The Soapy Knitter

Nope. I wasn’t at MDSW. I was in New Cumberland, PA. Never heard of it? Yah, neither had I but DH is working nearby until further notice so we’d booked a room to go visit him. It was a nice enough little 3-day weekend. I loved that there wasn’t a lot to do around there so I should have PLENTY of knitting time. I did.

I was able to finish my mystery project: the one for the Little Knits design contest. I’ll block that this week and get it in the mail.

I also finished the River Nuts socks I’d started a few weeks ago when I asked you all what socks I should knit next. I opted for the Nutkin pattern with some mods.

The first mod: these were knit toe-up using magic loop. In the pattern, the designer has you do a 3-needle bind-off at the top of the toe to make a little ridge. I just knit two purl rows to create this ridge.

Next mod: the OCD in me decided that I couldn’t have the swirls all moving in the same direction on both socks. So I reversed one of the swirls on the back and the front of each sock.

I also increased to 68 sts from the original 64 and switched to needles one size larger after the heel because otherwise these babies weren’t going to fit. I had to also increase to 72 sts for the cuff to do a k3, p3 ribbing.

The biggest mod was the heel. I opted for the Riverbed arch expansion and plain heel from Cat Bordhi’s New Pathways book. I love the snug fit of the heel and the ease of working the “gussets” with no need of picking up sts after a “flap” but you get the flap heel-look!

Knitting with the Araucania Ranco yarn was fantastic! I loved the wool-y feel of it and even using size US 2.5 addi’s, it still produces a nice fabric.

Nutkin Socks

Source: Knitzi

Yarn: Araucania Ranco, Color: Acorn

Needles: Size US 1.5 & 2.5

Cost: $16, not bad for a pair of comfy socks where the yarn is a pleasure to knit with

Started: April 13, 2008

Finished: May 1, 2008

After realizing that these are my 6th pair of completed socks in the four months of 2008 so far, I decided I needed to switch my purse knitting to something else! I cast-on for Anne’s Alhambra scarf using some Misty Mountain Farm Alpaca Laceweight I purchased for a song at Rhinebeck last year. So far, it’s a nice easy knit and quick, too!  I’ll need to find a fancy pin like the leaf one Anne is wearing in her pictures!  HAWT!

This entry was posted on Monday, May 5th, 2008 at 11:58 am and is filed under Life in General, Shawls and Scarves, Socks, Finished in 2008. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.