**Added 4/22/2006: You can print out the complete HayStack Socks pattern here!**

If you are Knitting Along At Your Own Risk, stop now! I’ve had to change a couple things. Forget about calling them the Great Socks of Aten for starters. The ribby pattern I wanted to make gets completely lost in the colors of the yarn. Drat. Discouraged, I worked on my dischloth and tried to come up with a way to break up the variegation. I’ve figured it out (YAY dishcloths), I’ve tried it and am making a couple more changes before I show you a picture and give you the pattern. The bad news is that I think a *K2, P2* rib will look better with version 2.0. Stop being so crabby, I told you socks are an Organic Process! If you’ve got an inch and a half of *K1,P1* and don’t want to pull it all out, it looks fine so don’t worry. If you haven’t started because you were waiting to see where I was going with this (good on you): find your gauge, cast on 72, join and *K2,P2* for 1.5 inches. I’ll have the leg pattern in its final form in the morning.

I learned something yesterday.

I learned that knitting dishrags is fun! These will not be called “dishrags,” but rather “dishcloths.” They are Made By Hand and are therefore, Not Rags. At least, not yet.

I got to the join in the Honeydew Top – I don’t have a picture because right now it just looks like a pile of fabric. I do have a picture of the start of my April socks:

**Added 4/22/2006: You can print out the complete HayStack Socks pattern here!**

I am calling the pattern the Great Socks of Aten. The new Elizabeth Peters is out (I have it on my iPod – I’ve been reading about Peabody since middle school) and the socks are sun colored so I have taken all of these things as a sign from the sock god, Soccus. Not only does he have eight legs (with a different sock on each foot), but he also is the one to whom your dryer is sacrificing one sock out of every pair. Thank you, Cynthia for the…er…vision.

Making sock patterns is kind of organic for me. I start with my Concept, draw a little picture and then figure it out as I go along*, beginning with gauge. With the sunshine yarn, I started out with 8.5 sts to an inch on #1s, but the yarn was doing a weird pooling thing so I dropped down a needle size and I am getting about 9sts to an inch. If anyone has decided to Knit Along At Your Own Risk**: you want your gauge to be 8.5sts=1″ if you have a wider foot (sock will be 8.5″ around when relaxed) OR 9sts=1″ for a more narrow foot (sock will be 8″ around relaxed). I am using 4 dpns because all of my circulars are occupied at the moment. If you like circs better, use them.

Cast on 72 sts, divide them onto three dpns (24-24-24), join (don’t twist!) and work *K1,P1* ribbing for 1.5 inches. The next post will have the leg instructions.

*As opposed to writing the entire pattern out and then working from that. When I am making up a pattern for Great Gran, I write out the whole thing at one time, but on my own I am much more haphazard.
**I don’t know why anyone would want to take a risk like that, but it sounds like something I would enjoy, so here you are. I will post a completed pattern when I finish the socks. There’s no pressure to follow along or anything.

April = Yellow and Orange.

That’s the Sunshine Yarn from my Yarn Aboard pal, Alison. I am making up the pattern for the April Socks. The yellow and white Peaches N’Creme is for a dishrag. I never really considered knitting dishrags before. I mean, I’ve got a bunch of store-bought towels that work great and I use them all the time – why would I waste hard work on something that is going to get filthy and disgusting? Then Amazon sent me Mason-Dixon Knitting.* Kay and Ann make a wonderful point about using your knitted objects which got me to thinking: I made a certain sweater** and I love it. I did a great job on it (even though I say so myself).*** But I never wear it. I never wear it because I am afraid that something is going to happen to it. I am hoping that using handknit dishrags to wipe the counter will help me get over that.

I’ve also gotten a good start on the Honeydew Top.

The markers came from the Three Sisters etsy shop. They were handmade by the Third Sister and I love them.

I’m not making Bardot after all. When I was ordering, I was some how struck with a sort of Pattern Illiteracy and purchased yarn that is the completely wrong weight for the pattern. I emailed Jimmy Bean and managed to secure two more hanks in the right dyelot.**** God bless Jimmy Bean’s Customer Service, they are some of the nicest people and don’t even laugh at you when you tell them what you did. At least, they don’t laugh Out Loud. I am now making this by Knitting Pure and Simple but with short sleeves, different increases, a wider band at the neck and maybe different side shaping. All of these changes are cosmetic – I really like the pattern! Top down sweaters are cool. I’ve ordered some Rowan Cotton Tape (discontinued so it’s cheap) off of ebay to make Bardot.

