Me and the Sock

Friday, April 21, 2006

Uh-huh, that sock and I are not really on speaking terms right now. It's about 99.8% completed, just needs to be bound off. See?



I did start the bind off THREE different times the other night... and tinked my way back. The problem is that my favorite top of the sock bind off is the tubular, or invisible, cast-off that I've sung praises about before. The ensueing problem then is that I don't have a simple 2x2 or 1x1 rib going on here, there are those stupid four stitch cables in the way. When I made the cable socks before, I'm sure I had a way I worked around this but for the life of me I can't figure it out now. So the sock and I are "on a break". And it's not cheating if you're on a break, right? So I started the second sock.

Meanwhile, I thought I'd throw something out there. For those of you who knit toe-up socks, how do you decide the sock is done? Do you compare it to another pair of socks or follow a pattern or something? What I've been doing, and what works quite well for me so far, is to knit until the foot of the sock and the leg of the sock are (about) the same length, when the sock is folded in half.



Toe-up socks really like to fold up this way so I use that to my advantage. I originally thought the "knit until you run out of yarn" school was so cool. I wanted to be just like that! But, as I learned with my knee-highs, there is a LOT of yarn in those little balls and the increases over the calf are a pain in the ass! So I just have all these little balls of extra yarn, like the flattened one in the above picture, hanging out in my yarn box.

Man, I really say "So" alot, don't I?

Have a great weekend! We're going out to my dad's farm tomorrow morning to see his little tiny baby chicks and ducks and we're (I'm) so excited we (I) can hardly wait. I don't think I'll be this excited when it comes to butchering them but it's going to make for a great start to the weekend this weekend. :)

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Your sock looks great. Good luck with the bindoff. I can hardly wait to get to that problem with my first sock!

Anonymous said...

I've not yet knit toe-up, and the bind off is one of the reasons I haven't screwed up the courage yet. I tend to bind off too tight (me? knit tight? NO!), and I don't want to cut off the circulation to my feet (because you know I'd wear them regardless.) Of course, I have the same problem with the cast on for leg-down socks, so I suppose it doesn't make a difference.

As for when do you decide they're done...I assume you're looking for a better answer than "put them on and when you like the length, stop"? :D

sheep#100 said...

Usually a sock is done for me when I fold it in half at the heelp and the foot and the leg are the same length.

 
TNB