How do I know? Because I used them as a backdrop for my latest Finished Object!

Entrelac Socks

Pattern: Entrelac Socks by Eunny Jang. Pattern found in the Spring 2007 issue of Interweave Knits.

Yarn: Dale Baby Ull (less than 1 skein for the contrasting color, slightly over 1 skein for the main color)

Needles: Size 1 addi turbos

Knit: 3/16-4/23/2007

Mods: I didn’t make them knee high obviously. Instead of the written cuff, I used a K1, P1 rib for 8 rows at the top of the cuff with a sewn bindoff. I used my memorized short row pattern for the heels after the pattern instructions didn’t work out very well. Despite warnings by the designer to the contrary, I slipped the first stitch on the sides of each block that get picked up later and didn’t have a problem with the amount of give in the fabric. I also taught myself how to knit backwards to eliminate the need for constant turning.

Whew! I made it! There were points during this pattern where I really didn’t think I was going to make a *pair* of socks, but I managed. This was my first attempt at Entrelac and while I’m very glad I learned the technique, I can’t say I’m as in love with it as other people I know. It’s interesting, and I like the effect, but I don’t think I’ll be doing it again right away. I definitely saw a lot of improvement in my technique between the first and second sock. I was more confident about how to carry the color that wasn’t being used up a block to put it in the right place in the next round the second time through the pattern. I think my pattern stitches were neater too. I also understood the cast on for the toe much better the second time through, and I may just try using it again for a different pair of socks down the line. I think that was the one thing I really like the best about the pattern, the toe.

As I said above, the directions for the short row heel as written in the pattern were confusing for me and it seemed to work out better when I did the short row pattern I already knew. It was easy enough to throw it in without doing any major calculations.

I still can’t quite get over the Entrelac being part of the sole of the sock. I suppose it would have taken a major amount of work to figure out how to do it without that being the case, so I understand why it’s there. I’m just still not totally convinced that this is going to be comfortable for me. I’ve been wearing these around the house a bit and I do feel the extra lumpyness, but it isn’t bothersome. I’m not sure that this will remain the case when I put them in shoes though.

Overall, I’m happy with how they turned out, but I’m glad to be moving on to other things. Like getting some more socks off the needles!

It was a busy but nice weekend in my world. On Saturday I had to go into work for a few hours in the morning to make up for my day off thanks to the great flood of ’07, so I took a few pictures of all the blooming trees in our area on my way:

At the train station

At our apartment complex

On the way to the train

HWJF and I have a theory. You see, there was so much water that the trees drank so much that they got *really* drunk. And now they are throwing up, only when a tree barfs, it comes out as flowers! Yes. Well. Perhaps we are not exactly mentally stable. Moving on…

Since I was done with work by noon I decided to take a trip down to Purl in Soho. It’s rare that I actually get to do anything fun in NYC, so I take my chances when I can. It was a nice store, with a very small but very well stocked storefront. I fondled some of the softest cashmere ever, but at $40 a skein managed to put it back on the shelf. I also resisted the wall o’ koigu and came out having only purchased one of the new addi lace needles (Maryland is in two weeks, I’m on a budget!). On first inspection they really don’t appear all that much more pointy then the old ones, but the chord does seem a lot more flexible. I’ll be sure to tell you more when I finally get to use them.

When I got home, HWJF managed to get out of work early so we could go make some spring purchases:

I haven’t lived in one place long enough to make this kind of investment in years, but seeing as we’ll be in NJ for at least another year, the time was right for making a container garden on our balcony. Obviously we went with two railing containers. The first is for edibles and has peppermint, lettuce and basil in it with a few marigolds thrown in for fun:

The second is for flowers and contains mini impatiens, dahlias, a begonia and more marigolds (can you tell I like marigolds?).

There were a few leftovers:

We plan on finding a big pot for these. Maybe we should have gotten this one that we saw at one of the garden centers:

A tea pot flower pot! Genius! I happen to love tea pots too.

We also got one other food plant:

I sure hope this guy grows up to give us some fresh tomatoes!

Finally, for the first time since we moved in, we had dinner out on the deck:

Gotta love the self portrait with the glowing red eyes!

By the time we were really moved in last year, it was way too hot to be able to enjoy it out there. I think this year, we might do this more, especially now that we have some nice plants to admire! Or at least I hope we will all summer. Besides knowing how to plant something, I seriously have no clue when it comes to gardening. I’m sure that probably shows in the pics.

On the crafting front I spent Sunday teaching crochet, trying to finish a sock and plying up some new yarn. The teaching was exhausting, but a lot of fun. The socks didn’t quite make it and the yarn is drying. Thanks again to all of you that weighed in on the plying situation, even if it was just to offer encouragement! I always appreciate the conversation that goes on here between us. It’s very inspiring.

Hopefully there will be more fiber-related content next time. Until then, enjoy the beautiful weather if you can!

Holy cow has the rain been coming down around here. This was the “pond” behind my apartment on Sunday afternoon:

It just keeps getting worse. Only one living thing seemed to be enjoying the storm:

I guess if I was a duck, I would too! This whole thing makes me rather glad I live on the second floor of my building. As long as the roof holds, we should stay dry. I’m actually at home today because of all this weather we’ve been having. There’s a state of emergency in NJ and despite trying four different ways, we couldn’t even GET to the train station this morning because all the roads were closed.

