Wednesday, September 19, 2007

Let's Do The Time Warp Again

Ok, I knew something strange was happening with post dates. Apparently Blogger is using the date a post is initiated rather than published for the date it uses. So much for being clever and working ahead of where the knitting has actually gotten to. I found it motivating a bit too so I will have to find a work around I think.

It's the 21st at 9PM now and I have one completed sock for the Summer of Socks 2007 which ends tonight at midnight. Sorry about the somewhat clashing colored pant leg. But trust me, that's better than the blinding white of my bare leg.


Pattern: Wendy's Sportweight Toe-up Gusset Heel Sock
Yarn: Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sport in Icehouse bought at The Loopy Ewe

In addition to the warping of space-time, there's something else very odd going on with these socks in the first three dimensions. The socks fit very nicely although they do seem to be a bit stretched in that ribbing I added. Still, the resultant fabric feels nice to me, and the socks are comfy on, and not difficult to get on either.

But, the maths don't seem to be in the right ball park. I was supposed to get 6.5 stitches/in and appear to have gotten closer to 8 stitches per inch. Yet the sock, which was supposed to end up at 8" with the 6.5 stitches/inch gauge, fits my 8.5" circumference foot just fine without any change is number of stitches. Also, the knitted sock contains only 36 grams of yarn according to my kitchen scale (which is probably supposed to be accurate to at least 2 grams) and there are 33 grams left in the yarn cake. Implying that at a minimum I could get a pair of anklets out of one skein of the Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sport. I'm going to see what I get with the second sock, but so far I can't help but think I've done something not quite right. It certainly seems like I should have used more yarn than that. Still, I seem to be able to get socks fairly fast this way as long as I spend my knitting time on them so I might have to try again once I get the second sock of this pair done.

Of course there's no way I'm gonna manage to get a second sock knit in the 3 hours remaining to me in the Summer of Socks. But since, the Summer of Socks rules say "end on September 21st (the autumn equinox)" while this site says that the Naval Observatory says that the Autumnal Equinox is actually on the 23rd at 1:51am my time, I'm gonna count the second sock in my own personal Summer of Socks if I manage to get done by 1:50am on 9/23. Which, now that I have discovered that spending time knitting on your sock makes it get longer, might actually happen. Ok, realistically, no it won't because I think it still took several hours to get half a sock done. And I would have to knit a whole sock in under 27 hours. And I know I have to sleep in there somewhere. But I'm still gonna work on it a bit along with the hat this weekend and see how far I can get.

Sadly the hat didn't even get a look-in I was too interested in my sock. The weather turned a bit cool this week and for the first couple of days it was "refreshing" but after that it was "why don't I have any nice warm socks!" and "where the heck did I pack away my winter pants?" The socks I'm working on. But the winter pants are still eluding me.

1 comment:

Sheepish Annie said...

I think you can change your post dates before you publish. I always change the time on mine to reflect when I uploaded as opposed to when I actually started writing. I don't know why...

The socks are looking good and I think you can define "summer" any way you want. Maybe you won't fit the rules of the game, but you can call them Summer Socks as far as I'm concerned. :)