Winter 2022-2023 Knitting
everything I knit this past winter.
Greetings from the depths of a slowly waning five foot snow drift.
Astronomical spring is here, which seems like a reasonable excuse to document everything I’ve made over the past few months.
Finished Objects
I finished five things, three of which were gifts: three pairs of socks, a hat, and a winter hood.
Christmas Socks
I unearthed this yarn from the depths of my stash in a tangled mess. It took me a couple of days to rewind, during which my partner commented more than once how much he liked the colour. I had the idea to knit him gift socks as a surprise… and a surprise it would be, given that I never knit for other people because I am a selfish shrew. ☺
I started these on November 25th, 2022. A pair of socks usually takes me a week at most, so I figured thirty days would be more than enough time for these. lol. lmao.
A pair of men’s US 11 socks requires a full 60cm (or 2 feet, which is so funny! absolutely hilarious in fact!) of 2x2 ribbing per sock. I hate knitting 2x2 ribbing at the best of times. It is a great way to completely cook your wrists with a repetitive strain injury.
Anyway. Christmas came and went. I dragged these out, half finished, on Christmas morning as a miserable offering half to show that I had been working on something, and half so I could stop working on them in secret.
January passed and they languished until the very end of the month when I forced myself to just finish them so I could finally work on something else. I completed the pair on February 1st; all told, these socks took me ten weeks.
They do fit perfectly, which is what I really like about this pattern and why I keep making it over and over despite the endless 2x2 ribbing.
For next time…
One thing that bugs me about this pattern is that my left-leaning increases (M1LK, M1LP) always look a little bit messy. This is partly due to my generally loose gauge, but I think is also an innate property of the stitches. I’d like to experiment with both KLL/PLL/KRL/PRL increases and backwards-loop M1 increases to see if that looks a little neater.
Valentine’s Socks
These are my first successful pair of colourwork socks, and all-over colourwork at that, despite many attempts in the past.
Colourwork socks are tricky: the tension needs to be loose enough to allow them to fit over your feet — the floats drastically limit the stretchiness and make the fabric behave almost as though it’s woven — but not so loose that they get clownishly baggy after wearing them for ten minutes.
These socks fit really well, and I have no problem (carefully) pulling them on. I think this came down to a few things:
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This yarn is so, so good. It has 8 plies! That’s so many plies! (Most sock yarns have three or maybe four plies.) As a result, the yarn is super bouncy and forgiving for the colourwork, and it blocks out really evenly. I expect it will also hold up really well over time. As a bonus, Hidden Pond Yarns is located relatively local to me in Hudson, Québec. Definitely my new default sock yarn.
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I used 9" circular needles. I pretty much always use magic loop for socks, since “shorties” (lol) tend to make my hands cramp. They are, however, perfect for colourwork socks since you don’t have to worry about tensioning the floats across the split with magic loop.
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I used a 2.5mm (US 1.5) whereas I usually use 2.0mm (US 0) or 2.25mm (US 1) for socks.
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The pattern has you cast on for a fairly standard 64 stitches for the cuff, but increase to 70 stitches for the colourwork. This allows for an extra inch or so to make up for the lack of stretch.
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I didn’t catch any floats. As the designer notes in her book, catching floats can (somewhat nonintuitively) reduce the stretchiness of the fabric. I also hate the look of caught floats peeking through the front. With fingering-weight yarn, even the long 11-stitch floats in the pattern result in only, like, an inch or so of yarn.
For next time…
I’m curious about going down a needle size to a 2.25mm (US 1) for the foot of the sock (after the heel) to see if they fit a little more snugly. But, maybe that would make the stitches look terribly stretched. Hmm! I’m also curious if adding a small gusset around the short row heel might be more comfortable; more on this below.
Musselburgh Hat
This was sort of an impulse cast-on since (a) I wanted a bit of a break from the Valentine’s socks, and (b) I was curious to see if the Midnatssol yarn was an acceptably non-itchy substitute for the single strand of mohair that every damn pattern seems to call for. It felt very soft in the ball so I was hopeful…!