In a photo finish:

Mom first, Great Gran second and Emily Dead Last. We shall not speak of this again.

In case you’re wondering, the 2-up red socks that I started for March’s Project Spectrum have been recategorized as Red Hot Sizzling Socks and don’t have to be finished until July. I did start the gussetts.

*Mason-Dixon Knitting is a great book! Really great. Fun patterns (many are easy enough for the Rank Beginner but will still make the Experienced Knitter say “I want to make THAT”), wonderful photography and more of the casual, friendly writing that is a hallmark of their blog. Flip through it in the book store, you won’t be sorry. I bet you take it home.
**You may remember it: the Tyrolene Cardigan? There’s a picture in my gallery and posts about it somewhere but I am too Lazy to dig through my archive to find them.
***I had only been knitting for a year and was awed (who am I kidding? I was Deeply Impressed) by how well it turned out. You’ve all got projects like that (if you don’t you will soon, trust me). Projects that you look at and say to your self, “I made that. I made that thing, it looks just like the picture and it fits. Awww, yeah.” I will add, before I get an email from Mom, that she embroidered the flowers for me. I do not know how to make a lazy daisy.
****I only needed one more, but panic will do that to a girl.

Joy!

My Bloomin’ Feet Socks arrived!

Jaywalkers (my first pair) in Socks that Rock from Carole! I love them. I love the colors, I love the pattern (really really clever that Grumperina) I love them with my clogs, I love them without my clogs, I am a happy girl.

I did not walk down the sidewalk my socks, Mom. I put them on when I got to the verbena.

In my Socks That Rock exuberance, I’ve left out the other goodness in my socky package: Choxie (eaten), coffee (on the pot so we can have it in the morning), and a card with a “Long-billed Curlew Decoy” on it (painted by Carole’s brother-in-law). I am developing a thing for duck decoys, just another of the many benefits of a Bloomin’ Feet Swap. Thanks again, Carole, this has been a mountain of fun!

What’s this?

It’s enough yarn to make 39 pairs of socks!

With the addition of yarn from Laura’s etsy shop:

Isn’t the tape measure cute?

My Socks I can Make Without Leaving the House total comes to 40. I think this is a respectable number of potential socks. It has to be – the Sock Yarn Addicts Club starts today. You should follow that link. Seriously. 40 pairs of socks is Small Potatoes compared to the Masters.

So much happened this past week that I really didn’t get to blog about because of all the contesting. I imagine I will get around to telling you about it eventually, but right now, we are going out to get some lunch.

First, I just want to take a second to thank everyone who participated In Your First Skein is Free. I gotta tell you, I haven’t had this much fun since Debbie’s Little Yarn Shop had that half-price sale! If it were up to me, I would send every last one of you yarn and I’m Not Kidding. That’s why I knew from the get-go that I could not be in any way responsible for picking the winners! Thanks to M and Great Gran for being such good sports (even though I didn’t bother to ask you if you were willing to participate).

I’m sure that many of you have been watching the results of the Voting eagerly, and I have to tell you that it was insanely close. Insanely Close. In the end, Liesl managed to triumph by a single vote! Congratulations! Vera was her color of choice and will be ordered today.

For the second part of the contest, the names of all of the folks who professed to have never known the joy of Lorna’s Laces were placed in to a Priority Mail box (many on-line yarn stores choose to ship via Priority Mail). At dinner last night (taco salad), Great Gran was gracious enough to select a name for us. I documented the event for posterity:

Who is it? Who’d you pick?!

It’s Ella! Congratulations! Ella indicated that Black Pearl would be her color of choice.

I’ll get this yarn ordered as soon as I obtain mailing addresses – you shouldn’t have to wait a minute longer to fill the void in your lives.

To those of you who by a Cruel Twist of Fate did not acquire your first skeins through this contest, don’t be sad. Remember, the joy of sock yarn dwells in each of us. And in each of us lies the ability to shop on-line in the Pursuit of Socky Happiness. Your LL will come. It will come in time.

Update
The LL is on its way from Knit2Purl2! Ella has decided that she is going to make the Lava Flow Socks from Sock Bug and Liesl (although besotted with Elphine’s Socks) has requested Pattern Suggestions for something Challenging but not Impossible. You can leave suggestions in comments or visit her blog disdressed and tell her directly. She says that perhaps she would like something toe-up?