Two Pairs for Sockdown

Here’s two FO’s for Sockdown: Ravelry. January 2008 theme was intarsia or Cookie A and I chose the latter.

• On Ravelry: Baudelaire

• Pattern: Baudelaire by Cookie A from Summer 2006 Knitty

• Yarn: 288 m/315 yards of Apleks Superwash in red

• Needles: 2.5 mm

• Mods: I substituted the heel in the pattern with my favorite heel construction, Revisited Widdershins Heel, and eye of partridge heel. The cuffs were quite snug for my feet so I increased 1 purl stitch between the lace pattern and the cables once every 8th row 5 times (total 10 increased sts), then decreased on the first round of ribbing on the back of leg back to 32 sts.

Next up: socks for Sockdown: October (Nancy Bush or cables). Yes, October 2007. I did blog about these when I cast on but not when I finished.

• On Ravelry: It's All French to Me

• Pattern: Chausettes from Bergère de France

• Yarn: 555 m/607 yards of Hjertegarn Ciao Trunte, in color #1380 sage green

• Needles: 2.5 mm

• Mods: Lots!

I made a hidden casing (pictured above) for elastic by casting on with long-tail provisional cast on, knitting in stockinette for 6 rounds, purl across 1 round, and then 6 rounds in k1, p1 ribbing. Then I unpicked the cast-on edge and knit it together with the live stitches.

Followed the pattern for the cuff otherwise but made it custom-length (= started heel flap when the cuff seemed long enough for me).

The pattern had a regular slip-stitch heel flap but I wanted to try the eye of partridge heel since I’d never used it before. It looks very nice with the moss stitch pattern! And you can tell I liked it because I used it on the Baudelaires, too.

Next, decreased 5 stitches more on each side (10 total) than what the pattern called for in the gussets. And because I had fewer stitches remaining, I re-calculated the toe decreases… somehow.

Ran out of yarn! I could only find 1 ball in the same dye lot so the other toe is a little off-colored. You can’t tell it in the pictures (and even I can’t find it in natural light) but fluorescent light makes it pop up. I loved the first batch of yarn I got (it’s very soft and sproingy) but I was surprised and disappointed that a commercially produced yarn would have such drastic differences in color (and even yarn thickness!) between dye lots. :/

#knitting #socks #Baudelaire #CookieA #Sockdown #SockKnittersAnonymous #cuffdown #toeup #modifications