I’ve knitted a new pair of socks and matching hand warmers for myself… aren’t they beautiful?
Yoshimi sent a handprinted sock blank to me for my birthday last year, and I got onto it straight away! I’ve never seen or even heard of a sock blank before, and was quite interested to give it a go… the sock blank looked like this:
and was knitted, I presume by Yoshimi on her knitting machine, in two strands of sock wool held together. And then painted. I started at the bottom, unravelling carefully as I went and knitted my socks from the toe up, because I wanted the red/pink section to be the cuffs of the socks…
The pattern I used was my regular Patons pattern, that has been modified, and then I have also reverse engineered to be a toe-up pattern. I think I will publish the latter one of these days.
You can’t tell just by looking, but the “foot” section of the socks got re-knitted about three times before I was completely satisfied. The problem with knitting toe-up is that it is very difficult to gauge what the length of the foot is going to be, at the point where you have to start increasing for the heel, and I got it wrong a few times. I figured I really wanted them to be perfect, so each time I realised it wasn’t going to be quite right, they got unravelled back to the start of the increases, yet again.
I also realised before too long that there was enough yarn in the blank that I thought? hoped? I was going to be able to get a pair of hand warmers out of them too… and there was! I put the socks onto a length of waste yarn, without casting them off until I knew what was what… and started knitting the hand warmers from the other end, and finished in the red/pink section so they could have a red/pink cuff to match the socks nicely. I also carefully measured how much I needed to cast off, so I could stop in just the right spot. I’m proud to say there was a bare few 10cm leftover after I’d cast off!
I’m SO happy with how these turned out! The hand-dyed yarn is such a pretty range of colours! Thank you to my dear friend Yoshimi for such a lovely thoughtful gift!
That is a great set. I love knitting.
Spectacular! Your friend Yoshimi knew you’d take the time to turn her gift of love into something worthy.
What a kick it is to wear the heart she gave you, hidden in plain sight on your feet and hands. It’s just the kind of hidden layer in the garment’s story that makes these projects fun.
Happy Easter.
Wow! Have never heard of “sock blanks,” but what a marvelous idea.
I start my socks with a provisional cast on, right at the top of the foot. Thus I can knit the foot from the top down, to assure I have enough yarn to finish the foot — and to get the length of the foot correct. Then, after grafting the toe shut, I pick up the provisional stitches and knit to the top of the leg; however far the remaining yarn takes me.
I also like to set up both socks at the same time; and knit on one for a while, then on the other, to match. Easy enough to do on either two sets of DPs, or on a Magic Loop.
Happy knitting, and happy Easter!