nerd knits

Zee socks, zey are fini.

Pattern: Red Herring, by Cookie A.

Yarn: Soxx Appeal, by Knit One, Crochet Too (96% superwash merino, 3% nylon, 1% elastic) in Teal (?!?) and Toffee

Needles: Addi Natura 3mm (two 16”, one 40” after I broke one of the 16”)

Opinions:  First of all, this is my favorite color combination in the world, so that’s always a good start.

The pattern is simple enough to memorize, complex enough to keep you engaged, and by the time you get to the plain stockinette foot it’s a pleasure to breeze right through to the end.  If we’re going to be perfectly honest, I did goof on the patterning – since I had to have the pattern read to me in a rush over the phone, I ended up knitting the chart backwards.  It’s no biggie – if I hadn’t told you, I doubt that any one of you could have picked it out.

As we’ve established, the pattern called for two circs, which I tried for the first time and then abandoned after I broke one of the needles…sigh.  I finished up with magic loop, since I will never again knit stranded colorwork on dpns if I can possibly help it.  Both methods worked perfectly fine for me, though in general dpns are still my favorite method for socks.

The pattern calls for an afterthought heel and a round toe in the contrast yarn – very nice touches, and both of them were firsts for me.  I very much like the round toe – a much more natural looking shape than the usual pointiness of the common handknit sock toe.  The afterthought heel is nice – it fits better than I expected, and looks very neat.  I had problems with holes at the corners of the heel, but I almost always do, no matter what heel I use.  A little bit of reinforcement in the finishing, and the holes closed right up.

The Soxx Appeal yarn is pretty spiffy, too.  The elastic makes it springy like Cascade Fixation, but with wool instead of cotton.  It has a very nice hand and the elastic gives a nice stretch to the usually stiff colorwork.  If knitting these socks again I might have gone down a needle size for the foot, to get a firmer and more durable fabric, but I think it’s perfectly fine as is.  The yarn has a bit more texture to it than most – the plying is odd, with the wool spun around the thin elastic strand – so it might not work for a pattern that calls for a smooth finish.  It also tends to be a little splitty – annoying, but manageable.

On the whole, I’m quite happy, and I think Olena will be too.