Matching Noro socks

Day 10 of #blogjune

Some people think you’d have to be mad to try to match up the colours on Noro socks, but after I managed to get the colour repeats to line up the first  time I knitted socks with Silk Garden I wrote down the formula and I’ve been following it ever since. That is, except when I make a stupid mistake as I did with the second sock of my current project.

I use a basic top down pattern and the formula is to knit 56 rows of the cuff before starting on the heel flap, then from picking up stitches for the gusset knit 70 rows before beginning the toe decreases. Sadly for my second sock I accidentally reversed those numbers so I ended up with a long cuff and a very short foot, which of course I didn’t notice until I’d nearly finished. After ripping back to row 56, I’m back on track again which is a good thing because I have to get these finished soon — I need the needles for the Merry Knitalong Christmas ball for June!

I’m a man but I don’t have very big feet so I think these socks would fit the proverbial “average size foot” that you see in some patterns. You can get two matching socks out of one ball of Silk Garden with a bit left over, so you could lengthen the foot a bit if you need to.

Of course, your plans for matching socks will be thwarted if the Noro Gods throw in a knot and an abrupt colour change, as once happened to me. I now wind the skein into two balls so I can see the colour repeats and check for knots. I also noticed in the colourway (289) I’m using for the current socks that the colour repeat is slightly shorter than usual so I had to improvise an oddment of colour at the toe to get the cuffs to match.

Another tip: if you aren’t crazy about one of the colours you can arrange things so that the colour you don’t like ends up in your foot and covered up by shoes most of the time. I did this with a pink/purple section of the socks I knit with colour 321.

The Last of Noro

KnittingSarah has just posted the May challenge for the Merry Knitalong, along with a beautiful story to keep in mind as we knit on May’s project. Of course I should say “projects” actually since there are two balls for this month. I’ve knit all my Christmas balls in red and white so far but I think I might take this month’s challenge as a chance to branch out a bit so, inspired by Martine’s example, I’m going to order some green yarn for at least one of the May balls.

Just as well I’ll have to wait a bit to get started as I realise I’m already using the DPNs I need for the Christmas balls on a sock. This is the last skein of Silk Garden sock yarn from my Noro stash, colourway 289, a mix of blues, greens and brick red.

Hopefully by the time I’ve finished the socks my green yarn for the Christmas ball will have arrived.

The title of this post reminded me of The Last of Sheila which we must watch it again soon. Have you seen it? I did a little review a while back, highly recommended!

First day of summer

Yesterday was the first day of summer and I spent it incongruously knitting a pullover in chunky Donegal tweed, although the yarn was at least sunshine yellow.

I wanted to get the second sleeve finished, and it’s done! All the pieces are washed and blocked and are safely tucked  away until next weekend when I’m planning to knit the collar ribbing and then join it all together.

We’re having a staff development day tomorrow and I wanted to have a small project to take on the train, and also something for our library stitch’n’bitch on Tuesday, so I cast on for another Noro sock. Isn’t this a great colour!?

The cuff has started out quite restrained for Noro with sage greens and naturals, but not for long… there is turquoise, purple and even a dash of magenta coming up soon. As always with Noro, you’d think that sage green and turquoise and purple couldn’t possibly work together but I’m pretty sure they’ll be beautiful in the end.

Yarn: Noro Silk Garden Sock, colour 321.

 

socks, socks, socks

Or why not to kitchener stitch using black sock yarn at night.

I finished my Socktober sock on the very last night of October, but I really would have been better off ignoring my self impose deadline.

I know Noro is famous for bright colours, but the end of this particular skein of Noro sock yarn was deepest black, very beautiful, but probably not the best yarn with which to attempt grafting a sock toe late at night.

Unfortunately I must have messed up somewhere because I ended up with a hole, which I darned, but this particular stretch of yarn was especially thick so my sock had a little uncomfortable bump right at the end.

There really are some tasks better left to weekend daytime where you can see properly.

Anyway, after wearing a couple of times I decided to do what I should have done. I waited for a bright and sunny Saturday morning, ripped out the toe…

…and then reknit and grafted it again (always save your leftover scraps of sock yarn for just such emergencies!)  The sock is now fixed and in the wash with the other hand knits.

I’ve also got two more skeins of Noro Silk Garden Sock just arrived and ready to go! These are colours 289 and 321.

Off the needles: textured vest and socks

Just a short post to record the fact that I’ve finished a couple of projects!

First the textured vest, a design by Erika Knight from her wonderful book Men’s knits, which I knit in Rowan Felted Tweed Aran (16 stitches to 10 cm on 5.0 mm needles).

The colour is Sea salter, a tweedy blue with flecks of white that has a slight lavender hue. This is quite a warm vest but luckily we had one chilly Spring morning so I got to wear it to work for one day. I think now though I’ll be packing it away until next Autumn.

The yarn was pure delight to work with and, although I haven’t worn it much, I’m not expecting any pilling. One thing though… the pattern is written for Rowan Summer Tweed and I calculated I’d need eight skeins of Felted Tweed but I’ve got almost two skeins left over. Would a vest with a matching hat look weird?

The pattern is very well written and includes instructions on fully fashioned decreases, although it was strange that the integral neckband is grafted at the left front. I had never attempted to graft ribbing before and it isn’t easy to find instructions (I finally found some in Frederica Patmore’s The Knitting book but I’m not sure I was entirely successful). If I was to knit this pattern again, I think I’d move the graft to the back where any wonky stitches would be less obvious.

Noro socks on my train ride to work

Also finished, a smaller project! Another pair of Noro Silk Garden socks. I divided the skein into two so I could match the colour repeats, but there was a knot and a colour change so I just arranged skeins for the cuffs to match and the mismatched colours are tucked safely inside my shoes.

