Archive for April, 2008

Is symmetry important in socks?

April 29, 2008

Yesterday, I thought that I was going to finish younger daughter’s socks.  I had a lot of errands to run, including a trip to the Trade and Industry Department in Mong Kok (there is a lot of bureaucracy involved in importing and exporting yarn in Hong Kong). The trip to Mong Kok requires a journey on the Hong Kong MTR, which is Hong Kong’s fabulous clean, underground rail system.  I had been busy on the second sock and had not compared it to its sibling for a while, but brought them both along for the trip.  By my reckoning (based solely on “look and feel”, not measurement or comparison), I was getting close the the toe decreases on the second sock.

I was planning to count the rows on the first sock after the gusset decreases, so that second sock would have the same number of rows before beginning the toe decreases. I was sitting on the train, when I noticed that the socks did not really look similar. In fact, the line of gusset decreases on the second sock was a lot longer than on the first sock.

 

Asymmetric socks

I looked at the socks, and was perplexed (and they are the same socks – the photo was taken with a different camera). I had the same number of stitches around the foot, I’d picked up the same number of stitches along the heel flap, but I was faced with this much longer row of decreases. I inspected the first sock and second sock again, and noticed that I hadn’t done any of the short rows to turn the heel on second sock!

I’m using every ounce of my strength, not to shove the socks somewhere dark, never to be seen again. I’m going to rely on this blog post to keep me honest. I will frog the second sock back to the heel flap, and complete them properly, this week.  Feel free to post any comments you see fit to keep me motivated.

On another note, are other wordpress.com bloggers having real trouble posting photos after the latest update? It has been frustrating me no end, and is delaying the France posts.

I’m back

April 24, 2008

This is a brief post. We’ve had a house full of visitors since we got back from France, and I’ve had a literal metric tonne of yarn arriving.  I have several unblogged projects, and several unblogged yarn shop visits in France (we visited the Anny Blatt factory store, and a gorgeous little Paris yarn shop…) 

What I can offer you is this – one sock, yarn dyed by me for my younger daughter, from Yarn Workshop (that’s my outfit if you haven’t guessed). The yarn was a factory sample that was dyed the most unattractive shades of brown, yellow and orange.  It took a bit of work to overdye the yarn, but I got there in the end.

 

Pattern: “A Classic Sock Pattern” in Folk Socks by Nancy Bush in size Child (shoe sizes 8 – 13).  I actually followed the pattern for the toe as written!

This sock is slightly large, but given the speed of growth of younger daughter’s feet, it will last for about 10 minutes. She loves the sock, and keeps nagging me to finish the other one.  I’ve been busy with swatches, and shipping and import documentation, but a pair should occur soon.

Hopefully, I’ll be able to catch up with my Hong Kong knitting buddies some time soon.  I’ve missed you!