heel flap - this style does not look like commercially made socks. Hand knit socks traditionally have a straight flap knitted on the back half of the sock only, back and forth.

Row 1, slip one knit to the end 

Row 2, slip one, purl one right across.

(Repeat 1&2 as per pattern)

This makes the heel flap thicker and harder wearing.  Then you need to turn the heel so that the foot will be almost at right angles to the leg - it is all in the pattern!

After the heel turn comes the big stitch pick up, again it is all in the pattern. Don't forget to place stitch markers when the pattern tells you to. You can see how important it was to slip the first stitch of every row on the heel flap as you will pick up and knit each slipped stitch. The stitches will look like a neat chain slightly turned to the wrong side. For a strong join slide your needle through both legs of the slipped stitches.

If you find it hard to see the slipped stitches try hanging a bulb pin type stitch marker on each of the slipped stitches, taking them out as you go.

Sometimes it is hard to avoid a little gap at the point where the picked up stitches meet the front stitches. There are lots of tricks to avoid a hole, this is one of the simplest ways I found on youtube.  

You will have lots of stitches on your needles, before spacing them out evenly on your needles it is helpful to knit one complete round. As you go knit into the back of each picked up stitch. You now continue to knit in rounds, decreasing stitches to make the heel gusset until you have the same number of stitches as you originally cast on. The sides of your sock will look as though they have darts in them (the vertical stripes in my black and white sock above shows this up nicely).

You have reached the foot! To check you have the right foot length you can try the sock on carefully,  this may be where five needles come in handy. You should have knitted to the base, not tip, of your toes. Your pattern will explain how to shape the toe, decreasing until you have about 14 - 16 stitches and then it may just say, 'finish off the toe by Kitchener stitch'. Dont be scared, follow the links here or here, people have been there before you and will show you the way.

I don't think anyone really knows why this way of finishing off sock toes is called Kitchener stitch, though some think it may have arisen from the campaign to knit socks for soldiers in the UK in the first world war (sometimes called Kitchener's Army, after the minister who introduced conscription) the method leaves a seamless finish, less likely to cause a soldier on the march to have store toes.

However it is not essential to finish toes this way (maybe I am odd, I like Kitchener stitch and also like picking up stitches around a heel flap!) Kate Atherley in her patterns will decrease till fewer stitches, maybe 8 and then thread a double length of yarn through the stitches twice, drawing them up together. Which ever method used sew in your ends securely!

xx

C

PS **Tolstoy really did describe knitting socks this way in War and Peace - near the end of the book the children watch Anna Makarovna finish a pair of socks with a flourish, as if she were a magician! 

 

Growing Pains

Before I embarked on the Right as Rainbow KAL I measured the intended wearer very carefully.  Chest, back neck length and arms.  When it was finished I proudly announced to The Little Model's mother that THIS TIME I hoped the knitted object would not be too small, having measured her so carefully.  To which TLM's mother replied 'But she has grown an inch while you have been away'.  !!!!! You will recall that JTH and I spent the whole of September on a beautiful Greek Island where the knitting (and blogging) took place, alas all that time back in the UK someone was growing very fast.

When TLM tried on the sweater the body was fine, but the sleeves?!  They were two inches too short and lengthening was not going to be a simple task.  The sleeves were knitted from the bottom up and I had no more of the Plum coloured yarn.

nothing but a few unravellings

But it's all right now because I used a cunning old trick to add  some extra stripes.

Slightly Grumpy  Little Model

Happier when encouraged to Be Silly

Perhaps those who remember the Make-Do-And-Mend war years or the 1950s when our parents could not kick the habit also remember how our mothers would lengthen our hand knitted sweaters, by 'pulling a thread'.  Here is how I did it (using some spare yarn in Pumpkin as the deep plum was too dark to show well in photographs)

Thread a life line in and out of the first row of stocking stitch
(I used strong linen thread)

Snip through a single purl bar on the last row of K2P2 rib

carefully pull out the yarn from the last rib row

the rib will fall away from the stocking stitch.
The stitches on the upper part will
be captured by the life line

pick up the stitches on the stocking stitch section,
use a finer needle if that is easier

Knit up the extra inches (I kept to the same pattern as the yoke)

Once the extra length is done re knit the rib

Finally, I have learned a new techy skill.  While I was away knitting and enjoying the Greek Island I made a slide show of my knitting and island pictures but it was not till this week I finally worked out how to incorporate it into a blog post!

I hope you enjoy it

xx

c

Aide Memoire

Two weeks ago sitting alone at a table of a small restaurant in a Corfu side street I sent The Famous Writer a single word text 'Temptress'  accompanied by a wonky photograph. What can it be when one woman sends such a message to another? When alone women talk of many things, of books and ideas, of men and family, dieting and face-lifts  all of which have their temptations but when it comes to leading  another astray, to excess,extravagance, (what you will) I'm prepared to guess shopping for oneself is at the top of a woman's list. And so it was, I had bought this

We had seen the necklace on our outward journey, a long lunch hour spent seeking shade in the alleys of Corfu town, in the time between our plane from Gatwick landing and our departure for the tiny island of Paxos,  I had tried it on, reluctantly relinquishing it to the lovely shop keeper who didn't mind how long we lingered and longed after his jewellery but only bought postcards (themselves things of beauty, black and white images of 1950s Greece).  But when on my return journey I had nearly a whole day before my flight I succumbed.  Thus my text message.  And this rather unflattering photograph

TFW had employed all her writerly skills to persuade me to buy (all by text) 'the stones are precisely your colours', 'they will remind you of Greece during cold grey winter days', 'the shop keeper is so nice...'  How could I not buy?

