Thursday, July 23, 2009

Failure to Plan

I figured since I did so well on the last pair of socks, I should do another pair. So I am, but I hit a snag. I failed as so many knitters often do; to plan ahead. When I finished the last pair of socks I was so smitten with them I cast on the second pair less than five minutes after I closed the toe on the last sock. When I got to the heel I rooted around my reinforcement yarn drawer and found two cards of Schoeller Stahl's Fortissima Socka in dark brown. In my mind that would be a perfect color for my newest socks. So away I went. Here is how the first heel looks.

Because I seem to have such a problem with the ball of my socks wearing out much faster than the toe or heel of the sock, I thought I would be smart by starting my reinforcement on the foot of the sock at row 40 instead of the toe decrease. I usually have to have 70 rows from the gusset decrease to the point where I would start the toe decrease. This time I started the reinforcement at row 40 so that the complete ball of my foot would be covered. I thought I was so smart!

I wasn't sure how the dark brown would look with so much of it at the end of the sock, but I had gone too far to rip it out. The second sock was to the point I needed to do the heel so as soon as I finished this sock, I could whack out the heel and be in the home stretch to finish my July socks in July! I have gotten behind in my commitment to knit twelve pair of socks for the year. I am still one pair down on the count but maybe in August I can catch up!

Here is the first finished sock. I thought it turned out well after the adjustments that I made. I have ever expanding calves so my total stitch requirement for the cuff is expanding also. Tidal Wave calls for 64 stitches and I changed that to 72. After I finished the ribbing I decrease two stitches per needle as evenly as I could and then started the body of the sock. I tried the sock on and it seems to be much better for not stretching the cuff to within an inch of it's life. So now I know that I can make this adjustment and I am feeling confident that eventually I am going to feel comfortable with changing more sock patterns to fit my Flinestone feeties.

My failure to plan my need for reinforcement thread as put a stall on my second sock. The heel is about halfway finished. I did an Internet search and found a resource for the thread and I went nuts! I ordered 14 spools so that this won't happen again for a while! So here I sit and wait for the mailman to bring me the fruits of my Internet thread spree and thinking about another pair of socks.

Sock Stats: Yarn is Fortissima Colori Socka. The colorway is Mexican Country hence my naming the socks Mexican Tidal Wave. Needles are Knit Picks #1 1/2 2.5mm.


4 comments:

Paula said...

That is beautiful! I love the colors!

Shannon said...

Glad you were able to find your reinforcement thread! I finished up my "Glacier" roving and started "Party In A Bag" today. It's a complete pain and I won't ever purchase anything like this again. Look at my blog to see photos...

vlb5757 said...

Paula-I love earth tones and almost all the fall colors. The darker the color the skinnier I look-Ha!

Shannon-on my way to check out the pain. I have been spinning since Sunday. I didn't spin today and probably won't do much more until next week but I am getting through it. I have done 1 1/2 spools to add to the 2 1/2 I already have to make four. It's time to ply!

Sharon said...

I think your sock looks great, and consider that when it's worn, the whole sock will never show. Why then do we put so much effort in the lace on the leg, I'll never know!