Conwy socks

Not that I need them right now, but I’m still happy to have finished my pair of socks.

This pattern is from Nancy Bush’s Knitting on the Road. I love her books, I’ve never been disappointed in any of them. (She has a new one coming out this fall, too, and I’ll be poised to order it as soon as it shows up.)

The yarn is the beautiful sock yarn I bought from Tess Yarn at MS&W in May. I love this yarn – it’s tightly spun for durability and it is also smooth and soft, and dyed in beautiful deep colors. I knitted these on a size 0 needle because the yarn seemed a tad finer than ordinary sock yarn.
I think I did something funny with my gauge between sock one and sock two, and I’m not sure how or why. The first sock was knitted more tightly than the second – this must be the reason for the odd color behavior on this sock.

Can you see how the striping goes whacko on the foot of the sock on the right in the picture above? (it’s on the left foot in the picture below…) All of a sudden, a huge puddle of blue on the instep.

The one with the ‘puddle’ is also a little tighter and required more repeats of the pattern to get the foot the right length. Go figure. I have no idea why this would have happened.

I used nearly all the yarn, there is just a small ball left, maybe 30 or 40 yards. I loved knitting with it and definitely plan to dive into that bin next year at MS&W.

I also finished the Noro cardigan, but I think I shall block it before taking photos. It didn’t turn out anything like I expected. I expected I was going to make a top-hip or slightly cropped cardigan to save yarn. I ended up with something that is tunic length. I had plenty of yarn and just couldn’t stop knitting! So I have to block it out and have a look to decide if I like it or not. Knitting mysteries.

What this means is that right now I have nothing on the needles except the silk from hell. I will probably make Emily a pair of socks, and when Sam is ready I’ll wind up my cormo and start our handspun knit-along. But I doubt I’ll be able to avoid starting something else too…

Comment from Emily yesterday while watching Patsy Zawistoski spinning on her single-treadle wheel in her spinning techniques video: “Look Mommy, it only has one thing, just like one of yours.” The child has noticed that I have one single-treadle wheel and one double-treadle wheel. Isn’t she brilliant?