It has sea blues and greens

 Milky stones as pale as the early morning light through my bedroom window at TFW's house

Jewel colours of the trinkets in the tourist shops

 Amber like the setting sun through the olive trees in the garden and

 pearls as white as the sun bleached pebbles on the beach

And in a way that only our good friends know they are 'my colours' and the colours of the clothes I make and wear, like my girly top

and my sorbetto blouse

But perhaps most telling of all is what is actually in my stash, blues, greens and wine red

Colours all around me  and memories of the alleys and back streets of Greece

How could I not love it?

xx

c

A woman for all seasons? 3KCBWDAY4

I have to admit that there are times and places when knitting or crochet is just not what I want to do.  There are hot afternoons, lying under the grape vine's shade with distant sounds of cocks crowing and the voices of people calling to each other across the valley just reaching my ears, when knitting a woolly sweater is farthest from my mind.

But even when this sort of activity is in prospect I still pack yarn and some sort of tangling implement in my bag.  But the yarn will be the least woolly I can get and the project small, small enough to fit in my handbag and the 'implement' blunt enough to avoid the eagle eyed security men and scanners at airports.  Thus last summer as I set off for Paxos I took some assorted colours of cotton, a wooden crochet hook, and a tiny pair of nail scissors.

Not that I was going to avow long siestas with a book falling from my hand as I dropped off to sleep.  But I can always find time to do a little bit of something, and not just on the way to the airport!

However, although I pottered about (crochetly speaking) for a week making squares in combinations of all the colours I took with me, when I had a pile of them I was not sure.  The colours not as good together once made up as in a pile of unworked bargain bin skeins.  They were fire and water

Suitable symbols for a Greek island in high summer, perhaps, but the more I looked at the pile of squares the more I thought of only water, the beautiful limpid shallows in shades of green and the deeper water fading from turquoise to navy blue.  So when I got home I put away the fiery squares and bought a lot more shades of blue (and some greys and pinks for pebbles) 

Once I had made enough I began to lay out the squares to get the colour effect I wanted

At this stage I was really not sure whether it would be a master piece or a total muddly mess.  But it came together

And looks rather fine on the beach that was in my mind's eye as I made it

xx

c

Travelling light

Last week I escaped our rainy shores for a few days sunshine, blue skies and turquoise sea with my lovely friend the writer Elizabeth Speller  .  We were staying in her perfect little house in the olive groves of Paxos where  this year JTH and I spent almost all of May.  As well as looking forward to a week with my friend and reacquainting myself with the kittens, born behind the mirror in the garden during my last stay,

I needed to think what out of all my various works in progress I would take with me.  Now you might be forgiven for wondering why I would even bother to take knitting or crochet with me to a Mediterranean island in high summer.  But there would be early mornings and late evenings, when we sit and chat, to say nothing of the travelling (nearly ten hours each way counting check ins and waiting for connections) when I could be making something too. Something in this beautiful Sublime Cotton DK from my stash, eight balls, eight different colours bought in a sale in January, £1 for 50g

But what should I make?  Not only should there be no complicated pattern to follow but what about needles and scissors and security?  I was travelling with hand luggage only and ever since having an operation that left a large chunk of metal in one of my hips I have had a bit of bother with airport security.  I set off the alarms so often that I usually walk through the security arch and straight up to one of the women with the hand held metal detectors, not waiting for the beep.  Then there is the time I set them off at JFK in New York and was placed in a glass cubicle until someone was free to check me and another time when I missed my flight when the 'patting down' woman  did not believe me and I had to be taken to a private room and show her my scar!  So I am very careful about my hand luggage, at least I can make sure that does not offend.

I had already decided I would crochet and use a wooden hook but what about scissors? It was then I discovered this helpful website and found I could take scissors as long as the blade was no longer than 6cm, needles both knitting and sewing variety are allowed too.

I decided to make a throw with granny squares, separating the yarns into two colour groups, strong and light.

I have about 30 squares made up to now and have probably used about a third of the yarn

I have 25 pale squares and when I have completed the same amount of the other colour-way I may mix the colours up again.  I have quite a way to go before the afghan is finished  and I haven't decided what the linking colour will be yet but what with all the other things we did (eating, sunbathing, dozing, reading and occasionally dipping in the sea) I did not spend a lot of time on it.

I have been visiting Paxos for ten years now and have photographed it in every season, capturing processions of icons and tiny wild flowers as well as breathtaking views and kittens and goats so this visit I left my camera in my bag most of the time. Instead I took a few pictures that might inspire some of the things I make.  I'm not sure yet what ideas I will take from this close up of the sea lapping against the restaurant decking as we piled tzatziki and taramasalata  onto village bread but for now it is just good to look at and remind me of a perfectly clear, warm, turquoise sea.

xx

C