The year 2011 in knits - Part 5 - the sock edition

I made 5 pairs of socks in the year 2011, thereof 4 in a row in June and the fifth in August. I have to say, sock knitting and traveling go very well together. In June I traveled with my fiends Ingibjörg and Nancy to Alabama and Kentucky and then later in the month I went on a conference in Montréal, and in August I went to Iceland.

The first two pairs of sock were for my daughters. The first one was for Kamilla, blue ones of course as that's her favorite color. (Ravelry link)





The second pair was for her sister Ása. I was hoping they were pink enough. It seems that they were, but they are a bit too scratchy for her. She doesn't tolerate wool very well, although she is getting better wearing it. (Ravelry Link)





Both those socks were knit from the same pattern. My go-to pattern for simple, mindless socks. The pattern is a toe-up pattern by Ann Budd that appeared in the 2007 summer edition of Interweave Knits. It has sizing for all different sizes of foots, but in this case I was using a gauge that was tighter than given in the pattern since I was using size 0 (2 mm) needles to make a more durable sock (I don't know why since they'll probably outgrow them before they'd out wear them!). So I just started the toe and increased until it fit around their foot. My cast-on was the trusted old Turkish cast-on which is described in the pattern, but I really like this tutorial. The Turkish cast-on looks like a toe closed with a kitchener stitch! It's also very simple.

These socks each took one skein of 50 g sock yarn. This means that this will be the last time I can count on one skein of sock yarn to make socks for them! My kids are growing up!

My third pair was knit up when I went to a conference in Canada. I don't know what the yarn is. I had recently gotten it in a yarn exchange that my Athens, OH knitting group had. Again, the same pattern as for the first two socks in this traveling sock knitting frenzy. I never took a picture of them when they were completed. Maybe since middle of summer in SE Ohio is no time to wear wool socks! I really love these socks, they are thin and the patterning was very interesting. They are also knit on size 0 (2 mm) needles, but they are a bit big nonetheless. Could be due to the fact that I used 80 stitches around! Ahemm.... (Ravelry link)





The forth pair was not knit on the road, but it was heavily influenced by the fact that I exchanged the kid's toys out for my leftover yarn. I was able to do this because my friend Ingibjörg took my daughter's to Iceland when she left. So I was very inspired to use up the leftover yarn. I made a pair of 'International Socks of Doom' which is a super quick pattern as it knits up with a simple, yet interesting rib in dk/sport weight yarn. It also helped that I was using 3.0mm needles instead of the 2.0 mm needles I'd used for the previous 3 pairs! The pattern was originally used a weapon in the 'Sock Wars'. I knit the socks both at the same time, but on separate pairs of double pointed needles. (Ravelry link)






The fifth and the last socks were knit on route to Iceland and back from Iceland. I also got the yarn from the yarn swap (same as my pink socks above), and in that case the previous owner had named the yarn 'Clown barf', partly because of the colors, and partly because it had incredible number of knots in it. I used the same toe-up pattern as before, but because the yarn didn't have a lot of yardage, I made them short (they reach just above the ankle). The yarn was from Great Adirondack Yarn Co.

Here one of the socks is pictured with a prototype of my step-mom's design (that I got to keep since she has a new design adorning her home). (Ravelry link)