Tuesday, September 04, 2007

Artyarns toe up


I'm participating in a Sockdown over on Ravelry. It's a cool, low pressure knit a long. The way it works is that every month there is a technique and/or pattern designer to choose from. You knit a pair of socks using that technique or pattern designer and post photos to the group. You actually have two months to complete each pair of socks although a new challenge is posted every month.

Last month, the the challenge was lace and I knit my Pheasant Run socks to meet it. This month's theme is toe up. Ugh!! As you know, I haven't had the best of luck with toe up socks. In fact, I don't ever wear the two pairs of toe up socks I knit. Nonetheless, with a willing spirit I decided to give it a try. This time I used Judy's Magic Cast On but I needed to follow a video on YouTube by Cat Bhordi to get it right. I'm just a visual sort of person. I LOVE this cast on. It produces a smooth, wonderful toe.

Next, I chose a pattern from Sensational Knitted Socks - Garter Ridge. It's a simple pattern that I think looks wonderful with variegated yarn. The yarn I'm using is Artyarns Supermerino4 that was gifted to me by my Secret Pal. Finally, I decided to use Wendy's toe up gusset and flap heel. The heel isn't perfect. I'm not sure I know how to do a knit front and back in a purl stitch and I don't know how to knit the wrap together with the stitch on the knit side when it's been wrapped on the purl side (though I did wonderfully knitting the wrap and stitch together for the first half following Cat Bhordi's lesson). So, it's not perfect but it's pretty darn good.

I finished the heel today and started the leg while Middle Boy was having oral surgery. I couldn't wait to share it with you all. Now I'm just knitting up the leg without any worry about running out of yarn.