Friday, January 04, 2008

Taking my knitting into my own hands

Or should tall people with big feet add another 20-ish rounds to their sock!

I have taken the plunge with my Karenina socks and cast myself upon the mercy of the knitting fates (or should that be furies). The pattern instructs you to knit until your cuff measures 7", or 6" without the picot cuff fold. The picture on the pattern has 14 purl row on the pattern (14 x 4 row repeat) before the heel at which point I was at less than 5" (accounting for the fact that I have already turned the edging). I weighed the remaining balls of yarn and there seemed to be plenty left so I have rashly added the extra inch.

I've turned the heel and started the decreases and now I just need a foot - only time will tell whether I've left enough yarn - what do you think?

I'm planning on weighing the sock when I get to the start of the toe shaping and the remaining balls and taking an educated guess on whether I have enough to finish the toe and do the other sock and I am fully prepared to rip back and take out a few rows if I need to. I've had a few occasions where I've made a shorter cuff than I planned and then ended up with a nice little ball of yarn; just enough for the extra rows I'd been contemplating so it's time to push the boundaries and see just how far I can get knitting on fumes!

The problem of course with contemplating all of this while at work is that I have at least 3 1/4 hours of non-knitting productivity to come up with before I can go back to playing with the cashmere ...... I did tell you it was cashmere...?

H and I were discussing road gritters last night during our journey home in the very green and non-snowy landscape. Given that they are on standby between October and April we wondered whether they have a lot of hanging around time - H thinks they'd get bored, I decided it was my perfect job; "just think of all the knitting I'd get done!" I exclaimed joyfully as I considered how best to phrase my application form. His response? "The purpose of life is not to knit as much as you possibly can you know."

Whatever could he mean?

4 comments:

  1. This is my friend Jiva. She is getting around that problem by making some very pretty toe-up socks, on two circular needles simultaneously. It's more voodoo than I can follow, but the upshot is that they definitely match for pattern and lengths.

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  2. I think people should knit socks that fit them with a cuff length that they're happy with even if they then have to add a stripe near the toe.

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  3. Umm, tis a tricky one, it looks like its going to have to be a suck it and see situation. Good Luck!

    I can just see you in a donkey jacket, knitting in hand...

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  4. Anonymous12:24 pm

    Ugh! Muggles!

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