Monkeying Around

Another opportunity to make a monkey---missed! Instead, another pair of my favorite brown monkey socks were born. If they fit my grandson, they will be his.
Yarn: Järbo Garn Mini Raggi - 75% wool, 25% Nylon, colorway 68074, brown.
Pattern: Improvised, using the Band Heel spreadsheet. No gusset!
Needles: #1 (2.25mm) dpns
Comments: The Band Heel seems to fit just fine. You might not even notice the difference between it and a regular flap. But it sure is nice not to have to do the gusset thing. Give it a try on your next pair of socks!

Big Socks

Yarn: MC: Lang Jawoll colorway Navy, CC: Lana Gross Meilenweit, colorway Burgundy 1273.
Pattern: My own, for The Judge.
Needles: #1 (2.5mm) dpns
Comments: It took me months to finish these, not because they were difficult. They just take a whole lot of uninteresting knitting as they are for a size 13 foot. And they are a very dark navy (darker than shows in these photos) so most of the knitting was done during the daylight hours. But his feet will be warm this winter!

The Band Heel

This is a Band Heel in progress, with an excel file to do the math for your size sock.Dave at Criminy Jickets has written such a clear tutorial about the Band Heel. He tells me it's an old pattern, and I am amazed that it is not being used more often.

You see, there is no gusset with this heel. You do a short flap, turn the heel, pick up a few stitches and just knit until the required length for the foot. No gusset!
Realizing that many people have their own way of making socks and the number of circumference stitches may vary, with Dave's encouragement I have created an excel spreadsheet to aid in using this heel for your own socks. Download it here or from my side panel. You will need to be able to read excel files in order to use it.

Simply type in your number of circumference stitches, hit the enter key on your keyboard, and it will automatically calculate the rest for you. No gusset, no math!

Now, it hasn't been proven to me that this is a satisfactory heel as far as comfort goes, but I really like skipping the gusset part. Having tried on the partial sock, I find it fits just fine without the traditional gusset or short rows.

And much thanks to Dave for his good math on the subject!

Knitting with Toothpicks

No, not really. But almost.* I decided to try some bamboo doublepoints. (I have never used these dpns before--shocking, I know!) They are light as a feather and it's worrisome to think that they could just snap. They would be ideal for a beginning sock knitter...unless one knits very tightly. How do these needles hold up to cabling? Do they survive being sat upon? Just kidding.

Still knitting...
*It's been done before at least once.

Silken Web

Yarn: Rowan Kidsilk Haze, 70% super kid mohair, 30% silk, colorway #585, "Nightly."
Pattern: Everyday Wrap by Julie Weisenberger. Sort of. Ravelry Link.
Needles: #9 Addi Turbo Lace circulars.

Here's all the yarn that was left.

Comments: This shawl/scarf started out as the Everyday Wrap but I had two skeins of this lovely yarn and I found myself just knitting and knitting and knitting. It was my "grab and go," car-riding, here-and-there (but mostly in the daytime because it's so dark) knitting for quite some time now.

Modifications: When I got toward the end of the yarn, I decided to add my own ruffle simply by knitting into the front and back of every stitch, effectively doubling the number of stitches. Then I knit ten rows and cast off loosely. Now the cast-on end did not match. So I unpicked it and added a ruffle to the other end of the shawl/scarf. This I do not recommend when you are working with cobwebby yarn. Better if you do a provisional cast-on.

So, this isn't really the shawl that it started out to be, but its inspiration (and number of cast on stitches) came from Julie's pattern. Thanks, Julie!