Red Letter Day

After a few people on Ravelry admired my Real Love socks and showed some interest in seeing a pattern for them, I decided I would try to write it up. It would give me some practice for the next pair I have designed, and if I offer this one up for free, then I won't feel guilty about the unpolished nature of the pattern, this time, while I get some experience and feedback for the next pattern.

So I wrote it up over a couple of days and plugged in my unprofessional photos and some charts and popped it up on Ravelry, last night.

It's already been downloaded 150 times! Now I know that I have downloaded a lot of patterns that I haven't knit, yet, so I'm not expecting that many to actually be knit, but still... that's pretty cool. Even to see one or two pairs would really make me proud.

If you want it, you can have your own copy, too: download now

Real Love Socks

With the lack of other entertainment on the weekend (and because I am still trying to spend a lot of time resting my knee) I managed to get a lot of knitting done. After I finished my Monkey socks, the only thing I had left unpacked and in-progress were my Real Love socks. It was probably a good thing, since the complexity of the travelling twisted stitches meant that I put these off more often than I worked on them.

If you recall, I got a twisted-stitch reference book for my birthday, and right away I threw together a couple of potential sock designs out of it. This was the first one, and is wide enough that it will fit my feet, in a very fine gauge. I had thought about potentially writing the pattern up to offer it to other people, but I'm not sure it would be very useful, since people with more normally sized feet would probably have a hard time making them fit without a lot of adjustments, anyway. In my experience, it's easier to upsize a sock pattern than to downsize one (assuming you can't just knit the whole thing at a tighter gauge, and I think that trying to knit a sock at a tighter gauge than 10 stitches per inch might just be crazy.) The next twisted-stitch sock pattern I have planned will be more appropriate, that way, and I may try my hand at selling knitting patterns, then.


I think I went into some detail on the patterns last time I mentioned these socks, but basically I just chose three that I thought were interesting together, that had the same repeat length in rows, and that created an interesting negative space (i.e. the purl background between the center motif and the one on either side, which you can see better on the first photo, or even better on this one I posted ages ago.) There is a span of the patterns where the stitches don't move, so I used that piece for the ribbing at the cuff, and also for the heel flap and for the toe. I think it looks pretty cool.

I named them Real Love socks partly because it takes some real love and dedication to make a 96-stitch circumference sock for size 10 feet, and also because I had John Lennon's song Real Love running around in my head while I was knitting them.


Funny side note: the current issue of Interweave Knits has a few twisted-stitch designs in there, and two of them use the same motifs as I did for these socks. Check out this one which uses the motif I have on the side of the leg, and this one which uses the double chain motif that I have beside it. Out of literally hundreds of stitch motifs in that book, we ended up with duplicates. Great minds think alike.

Getting My Groove Back

Last week I did some marathon knitting, and then felt it in my shoulder, after. I had to take a couple of days' hiatus to try to let the discomfort subside again. I think the cure was worse than the illness, in this case -- do you know how hard it is to just sit there and watch tv without knitting something?? How do the muggles do it? I had to keep distracting myself with books and online games and puzzles and chat... I got desperate enough after a couple of days that I convinced myself that crochet wouldn't bother my shoulder like knitting would, so I puttered away at a few more of the little sock yarn hexagons. In the last few days, I finally started to ease back into knitting (with plenty of breaks, of course.) I have managed to finish both fronts of the red cardigan -- only the sleeves are left before blocking it out for assembly, and they are thankfully cute little short sleeves.


I also finally finished off the first of the twisted stitch socks that I designed for myself. It worked out nicely, I think, and fits very comfortably. I used the same rib stitch that I unvented for the cuff to make the heel flap and the toe. I think it looks good, and certainly ties the various parts together. Now I just have to make the second...

Not Funny, God.

Seriously. Snow. On May 29th?? I feel my patience is really being tested, here.

Thankfully I have this spectacular Matcha Green Tea Latte, made with some hot vanilla almond milk and deliciously green matcha powder. Please take note of the sweet mug, which my HLM brought home for me from his recent trip. I've got him trained, I tell ya.


Also, I have this lovely little sock to keep me happy. I've been wanting to try my hand at pattern-designing, for a while, now. Lately I've been thinking a lot about socks, about shawls. When I went to my LYS the other day, to spend some birthday gift certificates, I intended to buy some sort of lace pattern book, but instead was charmed by one on Austrian twisted stitch knitting. Of course a sock is a perfect place to showcase this type of stitching, but in a manageable amount.

Basically I just went through the book and found a few different stitch patterns that I liked, which had the same repeat length (I didn't really want to go crazy trying to keep track of what row I was on, on every given pattern, after all) and lined them up next to each other in a way I found aesthetically pleasing. The one on the far right is going to be down each side of the leg, and the marquise shape will run down the center of the leg and foot. Bear in mind that this sock has 10 stitches to the inch in stockingette. Not exactly a quick knit. But don't you love it?? I am almost to the heel flap on this one, and then I get to change things up a bit for the gusset (and thankfully start knitting some stockingette for the sole. Phew.)