Just for you, kid

Awhile ago (in November 2009, to be exact), I was in my LYS with my non-knitting daughter, a situation I normally try to avoid. Not on her account, lest she be bored, but because there is nothing worse than petting pouring over yarn in the presence of toe-tapping impatience. As it happens, she was extremely well-behaved, exploring an alien environment with her usual absorption, and I'd nearly forgotten she was with me.

Until she showed up at my elbow, her face aglow, waving a booklet in my face and asking "Could you make this for me?"

The kind of question that warms a mother's heart, right?

Except that she is in her 20s, and the pattern was for a small child. Still, I agreed that it looked like her kind of thing, and the construction was simple enough. I thought it would be possible. And on Mother's Day 2011, I finally sewed on the buttons and sent her on her way.

NKD's Saige


Pattern: Saige (Berroco #280 Soxcetera)
Needles: US 2
Yarn: Berroco Sox in 1420 Glamorgan, 1424 Huddersfield, 1425 John Moores, 1426 Royal Holloway, 1427 Lancaster, 1436 Lidores, 1474 Liverpool, and 1477 Kingston


Mods: Well. Since the thing is constructed from strips, I started out by doubling the number of body strips from 2 to 4, adding a couple more colors of gorgeous self-striping Berroco Sox, and doubled the amount of yarn called for in the sleeves. The green for the edging wasn't available, so I went with NKD's favorite blue. I figured out what color went where, and knit one of the outer strips that required no shaping at all. When I got the length (up the back, over the shoulder, down the front) that NKD wanted, I recorded the number of rows and did some math. Then I knit the rest of it. I took a bit of a rest before tackling the neck/hood math, but since NKD was available for frequent try-ons and math help (she's working on her doctorate in astrophysics, what's a little knitting math to her?), it wasn't too bad. I assembled it as I went along. I love mattress stitch, and really, when there's no shaping, it's practically mindless. When it was done and blocked, we visited her grandmother's button boxes to finish it off with some vintage buttons.

Knitting from Stash

A co-worker gave me a bag of yarn she'd found when de-cluttering her house, "from when the kids did crafts." Since yarn does not equal clutter in my universe, I was happy to take it off her hands, despite the fact that none of it was yarn I would have bought for myself. Yarn is always useful.


The novelty yarn gave me pause, particularly in partial skeins. I challenged myself to find something to make from the light green eyelash yarn, and came up with a miniature boa for my young niece. It photographs badly, but I think she will like it.

Yarn: a partial skein of Patons Twister (discontinued) in Lime
Needles: Size 15 straight needles
Pattern: Cast on 8 stitches and knit every row until just enough yarn to bind off

~~~~~

That led me to pull a project out of the UFO bin and finish it for my nephew. Made from leftovers from Saige, it was much more fun to knit than to stuff.

 

Yarn: Berroco Sox in Huddersfield (discontinued color), 1/3 of skein

Needles: 2.5 mm double-pointed

Pattern: Celestine Sox

~~~~~

To my utter amazement, I still had enough of that skein to make myself a pair of ankle socks. Despite their bright colors, all of which lie outside my normal palette, I love them dearly. Possibly this has something to do with wearing them to work on a day when the temperature was in the single digits, and having my feet stay warm. But more likely it's because I was able to make them match without even trying hard. I just made my standard toe-up, fits-me sock until I could see that the colorway was finally going to repeat, bound off and started the second sock where the repeat started. The photo is wonky, they are really the same length.


Yarn: same as above, 2/3 of skein

 Needles: 2.5 mm double-pointed

 Pattern: Figure-8 cast-on of 24 stitches, 12 per needle; increase every other row to 52 stitches; 52 rounds of stockinette later begin gusset increases using Wendy Johnson’s Heel Template for a Gusset Heel Sock; knit 13 rounds; make k2, p2 ribbing until the color pattern repeat is coming up; use Jeny’s Surprisingly Stretchy bind-off.

When I made NKD's Saige, I had a fair amount of Berroco Sox self-striping sock yarn left over. Glamorgan 1420 was by far my absolute favorite stripe (go ahead, ask my family about the noises I made while knitting with it the first time). I was delighted to find that I had just enough left to make a pair of ankle socks for myself. I was also ridiculously pleased to be able to get the stripes to match.

I knit them on zeros, and fiddled with my standard toe-up sock pattern a bit. KD and I have noticed that over time our hand knit socks, um, grow a bit, so I've been experimenting with making them a tighter fit to start with. I can't really tell until I've worn and washed them awhile if this did any good. And I'm certainly not wearing wool socks for another couple of months! These are in (moth proof) Summer Sock Hibernation until then.

Sibling Socks

Still knitting up the leftovers from Saige in my own toe-up sock pattern. This colorway of Berroco Sox was Kingston, and I only had enough left for ankle-length, but NKD is pleased. I knit them in an astonishing four days.

Then I finally finished these:

 

I blithely knit up the second sock in my standard sock pattern, then realized that's not what the first sock was. I had to read my knitting very carefully to discover that I had altered the original number of stitches cast on for the toe, the number of rows from toe to heel, and dabbled in increases up the back of the calf. Then finished off with a picot bind-off, because why not? And I'll remember all that, because I'll make the second sock right away. Right. When I finally got a matched sock, they just weren't that comfortable. There's a reason my standard sock is my go-to pattern - it fits! SO now their KD's. This colorway of Berocco Sox was Glamorgan.