Small things

Do you ever get completely exasperated with a stash of beautiful yarn that you just can’t work what to do with? I’ve been like that with my sweater’s worth of Peace Fleece Worsted. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve knitted half the back of something before deciding the pattern just wasn’t right.

I think it’s partly because it’s such a lovely yarn and I want to be sure to find a project that’s just right. So, I decided to put the Peace Fleece away for a while and went looking for some smaller projects.

Inspired by Kate’s sock class and knitalong, I finished my second Noro Silk Garden socks based on the first pair I knit a while back, and using some calculations from Ann Budd’s Getting started knitting socks. As I knit these top down and I wanted to get the colour changes to line up, I wound each skein into two balls, matching the starting colours. I’m quite pleased with how these turned out and this time I’ve got my notes so I can easily do more of these.

Wayne wore them the very next day after I’d finished them and declared them very comfy.

I also decided one day last week that I was going to teach myself to crochet and make a dish cloth. I got some Coton-A yarn, my Debbie Stoller Happy hooker book and watched some Youtube videos, but after getting the starting chain done I’m afraid I got myself in a terrible tangle. I’m also not sure that cotton/acrylic is the best yarn for a total newbie to learn with.

So, having resolved to defer crochet to another day, I decided to use the yarn for a knitted wash cloth using a pattern for utility cloths from Michael del Vecchio’s Knitting with balls. I made the basketweave wash cloth, and very handsome it is too, although I added an i-cord hanging strap for practicality. I should have enough left yarn left to try at least one of the other two designs.

my first knitalong

This weekend Kate started her sock knitalong to get some more knitters initiated  into the sock thing. She’s put up some great instructions if you are a starting-out sock knitter, although I am mainly tagging along while I try to reverse engineer the Noro Silk Garden socks I knit last time but for which I have lost my notes.

This is Noro Silk Garden Sock, colour 313. I’ve just done some yellow and I’m looking forward to a splash of red coming up later!

I’ve also been working on my Almanac scarf, actually Stephen West’s Purl Ridge Scarf in Brooklyn Tweed Shelter “Almanac”, a subtly tweedy royal blue. I do love this yarn, but a word of warning. I tried out several scarf designs before finally deciding on the Purl Ridge Scarf design, and I started that on 5.0 mm needles before deciding to go down to 4.5 mm for a tighter stitch, so there was a bit of ripping out before I finally got started. Shelter really doesn’t stand up well to repeated frogging and after you’ve ripped back a couple of times it starts to look and feel quite ragged and loses its loft.

Luckily I had enough yarn to abandon some of the yarn that was looking very much second-hand, but I’d be interested to see if it might bounce back after washing and blocking.

I do like the scarf design though. It’s actually a long cowl or infinity scarf knit in the round. The pattern says to cast on 200 stitches on an 80 cm circular needle but as I’d gone down a needle size and my gauge was a bit tighter I decided to cast on 240 and use a 100 cm needle.

I’ve got one more purl ridge repeat to go then the top garter stitch border and I’m done.

PS: Am I the only the only person who hates knitting on circular needles? Needless to say I’m knitting my socks on old school DPNs.

 

Cooey the pigeon

I finished three knitting projects this weekend! First my Noro Silk Garden socks…

I’ll definitely be knitting socks with Silk Garden again, it’s lovely yarn and I’m so chuffed that I got the colour repeats to line up.

Next, the Antlers scarf by Micah P. Dammeyer from Debbie Stoller’s Son of Stitch’n bitch. This was my second project with cables and I may be hooked! I’m really pleased with how it came out and the yarn is just wonderful; Artesano Aran, a 50/50 blend of wool and alpaca in a natural heathered colour called “Birch”. Three skeins made a scarf taller than I am. This is going to be so warm in winter.

And, last but certainly not least, a project I started and finished today… Cooey the pigeon.

I’m sure that Cooey is the star of Lauren O’Farrell’s wonderful book Stitch London, which comes with a Cooey the pigeon kit but I decided to substitute with some lovely Morris Estate.

You can also find Cooey on Twitter! @cooeythepigeon

Socks to wear while watching TV in winter

That’s these…

Socks to wear while watching TV in winter

…or rather this, since there is currently only one.

I’ve used Noro Silk Garden once before, for the stripes in my Turn-a-square hat, and this Silk Garden Sock yarn is just as nice. It’s quite substantial for sock yarn and the colours are just wonderful, colours you think couldn’t possibly go together, but do! I don’t mind the papery texture at all, which I guess comes from the silk, and I love the thick and thinness, it’s always a surprise seeing what the next bit of yarn will be like.

I’d got most of the foot done when I realised that I might actually run out of yarn! So have beaten a strategic retreat and ripped out the heel so I can reduce the leg by an inch or so. I don’t really mind, I still get a tiny thrill turning the heel.

Noro Kureyon Socks

For the Socktober challenge I started on a pair of green socks, and they’re done!

The 6 ply Trekking sock yarn turned out to be pretty speedy to knit with, but then someone dared me to try to knit a second pair. I’ve turned the heel on the new sock so we’ll see if I get the second pair finished by the end of the month.

It’s my first go using Noro sock yarn, this is Kureyon. Took me a while to realise that Kureyon クレヨン　is “crayon” in Japanese, I guess because the usual bright colours looks like a box of crayons. My skein is more subdued, mostly greys and browns. The yarn feels a bit papery and I’d assumed it had silk in it like Noro Silk Garden, but Kureyon is a wool/nylon blend. I’m hoping it gets softer after washing.

First sock done!

I also did a bit of swatching with my stash of Brooklyn Tweed Shelter. I should have enough for a jumper out of this lovely blue grey colourway. I couldn’t resist the name, “Faded Quilt“.