aurora borealis socks, finished
March 24, 2009
It doesn’t take much for me to callously toss aside a project in favour of something new, no matter how burning with passion I might have been for that project yesterday. This Noro sock yarn (on the left) has given me a lot of grief: first by having purple in the mix, which I always have to take out; by knitting up into a too-tight sock THREE times (not its fault, mine, but still); by not quite striping to my satisfaction until I started alternating four rows each from both ends of the skein; by being coarse and inelastic and generally hell on the hands. Sometime a month or so ago I dove into the stash to find a few softer, gentler yarns with which to satisfy my urge for stripes while not killing my hands.
Enter the Aurora Borealis socks (on the right). Four-row alternating stripes of Lizardman merino sock yarn from Twisted and Marrakesh merino sock yarn from Fearless Fibers. Soft and cozy, if a wee bit falley-downey at the moment (nothing a bit of elastic in the ribbing won’t fix).
There’s no pattern, just a bog-standard toe-up customized to fit my largeish calves. I used my favourite toe technique of casting on a few stitches (8, in this case), knitting a little rectangle and then picking up stitches along the sides and the cast on edge. An afterthought heel, because I prefer the look of the decrease edge to that of a short-row heel. And because I’m a wanker and don’t care for the look of a stretchy bind off, I cast on and knit the ribbing bands separately from the top down and grafted them on. Tedious, but worth it.
Posted by jodi on March 24, 2009 at 9.11am
