One Koigu Falling Leaves Done

After a shaky start one Falling Leaves sock is completed! I'm really pleased with the tight fit and the yarn. I've got to do several new techniques, the Magic Cast On, Short Row Heel, and the Rusian Purl Bind Off (not sure if there is a link to that, it was posted on the Townsend Knitalong). Looking forward to starting the second sock (when have you heard me say that!).

STR Hard Rock

This is what I've been working on. I wanted to do a Jaywalker like sock while avoiding some of the fit issues. I didn't want to have to switch needle sizes and just to be able to use the circs. So I tried a few different sock patterns and came up with this configuration. The sock is knit toe up with the Magic Cast On from Knitty. This cast on is great, looks just like it was kitchnered.















This is my second short row heel ever. I kept getting a few holes (bottom picture). So I did rip back and used Nothin' But Knit: Hole Free Short Rows and really worked hard on pulling the wraps tight and I got the (blurry pictured) hole free heel.

The only problem I'm having is the problem I thought I'd avoid, the socks are tight across the top of my foot near the ankle. I'm not sure why, the circumference of the sock is 60 stitches and I thought the added YOs would make up for the tighter then stocking stitch chevron pattern.

Can I just add too that this yarn is softer then butter? For some reason it seems like softer than normal STR or it could just feel that way because the other sock I'm working on is koigu.

New Knitty

WooHoo! The new issue of knitty is out and it is very sock intensive. Yea! One of my favorite Bloggers, Aija, has a pattern called RPM in there. In her pattern she even quotes The Smiths who were one of my all time favorite bands during the teen angst years - just for the record they were broken up by the time I was listening to them. I still like them and with little encouragement I can still belt out the words to most any of their songs. Anyway, check out sock prØn. if you enjoy looking at great pictures of socks and sock yarn. Oh yeah, and she does have a contest going right now but I'm not encouraging anyone to enter because I have my eye on the Tiny Toes! Ha. :)

Yardley

I haven't posted many greyhound photos lately so I'm rectifying that with these most recent. This is Yardley at her first ASFA trial. Here she is before running off for 1st place. Unfortunately she lost the run off to Val's Charis but we were very proud of her for running so well and were happy to see Charis win as she deserved it. There were 7 greyhounds entered. So both girls did great for their first trial.
Yardley has to have her morning coffee to give her that extra energy to run. Just kidding. Yardley never needs extra energy. The picture of her at the table in Phil and Cindi's trailer at the trial is pretty funny though. Really she loves to run and needs no encouragement or caffeine.
Next weekend she is entered in Canadian Kennel Club Lure Coursing and a Show! This should be interesting as she isn't really show trained! We better get to work on that. Will update on how she does.

Falling Leaves No longer Failing Leaves!

I really don't mean to be one of those people who ask for advice and then don't take it. I really was going to frog these socks when I thought they were going to be too big again. Then I showed them to a couple people who thought they looked a lot better in person then the photos (I know I'm not one of those bloggers who take great pictures. I have a cheapy digital camera. So rallied by this positive feed back and the fact that I'm really loving the yarn (again, much better in person) I pressed on. Lo and behold as I knitted more of the sock things started tightening up which makes sense as your foot gets wider the further away from the toes you go up. Now I know making statements like that might get me a reputation as some sort of sock knitting guru but please, these revelations just sometimes happen. :)


So all is finally well in the land of the Falling Leaves? Not quite. I did my first short row heel. Not bad, minimal holes and those double purl wraps are a bitch to pick up! But I guess I must have done too many of my first short rows (leaving only six of them). So I have a bit of extra sock in a little fold off the heel. When I had first done the heal and tried it on it seemed like it would stretch around and the extra bit wouldn't be a bother but as I went further I see it is going to keep puckering out there at the heel and I think that might annoy me. My plan is to go ahead and start the second sock and then probably redo the heel on this one.