Alas, no, the Midnatssol is really fucking itchy. At least to me! I made a few attempts to wear this before giving up and acquiescing this hat to my partner. I think these dumb, fluffy yarns just aren’t for me, which is fine. I prefer the rustic scratchy wools anyway, hmph.
For next time…
This pattern is interesting and I do see myself making it again. There’s no need for a swatch: you cast on and knit the increases until you have enough rows to measure your gauge, which you can then map to the (very) comprehensive tables that will give you the rest of the schematic to follow. It’s essentially a long tube of stokcinette, closed at either end and then folded for the brim.
Going forward, though, I think I’ll make this at a finer gauge with just a single strand of fingering-weight yarn.
Sock Experiments #1
I’ve knit quite a few socks at this point, but this is my first pair of “vanilla” (i.e., plain stockinette) socks. After the Valentine’s socks, I wanted to experiment with improving the fit of short row heels. And, like any good experiment, sticking to vanilla socks means minimal variables.
Short row heels are typically used in all-over colourwork and self-striping socks since they don’t disrupt the pattern like a heel flap. The fit, however, is widely acknowledged to be not as good as other heel constructions. The short row heel results in a shallower instep, which means the stitches tend to pull across the front of the ankle and/or get all baggy across the arch of the foot.
Roxanne Richardson has a series of videos on addressing this by adding a few rows of increases before doing the short row heel, and then decreasing after. This adds a very small “gusset” that increases the number of stitches across the instep (and only the instep).
Anyway. I did not do that for these socks since I wanted them to be my “control” pair, lol.
For the numbers, I knit the tiniest, dumbest gauge swatch and then used the formula from Kate Atherley’s book Custom Socks: Knit to Fit Your Feet. The cute gradient stripes are done by dividing a Zauberball in half and then alternating every six rows.
For next time…
These socks are definitely comfortable except they’re a tiny bit baggy across the foot. I think this is due to (a) the unmodified short row heel, and (b) my gauge swatch being (predictably) too tiny to be meaningful for the actual socks. As much as I’m a proponent of swatching, I am definitely not going to knit a 4x4 gauge swatch in the round on 2.0mm needles for a sock so I think I’ll just compensate by removing 2-4 stitches next time. Or, y’know, just assume that a 72-76 stitch count will be fine for 2.0mm needles.
Lewsky Hood
Another gift for my sweetheart, and an excuse to knit with two well-known yarns that I’ve been curious to try.
The pattern is from the book Moon and Turtle, which is excellent and I highly recommend. I acquired this book to make the sweater on the cover (Kordy) and saw this hood while flipping through. It seemed like an obvious and immediately useful choice for our shitty winters. I made a deal with my partner that I would knit a hood for him (and one for me 😈) if he would pay for the yarn.
I knit this up very quickly and it’s gotten a ton of use since then.
The Léttlopi is really nice; super rustic, obviously, and a little bit itchy but not unwearably so. It has softened up a lot over the last few weeks, and I am very interested to see how it is in a future sweater.
I used DROPS Air so that the inner face covering would be nice and soft. This yarn is… annoying. It’s a “blow yarn”, which means its core is a nylon chain tube into which the alpaca and Merino fibers are blown. It’s stupidly soft, but a pain to work with due to its poor stitch definition and constant shedding. I am pessimistic about its longevity, too; not a big deal for this since it’d be very easy to cut out and replace the face covering, but I would absolutely not knit a sweater with it.
The construction of this hood is really fun. I especially love the double-knit hem and drawcord casing.
For next time…
No changes required for this perfect pattern. It’s so good.
I’m still planning to make a second hood for myself with the remaining Léttlopi, though I am putting it off because I keep telling myself (or, more accurately, lying to myself) that the weather will warm up soon.
Works in Progress
Two sweaters! One cursed and one not.
