Friday, July 29, 2005

Toe up and yarn squeezing.

So I caught a little startitis. I have no business starting anything else but I get excited when I see what everyone is knitting in blogland. I have been eyeing the most wonderful "go with the flow socks". I'm not sure what yarn I will be using yet, but I will make them. Take a look at Purly's. She is so clever knitting them toe up.
I can do this. Well, no I can't. But I went here and here and started a toe up sock, for practice.

I find myself hoarding yarn...like who does that? It sits in my stash, so precious to use, waiting for that project that is never worthy enough for it. So I grab an already wound ball of the luscious Koigu from the stash. I know...I have it...and have never used it! The horror of it all.
So here I am...toe up...


I must say that I am really liking this short row wrap stitch...much tighter for me than the YO wrap stitch. (It didn't take long to learn Aunt Joanne!)

This little toe up idea will solve many problems for me.
I always wonder if I will have enough yarn to do the pattern...will I only make it to the toe shaping and have to order another ball, match a dye lot, or just add a horrible colour for the toe?
So I start the yarn squeeze...squeeze the working yarn to see if you have enough. Every couple rows...squeeze it...then magically your hand calculates the yardage remaining....you know you do it. I can't be the only one. Well with toe up you will never wonder. You may have short socks, but there will be no yarn squeezing.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hehehe, that's really funny. I don't think I've squeezed, but I've unraveled and calculated yards remaining, weighed, and done other crazies :)l

Toni said...

Yeah, once I discovered toe-up, my sock life changed completely. I love being able to try them on as I go and, of course, not having to worry about running out of yarn. Ooh, and being able to custom-fit the toe.

Anonymous said...

Perfect. This is a great solution for Koigu because its always a guessing game on whether there will be enough yarn. I was doing the yarn squeeze thing on my last Koigu sock!

LisaB said...

Man I feel out of it. I have never even tried or felt the desire to knit socks. And it seems that everyone in knitting blog land are doing socks!!

Maybe I'll have to try it sometime, just to say I have. If I do, I will use the toe-up method!

Yours is looking great so far! I like the yarn.

Anonymous said...

I'm a compulsive squeezer!! I did just get a nice kitchen scale that has grams, so now I squeeze and weigh. Pretty soon I'll have turned into Grumperina.

The toe looks fabulous. That is some pretty Koigu!

Anonymous said...

Hello, I stumbled upon your blog today for the first time, I've had fun looking around. The toe-up thing is great, can't wait to try that! I'm trying to get into the sock craze, I love buying the sock yarn, but I'm not so good at actually knitting the socks!

Peggy said...

Toe-up is the only way to go. My favourite pattern (I don't use one anymore though) is Judy Gibson's generic sock pattern.

Keep posting pictures! I'm loving the colour too.

goodkarma said...

That Koigu is so pretty, I want to taste it. Raspberry? Blackberry?