Thursday, January 03, 2008

Snow & socks

The warm weather we've had over Christmas has passed & this morning we woke up to this:

light dusting of snow
Snowy view of the garden from our bedroom window


It doesn't snow much in England anymore so just a few flakes of snow tend to send the whole country into chaos. The dogs enjoyed a brief bounce this morning & Annie in particular really enjoys snow.

The owl socks are progressing & this morning looked like this:

socks two at once
Start of owl walking socks


The pattern is simple but looks quite effective:

Broad Spiral Ribbing pattern
Broad Spiral Ribbing pattern


I searched for a pattern that wouldn't clash with the stripes & think I've found it.

Arianwen asked about the sizing of the patterns in the Schurch books. Basically you need to knit a guage swatch & multiple the number of stitches per inch by the measurement in inches of the widest part of across the ball of the foot. So for example my MIL's feet are 9" wide. I've got 8 spi with the Owl using 2.75mm needles so have cast on 9 x 8 = 72 stitches. They'll fit her perfectly & I'll make the foot long enough to fit her.

For the children's bedsocks I chose patterns needed a few extra stitches than the above formula gave me & made them at least an extra 1cm longer in the foot for comfort in bed & also so that they last longer than 3 months.

So after that brief insight into how I make socks I'll leave you with a cute photo:

black & white kitten playing
Ginny playing

1 comment:

Nic said...

LMAO at the snow picture. Honestly!! I was working on Thursday, got up and when I opened the curtains, expected there to be a snow drift outside the window from the way the traffic woman was going on but there was about as much as in your garden. Driving to work she was still going on about it and that it was really bad in Lincolnshire.....hang on, I'm in Lincolnshire. Is that the bad snow??? The countries drivers should be embarrassed if they can't make it through a centimetre( if that!) of snow