Look! A finished object! Yea!

I finished the Spanish Lavender Basket Wave socks Saturday night. Yesterday they got a little bath and a block so they’d be in their finest form for pictures.

The Spanish lavender is past its first bloom right now and the day was gray and semi-icky. My honeysuckle is standing in for the lavender, just this once.

And, yes, the socks really are exactly the same size. There’s a little bit of optical illusion going on with how the socks draped across the branches. But the nice thing, you know, about knitting them both at once is that they both come out exactly the same. That and when you’re done, you’re done.

The yarn was wonderful to knit with and it’s very, very soft and… well… silky. It feels wonderful on my feet. I washed in my front-loader using the wool cycle and dried flat on a rack in my dryer. The results are marvelous. The ball band, however, says hand wash, do not machine dry. So do as it says and not as I do because your mileage may vary.

The fit is perfect. Almost. The only thing I might quibble with a bit is the toe. I really love the way that a star toe looks with the basket weave stitch. But very round, short toes don’t fit my feet very well. My toes are rather short, but my big toe is the longest, and wedge-shaped sock toes just nestle right down and make themselves at home. On this toe, I tried to make the shaping longer and more wedgie-like. It’s not long and wedgie enough. Close… but not quite. I might try again on another pair of socks, because I do like the look.

Here is a close-up of the basket weave pattern.

This was really a happy meeting of stitch pattern and colorway. I love how the pattern plays with the colors while the colors enhance the pattern. Ah… sometimes (very occasionally) I get it right.

There virtually no pooling except a sploosh of green/tan over the instep of one sock and a sploosh of raspberry/brown over the other. There’s an interesting sort of semi-striping going on — both the horizontal striping in the light/dark colors, and a vague, almost illusory browns vs. blues diagonal thing that I think is quite attractive.

I posted the stitch pattern in a comment awhile back, but just in case someone else wants it:

• multiples of 10 stitches
• Rows 1 – 4: *p6, k4, repeat from *
• Row 5: k all stitches
• Rows 6 – 9: *p1, k4, p5, repeat from *
• Row 10: k all stitches

The heels are knit in heel-stitch with garter borders to play up the whole basket weave theme. The heels look really cool in this stitch. I liked the heels so well that I considered using heel stitch on the cuff, too.

I was at Tangle on Saturday with a bunch of the usual suspects. A political discussion was in swing. Not that we’re an opinionated bunch or anything. I stopped the discussion, because I had a much more important question: Heel stitch or simple rib?

Because the lovely knitters hanging around on Saturday are knitters, the aforementioned political discussion was dropped like a DPN in a bus on an unimproved street and due consideration was given my query. The answer was unequivocally heel stitch. The DPN was located The previous discussion resumed without missing a beat.

Now, it can’t really be heel stitch on the cuff, I can hear you protest gentle reader. Heel stitch is basically stockinette, and stockinette curls like my hair in Houston (only much more predictably).

Ah, you are so perceptive!

It’s a dropped-stitch rib, which, being a rib, does not curl. It’s worked thusly (since I’m giving out stitch patterns today):

• any even number of stitches
• rnd 1: * sl 1, p1, repeat from * around
• rnd 2: *k1, p1, repeat from * around
• continue until long enough or you’re sick of doing it

Next up: One of the projects from the Side-Bar Of Shame. Clapotis #2 perhaps? It would be nice to finish that puppy. I really need to get cracking on the socks for my Sockapalooza pal, too. It looks like the yarn I wanted isn’t going to make it, so I think I’ll need to figure something else out. Soon. Really, really, soon.

P.S. Go over and check out my improvements to the Portland LYS page. I’m such a geek! 🙄

The particulars for the Spanish Lavender Basket Wave socks:

• Yarn: Blue Silkie Moon Socks That Rock (81% Superwash Merino, 19% Silk/ 360yds/3.5 oz per skein) in colorway Walking On The Wild Tide. I had some left over. This was the second Rockin’ Sock Club skein of the year. I did not knit the pattern provided. Sometimes I don’t follow directions well.
• Needles: Addi Lace 24″ circulars, US#1 (2.5mm)
• Pattern: my own standard sock pattern with a simple basket weave stitch pattern.
• Techniques used:
  • Knit toe-up, two at a time, on double circulars.
  • I used the Magic Cast On.
  • The heel flap is worked in heel stitch with garter borders.
  • I liked the way that the heel looked, so the cuff was worked in a slipped-stitch rib to resemble the heel.
  • Kitchener bind-off.