Material: Koigu KPPPM
Needles: Size 0 DPNs
Pattern: More on that later
Cast on: February 2007
Finished: May 2007
These are the socks that went on forever.
My mother and I went shopping at the yarn store over Christmas break, and she picked out this yarn so that I could make socks for her. I wasn’t wild about the colorway, but they’re her socks, so she should be happy with them.
First, I cast on and started Monkey, on size 1 DPNs. It’s a cute pattern and looked great in the colorway. Then, about 4″ down the cuff, I tried the sock on, and it barely fit over my foot, much less my heel!
I decided that a stretchier lace pattern was in order, so I selected the Mock Croc pattern, available on the Knitpick’s website. Since my previous attempt was such a miserably small failure, I stuck with the size 1s and moved up to a 70 stitch sock. Well, this time it was way, way too large. Mom’s feet are just a tad smaller than mine, so that was not so good. What I did like about this was how the colors were pooling. The Koigu is highly varigated, with color changes about every 6″. I don’t like jumbled-together colors. I like chunks of color that look like something.
Attempt #3 involved the Mock Crocks on size 1s again, with a 60 stitch sock. Now it was too back to being too small, plus I was beginning to feel that the fabric was a tad loose.
My forth shot at the sock, still with the Mock Croc pattern, was on size 0s, moving back up to the 70 stitch sock. Voila! Plus, now the varigations were pooling together into stripes, each stripe going about half-way around the sock. The stripes combined with the arrow-head lace pattern were visually quite interesting. I got TONS of compliments from other knitters while I worked on this sock.
Then, I hit the heel. Maybe the pattern had an error. Maybe I didn’t read it right. Anyway, the heel was really lousy. I have a narrow foot, and the rest of the sock was OK, but the heel was about 50% too small. So I ripped back to the start of the heel and put in a standard, heel-flap and gusset heel. This was the first time the I totally “winged” a heel, and it turned out just great. It was nice to find out that I could pull off a standard turned heel with no instructions!
So the lace pattern came from one source, and the heel from another (sort of). Ever since that sock, I’ve felt free to mix-and-match pattern components, or just make something up. So, even though these socks were pain, they were worth it. Plus, Mom loves them!
