Happy New Year: In Which Count Sockula Goes Giant

Greetings, my fellow fiber fashioners. 

Long time no yarn.   A combo of perfectionism and a thing called Sandy has kept the Count from blogging.  But now Count Sockula returns, after a fashion.

With something of a caveman thing.

Count Sockula has been studying The Art of Black-Belt Tightwaddery and Cheapskate-ism.  Not to mention De-Clutterfying!  Come on, tell me that's not scary.

I've been doing a lof of 'sloshing.' That is to say, moving things from one location to another, and sometimes the result is Temporarily Mess-tacular. 

 So, as a result, Count Sockula had some yarn culled for giveaway: a smallish bag full of random balls and scraps, and even an already-started project.

One day I was de-clutter-inating the all-purpose room and felt the need for background entertainment.  So I put in an Annie's Attic crochet video.  The setting was so beautiful (a grand old Victorian house) and the basket-intensive storage so appealing that I reclaimed the poor sad abandoned project and yarn, and grabbed a Q-hook.  This is something resembling a plastic broomstick.  The only larger commercially-available hook is the mighty and terrifying S-hook.

 

Count Sockula hastily retrieved the abandoned project and studied it.  There were already about a dozen rounds executed in Bernat Mosaic yarn (the Psychedelic colorway, which is a rainbow of muted jewel tones).  

The nearly-abandoned square was already about a foot in diameter and done in one of my favorite patterns.  I call it The Guatemalan Square.  There is no reason for the name.

ThenGuatemalan Square is worked  from the center out, like a granny square, but instead of double crochet clusters and chain  spaces, you work a single crochet, chain one.  For the corners, sc, ch2, sc.  (Sometimes I chain 3 instead.  Doesn't really matter all that much. ) Work corners in corners and the sc-ch 1 in the ch-1 spaces of the previous round.

And that's all.  Mindless crafty fun.  Just keep going until you run out of yarn or get sick of it.

I kept adding in balls and scraps of this and that, trying to harmonize with the dusty-rainbow colors of the original.

It's a lapghan.  It's a shawl.  Stop!  You're both right...

Also a shapghan?  A scrapghan... or a scrawl?

A product of black-belt tightwaddism.  Warm, soft, drapey.  Works up like lightning.

Quick.  They don't call it the Q-hook fer nothin.

Coming some day:  Superhero Fountain Pens!  Until next time.  Muahaha.

Method not Pattern: In Which Count Sockula Drops Back And Punts

Gather round the fire, my children, while I recount the horrrrifyyyinnng tale of….
　
Oh, skip it.
　
Do you like to experiment with different kinds of sock heels and toes? Me, too. I’ve gotten to the point where I don’t even have to think when knitting the double-wrap garter stitch heel, my fave. If I were to attempt a conventional flap heel I would HAVE TO LOOK AT A PATTERN.
　
The horror.
　
For patterns are to Count Sockula as sunlight is to a vampire. Once you know basic sock construction, and have played with different cuffs, heels and toes, you can just make it up as you go along.
　
Be that as it may, I will do anything to avoid having to pick up wraps, but if you don’t do something, you create the dreaded and ugly GAP. One pickless-upless method is the aforementioned garter stitch heel. You wrap twice, pick up no times.
　
Another such is the Japanese Pick method. The ‘pick’ here doesn’t mean picking up a wrap. There are no wraps. You pick up an extra stitch to close the gap, then knit it together with another stitch.
　
Do you have trouble with the Japanese Pick Heel?
　
No? So it’s just me, then. Figures.
　
Count Sockula recently attempted a JPH without looking up any reference at all, only a vague memory to guide me. Naturally. The heel just kept going and going and going, and finally I had enough and just finished it off any old how. It didn’t look good, but it was finished.
　
Then I did what I should have in the first place and LOOKED IT ALL UP. Doing so, I saw a very nice picture of an extremely colorful sock with a JPH and what appeared to be thousands of teeny gold safety pins hanging off every edge of the heel.
　
That’s a lot of pins.
　
The theory is, you use the pins to pick up an extra loop of yarn, which you then knit together with a loop already on your needles to close the gap. Then I read you can do the JPH without safety pins and just snag an extra loop with your knitting needle. Like you would any other make-a-stitch thingie.
　
I also found out you’re supposed to slip the first stitch. Which I forgot.
　
All this just to avoid wraps and pickups!
　
Then, since these were top-downs, I ended with a star toe. I just decreased evenly all around (the work was on four needles, knit with a fifth) and then cinched the remaining stitches off. It came out looking much better than the heel. So there.
　
Sock: Sort of anklet-y thingie
Yarn: Red Heart scraps
Stitches: 32
Needles: Big pink plastic comfort-y things in size 8
Cuff: Messed up. Started with 3x3 rib, switched to 1X1, then 2x2. Don’t even know what I ended up with.
Method: Top-down, trying two different heels and star toe.

Sad day in Sockopolis: In which Count Sockula feels like a total heel

For some time now, Count Sockula has been wondering about different sock heel styles.

The conventional heel-flap-turn-then-gusset type produces the best results.  Nice and crisp, 90-degree turn, with plenty of room for your actual heel to fit.

But sometimes it is just so dreary picking up and then decreasing those gusset stitches.

What to do?

Enter the various other heel types: Lifestyle Toe-up.  Fleegle.  Afterthought.  

Now, a foray into Count Sockula's favorite Red Heart yarn to try out two different kinds of heels on one pair of socks, both done from the toe up. 

The results?  Two sad, much-frogged socks that are finally, finally finished. 

First, we started with far too many stitches.  It was going to be a clown sock.  Frog one.

Second, we underestimated the number of cast-on stitches for the toe-up beginning.  Frog two.   

Finally, on to the socks.  At last (using #8 needles, both metal circulars and wooden double-points) they reached completion.  Usually that event makes Count Sockula happy.   Not this time.

Behold!  The top-sock heel doesn't.  Even.  Look.  Like.  A.  Heel.

It's just a pathetic little nubbin of a heel, a mere bump lying there flat and exhausted, piteously muttering, "Look at me...  I stand as a disgrace to your knitting skills!"

Don't know why.  The numbers work out.  The heel just never looks like a heel.

See?  From a different angle---this time the offending heel on the right:

The first heel, an Afterthought heel, at least LOOKS like a heel.  And the Afterthought heel has that circus come-on of seeming easy.  You just knit over a piece of placeholder yarn, then come back in when the sock's done to reactivate the 'held' stitches and finish that heel!  Wheee!  Nothing to it!   Done it successfully with baby socks! 

The problem is, for an adult, the Afterthought Heel foot always ends up too long.  Even when you take into account the fact that an Afterthought heel produces a longer foot and adjust your measurements accordingly. 

This particular Afterthought heel sock had to have its toe picked apart and shortened by two inches.  Frog three, and out.

I like the bull's-eye look of an Afterthought heel, especially with self-stripery yarn.   Hate the tedious picking up of stitches and the invariable gusset holes.

But at least the Afterthought is simple and needs no pattern.  You basically pick up the held stitches and make a toe where your heel should be.  That's right, a toe.  Doesn't make sense to put a toe where the heel should be, but that's how it is.


These socks took waaaay tooooo long to finish, because by the time Count Sockula was on the leg part, it was like rolling a boulder uphill.  A giant boulder made of boring, much-frogged sock particles.


At least I liked the colorway (Latte).


After all that sturm and drang, Count Sockula gratefully returned to conventional heelage.   This scrappy little pair is the result:

Nice, right-angle heels.   The way they should be.  Maybe picking up gusset stitches isn't such a bad thing.