A free minute

The kids grabbed a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and ran out to the neighbor to see if they want to play. So I am grabbing this minute to blog my finished socks.

Pattern:Crest of the Wave (pg.101) from More Sensational Knitted Socks.

Yarn: striped using 1 skein KnitPicks Essential in Ash, and 1 skein ka hand-dyed in color Vintage (which I found at a LYS near me).

Needles: Foot and ankle US1 (2.25mm). Leg US1 1/2 (2.5mm).

Construction: Toe up. One circular needle.

This was my first attempt and "winging" my own socks. Learned a few things, but am quite happy with the end result. In the Wave pattern I used the first purl row as row1 and knit both colors together each time on this row. I like the effect. Alternated colors for each 12 row sequence carrying the colors up the side. My first try at a K2tog type of bind off. It is nice and stretchy, and has a nice look to it. Can be done more snuggly if necessary, but these socks hold themselves up in the snug patterning. Therefore a looser bindoff adds a nice contrasting look and feel.

I also changed the number of stitches. I often find the Schurch patterns to be too big for me, so I reduced the number of stitches to 60 (instead of 72). With a 12 stitch repeat this was fine. I rearanged the stitches on the top of the foot to fit in 30 stitches. Then when I got to the leg I moved stitches around to work 2 sets of repeats on the top and 3 on the bottom (circular needle). This worked perfectly and the fit is great.