Tag Archives: Patons Knitting Book C11

How much do my feet hate me right now?  So much, and why? oh let’s not get onto the weather again…
Which brings me to this, I apologise for all the whinging yesterday.  I always promised myself I wouldn’t whinge about stuff on this blog, and what did I do yesterday?  Whinge.  About the weather, no less!  Sooo trivial… sorry.  A girl is entitled to an off day every once in a while, hm?

There has to be an upside to spending hours and hours in cramped transportation going halfway around the globe, right?  (Well, apart from the obvious one of ending up in some glorious exotic destination, such as Japan, natch!)
Now the airlines have seen common sense and allowed knitting needles back into the plane (only some types, mind you) one can be supremely productive whilst travelling.  During our recent travel time I completed one whole pair of socks, and one and a bit socks of a second pair also.  Yowza!!
I’m sure some of my fellow travellers looked on in amusement at the whacky lady knitting with thin thin yarn on weird skinny little needles… but hey, at least I wasn’t wasting my time watching inane movies, or heaven forbid sleeping, or some other such unproductive activity, yeah…  I got something done!
Every time I put up my latest pair of socks here I’m sure to get comments expressing thinly veiled incredulity that I can be bothered knitting socks, which are so cheap and readily available commercially, and so (relatively) expensive and time-consuming to produce oneself…  Well I can’t explain my passion either.  I just love knitting socks, it is really my preferred knitting project above all others…  
If you had met me five years ago, and told me I would be knitting socks, five-year-ago me would have firmly denied I would ever get mired in such silliness… well fast-track forward said five years and here I am.  When I first saw my mother knitting socks (truly thank you, Mum, for passing on that particular virus) I was a little incredulous and disbelieving myself.  Feeling a bit of an idiot, I decided to give it a go and visited the yarn shop.  The lady in the shop told me I would get addicted, and I half didn’t believe her…  But now I too am thoroughly hooked…  All I can say is that you have to try it to get it.  It is such a very satisfying pastime.  A very easy project, mindless even… which is the kind of knitting I actually like to do.  I can very easily carry on conversations and watch (not very complex) movies at the same time as producing a pair of yummy handknit merino socks of a quality you never see in the shops.  Socks are loads quicker than a jumper or cardigan, and feel a more worthwhile project than a scarf…  And since I have big feet, I can make the socks to fit me… not a couple of inches too short, which is usually the case with store-bought.
So, in my book, it is well worth it.
Re knitting on planes: I checked with the airlines first, as I didn’t want my needles confiscated.  The short skinny double-ended ones used in sock-knitting are OK on the airlines we used.  To further ensure they would be OK, I went out and bought some new bamboo ones, just in case some overly sensitive official got funny about my metal ones… and no one was concerned.  The guidlelines I was given were; nothing bigger or thicker than a ballpoint pen.  One of my new bamboo needles snapped (my bad!) but luckily the packet I bought had included an extra, so I didn’t have to cease knitting!
I took this photo above in our apartment in Hirafu, Hokkaido.  Now, in looking at this photo I’m sure you’re all wondering what is the view out of the window casting that light from stage right, right?  Yes, I’m sure!  I’ll satisfy your curiosity; here it is below, Mt Yotei: (sigh, missing that view already…)

Details:
Socks; made using Morris Superwash Merino 4 ply in Rainstorm (col 420) and Beluga (col 430), using a pattern adapted from the Ladies Sockettes from Patons Knitting book C11, a circa 1960’s publication

So, new sockies.
How warm and cosy they look here in this photo. This wool colour is called Russet, an evocative name, prompting an immediate image association thing in my head involving apples and open fires and toast and autumn leaves and blankets and mulled wine…  I’m sure as autumn and winter roll around I will be grateful for the suggestive connotations of this wonderful word, but today being 37C (99F) my feet complained petulantly about being stuffed into warm woolly socks for their photo shoot and threatened a walk-out strike.  They could only be co-erced into a short modelling session on promise of a good long soak in the pool afterwards.
Ha.  So I’m not feeling hugely eloquent today.  Brain a bit sapped and zapped by this heat.  It’s too early for this sort of heat.  I’m not ready for summer.  Not yet.  I need a bit more spring.  We need more spring.  More fresh breezes and more rain, please.  Especially lots of rain.  Not this stupefying heat and fierce hot winds.  Perfect bushfire weather, of course.
I hung out a few loads of washing this morning, early, and an hour later all was bone dry and crackly warm.  So I brought in the washing again at about 9am.  Folded all and put it away.  The latter normally an afternoon activity.

Details:
Socks; Adaption of the Ladies’ Sockettes from Patons Knitting Book C11, Morris 4ply Merino in Russet (col 411) and Beluga (col 430)

G’day, and here’s wishing everyone a totally maaaarvellous Wednesday!
Hey, new pair of bobby socks (yay).  These look identical to the previous white cotton socks I put up here, but they are very slightly different.  I appreciate not different to the casual observer, probably not even the astute observer, so I will explain.  The rib section is about 50% longer and there is no stocking stitch spacer before starting to shape the heel.  Yah, teensy variation, I did give warning.  I think I like the other one better, only because I find rib a bit of a drag.  In fact all-round with regard to these socks, my verdict is that knitting with cotton is a drag, full stop.  I prefer wool a hundred times over.  Knitting up cotton is tiring, one’s hand muscles soon ache due to the lack of stretch in the yarn.  Hmmm.  Committed as I am to producing as much of my wardrobe as possible including sockies, knitting these white cotton numbers feels…  dutiful, as opposed to vaguely luxurious, which is how I feel when I’m working through a particularly yummy coloured ball of wool.  Yowzer, do I even have time for this craziness?  Sadly it seems I do…
In summary: quick to produce, bread-and-butter basics, no fun factor.

Details:
Ankle socks; adapted from the Ladies sockettes in Paton’s knitting book C11 (a circa 1960’s publication), knitted in Rowan cotton glace 100% cotton, shade 726

Finished some new socks!  These are the first out of the sock wool I bought in Melbourne.  This is the own brand produced by the store (now how often do you come across that nowadays, hmmm?) Morris and sons, 100% Australian merino 4-ply.  I ended up buying about eight balls of different autumn-al shades because they were just irresistible, like little warm fluffy balls of autumn.  Just my colours…
These are primarily in Glazed Ginger, or colour 410, but let’s face it naming a colour with a number is sterile and boring and completely un-evocative of anything.  I like a little daydreaming with my wool purchases, thankyou.
The biggest concern when knitting socks is how to evenly halve the wool to go between the two socks.  So these were kind of an experiment to see how much “sock” goes into one ball.  I worried one ball might not be enough for the two socks, so I knitted the heels in a bit of another colour.  This one Beluga, another wonderful name bringing to my mind that Bond movie scene where Valentin gets dunked in his own vat of caviar and comes out blackly oily and dripping in expensive sludge…  hehe… Or, if you prefer, colour 430.  Obviously, the toes got finished off in this colour too.  So these socks will provide a measure for how long to knit the other socks, using this Morris sock wool. 
And for this photo-shoot, Zoe contented herself with watching from the sidelines…

Details:
Socks; adapted from the Ladies’ Sockettes, Patons knitting book C11 (circa 1960-ish), Morris 100% merino in Glazed Ginger and Beluga