Progress and detour

Clipping along on the Socken it to the Family Socks. Managed to hit the guage I wanted spot-on for Parent #1's socks (wasn't a totally blind guess, that lovely orange sock for myself was similar enough in weight that I could extrapolate). I'm making this one up as I go along, taking the chevron pattern from one of the fantastic knitting resources I obtained this Christmas. About half-way through the leg of sock #1.


The sock for Cousin #1 hasn't faired so well. The yarn is wonderful - such luxury and departure from the stiff, slippery cotton - but the pattern just isn't going to work. I'd planned to use this one, and it had fair promise, but double-stranded fingering weight alpaca/silk does not like to cable. Oh, I'm sure it works well in other people's hands, but in tight-guaged sock knitting I was spending too much time cursing. The yarn is also probably going to get very fuzzy with wear, so all of that hard work would be quickly lost.


How far did I get before I realized this sock was doomed?

Yep. A whole three rows into the pattern. Turns out the designer tricked me. I thought, oh, 80 stitches per row isn't so bad, especially when it will be so pretty. Except that after the ribbing rows there was a row of increases. 108 stitches. 108 stitches with cables in every single row Sneaky.

So I've abandonded that pattern and picked one from the archives of this group. It's a nice pattern, one I would never have knit until I saw the many variations different knitters had created. Plus I only need to cast on 60-some stitches. Muuuch better. I'm not much for knit-a-longs (Sock Wars did me in), but I decided to give it a try for 2007. I expect that 6 members of the family will be getting socks knit from patterns during this knit-a-long.