Strike Two

I started a new sock for my son using Sensational Knitted Socks. Still using the Knit Picks Sock Landscape in New England Foliage (by the way - has anyone else noticed - is Knit Picks getting ready to revamp their sock yarn - colors and lines are disappearing - or maybe I misspelled my search words!). A #1 dpn seems to give me a good fabric (and I can't face the thought of #0 dpns for this project!!). My goal was to learn a toe-up method that looked good (sorry, but the Wendy tutorial looked a little Frankenstein to me) . I had tough time picking a size - he's about a kid's size 2. As thorough as this book is, it has a big gap of missing sizes - it takes you up to a 13 child and then nothing until a size 5 women's (which is a size 3 boys). Since his socks look a lot like mine in the laundry, I' m making him the smallest women's pair and planning to make it a bit shorter.

I started with the Five Stitch Pattern (the easiest toe-up pattern) with a Laburnum pattern on the instep. I measured my gauge at 6 1/2 sts per inch with a 7 1/2" foot circ and cast on 50 stitches. Here is the first little rectangle you make to start the Easy Toe (the yellow yarn is the provisional cast-on edge).



The next step is to put the cast on stitches on another needle and start knitting in the round, picking up four stitches on each end. After increases, you get this very cute little nose:



It really looked nice, so I started the Laburnum pattern. Really like the look and the repetition of this pattern. After a couple of repeats, I tried it on the target foot:



Strike two! As in "too" small - again! It did fit little sister, but this is Little Man's sock yarn choice. So I went back to the drawing boards. Before ripping, I checked my gauge again to see how close I was knitting to my swatch. Wow! THAT's the problem! I had 7 1/2 to 8 sts per inch - not 6 1/2 (or even close!). According to the chart, this means that I needed a 60 c.o. so I pulled out the cute little toe and started again. Confesssion: I was not at all unhappy because I wanted to try that cool Easy Toe again. I'm happy to report: just as much fun the second time around!

So Laburnum is back cranking along. It's present configuration even made a field trip to the Palm Sunday service petting area event:



Here, the sock recipient is posing with a relative of the maker of the yarn. My son's such a good sport! The sheep was a little cranky after being pawed by small fry all morning, and I couldn't get too crazy with the sock shot as this was in front of my church and who would believe I was trying to take a cool sock picture on a sheep (?) for the Internet (??) so people could see (???), so my little man stepped up and posed beside Cranky the Sheep with Hopeless the Sock.

The latest fitting seemed a little roomy, so I might make the socks a little long in hopes that they'll fit perfectly this winter. They also seem to fit my foot, too, so I know what my magic cast on number will be. And as "clear" as this is now, when I start mine far in the future, I'll be happy to remember which book I used. Glad blogging is keeping me straight!