Knitted Thing. And Socks.

First I would like to say that I don't usually consider myself a knitting designer.

Maybe a plumber, as I did disassemble and clean the PVC kitchen sink pipes again Friday night.

Maybe a lawn maintenance specialist, since I mowed the dry spiky grass this morning before it started to really heat up.

But since I did design my half-circle Pi shawl from scratch, and since I saw this, er, thing, over at The Knitting Fiend, okay. I'm a knitting designer. So what if I mostly design for myself?

Knitting News
I finally knitted the last two repeats of ribbing on the blue (Wool-Ease "Blue Mist") socks.

I used my favorite cast-off, the tubular or grafted cast-off. I knit a single row of K1, P1, then take the knit stitches onto the front (outside) needle and the purl stitches onto the back (inside) needle.

Taking the stitches onto two needles makes this cast-off even more like grafting, and helps keep it from getting too tight and snapping.

My favorite thing about it is the way the knitting seems to just magically stop at the end of the ribbing.

And this is how they fit. The ribs slant towards the front from both sides, giving upward-pointing V's on the front of the leg and downward-pointing ones on the back.

The extra-deep heel cup means they never, never, never fall down. There is nothing like a pair of socks that really fits your foot, because all of its little footy quirks have been taken into account when knitting it.

There is no pattern on the foot, because I have a high instep, and I've found that even ribbing gets so squished against the top of my shoes that it leaves a line on the top of my foot. So now I knit smooth-foot socks.

The other pair of socks that's been sitting around untouched was this pair, more acrylic baby yarn socks on US size 1 needles.

No, they don't wear out instantly: they are sitting on the pair I knitted last year, which I've been wearing and washing regularly, and those aren't even particularly fuzzed up at the heel. No, they don't make my feet sweat. And yes, I like the cheesy colors -- that's why I bought the yarn.

As a cheap person on a tight budget, Moda Dea Sassy Stripes is about six dollars a ball and you need two balls to knit a pair of socks. This stuff is, what? four dollars a skein? And I can knit a pair of socks with cuffs as long as I like with yarn left over.

So now I'm up to the heel turn on these, and deciding what to use on the cuff ribbing.