I had to work on Saturday (and it looks like I’m going to have to work again this Saturday too) but I’ve been getting some good progress done on my socks lately. I finished up the first entrelac sock this week:

I haven’t cast on for the next one yet. I’ve been debating not making the second one and just saying it was a good experience and I learned a new technique. But it does fit, and it is kind of interesting, so maybe I’ll just suck it up and finish the pair.

I’ve also been hard at work on the argyles. I got some good time in on them when we went to NY for Easter since HWJF was nice enough to drive. I finally finished the colorwork and it was on to the heel and gussets. The construction on these after the colorwork is over is interesting. The cuff is knit flat, but part of the colorwork goes onto the instep, so you eventually put a certain number of outside edge stitches on holders that end up being the heel stitches. When you go back to knit the heel flap, you put those stitches on the needle so that the edges become the center. It looks like this:

Sorry for the cruddy pictures of the argyles. I kept forgetting to take pictures and I figured I better get a phone pic before it was too late.

The heel flap is knit and then the heel is turned just like any other top down sock from that point. The next weird thing is that the gussets are knit flat too! After the heel is turned, you break the yarn and rejoin it along the side of the heel flap picking up the gusset stitches, knitting across the heel and then picking up the stitches on the other side. You then reduce stitches just as you normally would until the gussets are done. Now that you have the same number of stitches as the held instep stitches, you join everything into the round and begin to knit the foot. That leaves you with a couple of big holes to sew up later:

Weird huh? It takes a little bit to get my brain around all this, but I think it’s working out pretty well so far. In fact, the first sock is done and the second is started, so I might actually have a finished pair soon. That would certainly be good considering I have *gulp* four pairs of socks going right now. And I wonder why I don’t have any more size 1 needles……..

Before I forget for the billionth time – I’ll be teaching a “Crochet for Knitters” class at Woolbearers starting this weekend for anyone local that might be interested. You’ll learn the basic crochet stitches and how to use them with your knitted objects to make seams or a decorative border. Go here to find out more! [Advertisement over, on with the post!] 

Apparently it was me who said Entrelac almost four weeks ago and hasn’t fessed up to it here yet! I even joined the knitalong, but I’ve been a very bad participant so far.

Around the same time I started my adventures in Argyle, the new Interweave Knits came out and I just couldn’t seem to resist the call of the entrelac socks by Eunny Jang. I’d never tried this technique, although I’d heard a lot about it. Woolbearers has a very popular class where the project is an entrelac bag so I’ve seen several wonderful examples there. They also had an entrelac sock class offered recently which really caught my attention. The last thing I need is another felted bag in my life, but there are never enough socks! So when this pattern presented itself, I dug out some Dale Baby Ull in contrasting colors from the stash and went to work.

After a bit of a struggle with the Turkish cast on, I completed the toe and started the entrelac. I quickly remembered that when several people were knitting the Lady Elenor shawl at my SnB, Dawn had mentioned learning to knit backwards helped eliminate a lot of turning of the work. I quickly discovered that this was something I was going to want to learn if I was actually going to get anywhere with this project, because all the turning was making me real crazy real fast (of course some might say that’s a short trip for me )!

After a little googling and looking through a few sites, I found this great article on Knitty. It was kind of a “duh” moment once I finally understood what was happening. Thank goodness there are people out there smarter than I am to figure this stuff out for me! I picked up the technique fairly quickly and was on my way. Here’s my progress so far:

There are some really, for lack of a better word, *weird* things about this pattern.

1. The entrelac pattern goes all the way around the foot, including the sole of the foot. Considering the decreases and picked up stitches, this makes for a rather bumpy sole. I’m not exactly convinced that this is going to be comfortable.

2. The pattern calls for a short row heel. This, in and of itself, is not exactly weird. What I found weird was that following the directions as written gave me a lot of holes. I normally do short row toes and don’t have any problems, so I found this a bit odd. I wonder if that was because the instructions don’t have you pick up both wraps when you are back to the increasing side? I disliked it so much as written that I took it out and did my usual short row pattern and ended up with less holes, but they weren’t all gone. Perhaps it’s the yarn?

3. There doesn’t seem to be any way to make the decreased stitches look *neat*. Here’s a closeup of the stitches on my foot:

You can’t tell as much because of the sock being filled out by my gigantic foot, but the contrasting yarn always shows through on the decreases and it is just plain messy looking. Maybe I’m the only one this bothers, but it sure does explain why there aren’t any close-up shots of the socks in the magazine.

I’m also very surprised that these actually fit me. I’m doing them on size 1s and I’m either knitting very loosely or the yarn has a lot more give than I thought because I’m having no problems with fit, even after the heel issues and having knit a few tiers after the heel. Several people in the knitalong have experienced problems with them being too tight.

While I’m enjoying knitting these and I’m glad to have learned the new techniques, you won’t be seeing these as kneehighs here. I’m just not a kneehigh kind of girl I guess. Either that, or I don’t really want to know how big my calves are!