i can't believe i cast on these socks in december 2013! on the 11th some time mid morning to be precise. that was the day R was born and i needed to keep my hands busy. i finished the first one quite quickly actually - while she was still really tiny and sleeping most of the time. i cast on the second sock and i knitted the cuff and about half of the leg and then i just didn't get to it anymore. then we moved and for a while i didn't even know where they were...
also, because of the christmasyness of them i didn't really feel like working on them after the new year (2014) had started. i don't know why i didn't finish them in time for the christmas season 2014... really no idea whatsoever. i don't even think i made any socks last autumn. i made a jelly bag cap for my brother-in-law (who had always wanted one that actually fit his head) and a couple's mitten for holding hands in.
but no socks. at least i don't remember. that's weird. but maybe i'm just getting a little confused with time here... nope, my hubby just cofirmed that i really didn't (i'm all i awe that he remembers and i don't - he even remembered that i remarked on it last year).
anyway - back to my socks. i had bought the yarn on a complete whim because i just couldn't resist the golden sparkly thread that had been plied with the yarn. it came in a pack of three 100g balls - each selfstriping in red, green and white resulting in a different stripe pattern. i started with the red and green block stripes.
that's what's left now.
since i've tried the traditional eye-of-partridge heel on my first three pairs of socks and noticed that they don't quite fit my foot, i've been working the boomerang heel and by now i manage to knit it pretty evenly and without the holes that most fellow sock-knitters complain about. especially since i found this wonderful video tutorial showing a way to knit the boomerang heel that really leaves absolutely no holes - it's genius! the brilliant woman who came up with it realized that the backrows where you purl are the reason for the holes occuring, so what she teaches you to do is knit backwards so you don't have to turn and purl back - backwards double stitches included. the video is in german but if you already know how to do the boomerang heel you should be able to follow just by watching carefully.
for my christmas socks i wanted to try another heel-technique that skips the two rows knitted around the whole sock between the two parts of the heel, because i didn't want to ruin the nice stripes on the front of the sock.
had i knitted the two rows after the first half of the heel, i would have ended up with a very thin line of red in the middle of the green stripe (left sock) and a very thin line of green in the middle of the red stripe (right sock) - i didn't want that.
that other technique works like this: knit the first half of the heel as usual, don't knit the two rows - instead knit the second half of the heel just as you usually would but every double stitch will be turned into a double-double stitch... sounds complicated but it kind of works. the only thing was that the holes came back! oh nooo! and it turns out that this sort of heel (which is needed when knitting two socks at the same time with the magic loop) doesn't really fit my foot again. it makes the heel kind of pointy and sticking up rather than fitting snuggly. i guess that will "wear in" after i wear them for a while and they have been washed a couple of times.
back to the holes in my socks.
what to do?
i took a piece of yarn and a darning needle and just darned them. i didn't stitch them up because i wanted the knitted fabric to stay flexible. i just weaved the yarn back and forth to create more fabric between the holes.
this didn't create any additional bulk and it's barely visible from the outside.
i'm so glad that worked! now i finally have my christmas socks ready (and with time to spare) for this year's holiday season!
T saw me working on them and was totally fascinated by the fact that the yarn is sparkly. (it doesn't show in the pics very much but they do sparkle beautifully!) i asked him if he wanted some too and his answer was a softly breathed: "jaa..." with a very cute delighted expression on his face. so with the leftover red-and-green i made these:
i didn't have quite enough of it left, so i let him pick one of the other balls of the pack (pic above - the one with the tons of yarn wound around the belly band - what's so hard about making proper center-pull balls?) and sort of "invented" yet another variaton of the boomerang heel. it worked for the little socks and i want to try it on an adult size pair as well and if that works i'll share it with you...
wow... that was a lot of talk about just one (and a little) pair of socks... sorry about that... =)
********************
for all of you german speaking knitters who also use english patterns and instructions (and vice verca), i found this great document that has a lot of knitting terms and abbreviations translated from US english to german: here