Carmela Biscuit's Spot

Those couple of weeks I spent in my reclining chair, watching TV shows (I finally succumbed to Netflix produced Korean shows :) and nurturing my back, I found nothing better to do than study German and knit socks. More about German later, now the socks.

I finished two pairs of socks, one for my husband (still not photographed) and one women's size, probably a gift for a good friend of mine, who has been asking for a new pair of woolen socks.

In order to dye the yarn for the socks, I initially wound it in a double thread cake and knitted a sock blank. Then I dyed the blank in a sort of ombre effect, from bordeaux to dark purple, using my red, bordeaux, brown, purple and grey dyes.

I fixed the dye in the microwave, washed and dried it and then wound it into two identical cakes.

 

The socks are knitted toe up, using my simplest sock recipe, with magic double cast on, fish lips kiss heels and stretchy cast off.

I enjoyed the process so much, this mindless knitting in the round, while watching some mindless TV dramas (Crash Landing on You and the one I especially liked - Memories of Alhambra), that I am thinking of repeating the experience with another ombre dyed sock yarn, this time in some yellow, green and blue shades.

I finished a new pair of socks for my husband - nothing fancy, just simple mindless stockinette knitting in the round while watching movies.

The yarn is my tried and true Alize Superwash, hand dyed. For the body of the socks I experimented with a new method for dyeing spots, using a dropper. I think I overdid the yellow in the end and the yarn came out too busy, but on the other hand there is definitely no pooling, which is an effect in hand dyed yarns I try to avoid at all costs, if possible.

As I initially only had 50 g of yarn, I started the socks with provisional cast on and afterthought toes and heels. I later bought a couple of new white skeins of Alize Superwash and dyed a 25 g ball in brown for the toes, heels and ribbing, to compliment the dotted body of the socks. I think the afterthought toes and heels worked well, but I prefer Judy's magic cast on, it gives a smoother form of the toes.

Last night I finished another pair of men's socks - these are for my son. I had two skeins of Alize Superwash 50g in grey and I dyed one of the skeins striped, keeping one of the stripes in the original color. I'm quite happy with how these turned, though it would have been smarter, if I had made the number of stripes even. As it was, I had to cut the skein in the middle of the stripe sequence, to make both of the socks look the same.


The pattern is my usual recipe for toe-up men's socks, only this time I decided to do the afterthought heel. However, next time i knit socks for Alex, I might reduce the number of stitches to 62, as his feet, though long, seem to be a bit slimmer than my husband's and the socks are a tiny little bit wide on him.

Pattern: Toe-up vanilla socks with afterthought heel (personal recipe), 64 sts
Yarn: Alize Superwash, 50 g + 20 g
Needle: 2.5 mm
Time to knit: one week


And this is what I whipped up last night for my husband. I found a free pattern for woven fabric men's boxer briefs and I took out two larger cotton fabric remnants from blouses I have made for Gaby and myself. The polka dot one was my muslin, which husband approved of as for size and comfort, though I doubt he'll ever wear them, and the grey ones I did because I was on a roll and I wanted to keep sewing :)

Though he had initially embargoed the fabric, he actually liked it in the form of finished product. However, for my next men's boxer briefs I intend to buy not very stretchy thin and soft cotton knit fabric in more manly colors :)

The sweater I started last month is not coming as I imagined it and I don't feel like knitting it any more. So - I knit socks. I've been hearing people praise Alize striped sock yarn, so I bought a skein and decided to test it.


I knitted the socks as I usually do - toe-up, vanilla socks, 64 sts, fish-lips kiss heels, 1x1 ribbed cuffs with tubular cast off. I'm happy with the final result and I hope the recipient will like them and wear them, but I don't think I'll repeat the experience. Part of the joy of knitting socks for me is dyeing the yarn and then watching it unfold its colors and turn into a sock. So my next socks will be again hand-dyed socks.




I took the finished pair (they haven't even been blocked yet) with me today on our hike, hoping to take a few pictures of them if a chance presented itself. And as soon as I saw this pile of hay stacks I knew I had to photograph the socks - not that the pile is that beautiful, but it's surely unusual and not a background I come upon every day :)

It is getting cold and I feel like knitting socks again. This latest pair was made out of remnant yarn - I had 40 g of white superwash sock yarn and about 7 g of brown sock yarn, which I distributed for the heels of the socks. No pattern - just vanilla toe-up socks with FLKH.


Pattern: Vanilla toe-up socks, 60 sts
Yarn: Alize Superwash 47 g
Needle: 2.5 mm
Time to knit: 5 days






The dyeing of the white yarn was a random experiment - I put the cake of yarn in a bowl of warm water with citric acid and placed four egg dye tablets of unknown color, which were left from last Easter. As I really didn't know the color of the tablets and could only guess the yellow, the rest looked almost the same, it was pure luck that they turned out to be of the same color family and the end result is quite harmonious (though I'm still at a loss how did the brown happen, I'm sure there were no brown egg dyes, probably a combination of purple and green?)


And two more sock yarn skeins I dyed for my mother to knit them into socks. For both skeins I used low immersion, three color distribution and baking in the microwave oven. To make the socks identical, this time I wound the skein double-threaded and after the yarn was dyed, washed and dried, the skein was separated back into single thread cakes.


The double cake of the blue socks before separation and the two identical cakes of the purple socks after the separation.

My latest sweater - a simple boxy garter stitch sweater with long narrow sleeves. I knitted it only in about a week and it was so much fun to knit! I had three skeins of Alize Puffy Fine, 50% viscose 50% acrylic, which I bought last autumn at a sale. The original color was baby blue - very delicate and sweet but I would never wear it and I bought it with the idea of overdyeing it. The price was very reasonable, the yarn is very soft and pleasant to wear and was being discontinued, so I just could not pass on the bargain.

My dyeing job was a bit of a flop - one of the skeins came out much darker than the other two. But one can always turn the defect into effect! I decided to knit the yarn with two strands held together and stripe it - I knit the two of the lighter skeins together and the darker skein I wound into a double stranded cake and alternated four rows of lighter purple with two rows of darker purple.


My inspiration for the sweater was Hanako Garter Pullover by Kim Barnette, though I took only the visual idea and made my own calculations and alterations.


The garter stitch texture grew  a lot after the wet blocking and some wear of the sweater (the sleeves were initially 3/4 length!). I like it as it is now but if it continues to grow I might have to redo the neckband and maybe shorten the sleeves.


Pattern: Hanako Sweater, inspired by Kim Barnette's Hanako
Yarn: Alize Puffy Fine 300 g, hand dyed
Needle: 4.5 mm rib, 5.5 mm body
Time to knit: about a week

Last summer I transformed a cowl I had knitted out of self-dyed sock yarn, into a double hat.  I tried to wear this hat during the past winter, but it turned out to be very impractical - too heavy, big and uncomfortable on my head. So I decided to salvage the sock yarn and make proper socks out of it. I didn't use any pattern - just my regular toe up socks with fish lips kiss heels, 64 sts on 2.5 mm circular needles, half ribbing for the feet and full 2x2 ribbing for the legs.


The socks turned a bit too colorful even for husband, who loves orange socks, but he claims they are super comfortable and they fit him perfectly, so he doesn't mind the loud coloring. And anyway, it's just socks.

I named these Birch Tree Socks, as the yarn reminds me of birch trees in the autumn, when their leaves turn yellow and orange on a background of white, grey and black birch bark.


Pattern: Birch Tree socks (personal pattern)
Yarn: Alize Superwash, hand dyed, 70 g
Needle: 2.5 mm
Time to knit: 3 weeks