Arachne x Strange Brew Sweater
I started this sweater way back in October and I have come to hate it. The pattern is cute, the yarn is great, the construction is fine, the overall vibe is excellent. I have one sleeve and the bottom ribbing left and I just can’t bring myself to do it. But I really should… ugh.
Azor Sweater
This one is so close to being done! I’m going to withhold commentary for now.
False Starts
A handful of swatches and unsuccessful socks.
Mermaid Avenue Socks
This yarn is very soft and very cute and very cursed. I’ve cast on, knit, and frogged these socks three times now.
First: because I noticed that the pattern had a weird jog at the beginning of the round, which was easy to rip back and adapt to be jogless. (It’s a shame the pattern doesn’t mention this; as written, it looks a little silly.) Second: because I decided that I didn’t actually like how the variegated yarn looked in the ribbed cuff. Third: because the 2x2 ribbed cuff I did instead ended up being way too loose.
I do think this yarn and pattern work well together; I just can’t yet bring myself to try a fourth time.
Grape Picking Socks
I cast these on as part of an informal knit-a-long with some friends. The Jawoll yarn is a very light fingering (yeah, yeah) so I decided to knit these on 2.0mm (US 0) needles across 80 stitches. It is… unpleasant to knit all-over colourwork at such a fine gauge, even if the colourwork is very straightforward and rather sparse.
I made the mistake of catching the floats anytime there was a run of 9 stitches, which I regret doing. I think that’s a big reason I’ve lost my motivation with these, particularly after not catching any floats with the Valentine’s socks.
They do look cute so far, but I can’t muster the enthusiasm to finish a single sock let alone a second and then weave in the eight million ends. I will probably frog these and (eventually) knit them on the Hidden Pond Yarns Squishy Sock base at a more reasonable gauge.
Sock Experiments #2
These were to be my second experiment with short row heels, this time with a small four-stitch gusset across eight rows on either side of the heel.
On the first sock, I got 80% of the way through the toe (i.e., moments from finishing) when I realized I had missed a decrease round after the heel. I finished it anyway, telling myself that two stitches makes no difference at all, but it was enough to kill my momentum for doing the second (despite already casting it on and finishing the cuff).
I also really don’t like this yarn; it’s splitty and cheap and the colours aren’t as vibrant as I’d hope. Looks like a shitty easter egg.
It feels a little silly to abandon this project when it would probably only take me a couple of days to finish the second socks but… I don’t want to. ☹
Lots of Swatches
Various swatches for various sweaters which may or may not come to be.
First: a stockinette swatch knit flat with Hedgehog Fiber Tweedy. I was coveting this yarn for ages and ended up acquiring a sweater’s quantity when it went on sale. I’m not yet sure what to make with this, but I am tending towards a sweater generated with CustomFit.
Second: a swatch for the Stratified sweater by Tif Neilan in various stash yarns. I was mostly playing around to see if these colours work together and they definitely do not, lol. Comically ugly. This is a mix of Brooklyn Tweed Shelter, Brooklyn Tweed Loft, La Bien Aimée Corrie Worsted, and De Rerum Natura Gilliatt.
Third: a swatch for the Kerr Sweater by Rebecca Clow in De Rerum Natura Ulysse, colours Cyprès and Crème Anglaise. I do plan on making this sweater eventually since I really like the band of colourwork, but I don’t see myself wearing these two colours together even if they are cute.
Fourth and finally: two swatches for the Kordy sweater by Kimoi and Sachiko Burgin in Blue Sky Fibers Woolstok, colours Cast Iron (dark grey), Golden Meadow (green), Rose Quartz (pink), and Highland Fleece (white). My next cast-on! This amazing colour combination was borrowed (with permission) from this perfect Kordy sweater by Tiara of Thelovestitch Knits Podcast.
Fuck you Goodbye Winter!
lol yeah right. We’ll likely have snowfall throughout April and snow on the ground until June. It is, in fact, snowing as I write this which definitely isn’t sapping my will to live or anything. 🤡
On the bright side, it means the three worsted weight sweaters I’m planning to knit next will still be “seasonal”!
Ok bye!!!