Why I Knit Socks

Actually, I’m a beginner sock knitter, so even I don’t know the answer to that question yet. All I know is that I have been learning for a year now, and there is still so much to learn. I am on the quest for a perfect sock.

First of all, why knit socks?
1. They’re portable. It is easy to take a small project with you anywhere to knit while you are waiting at an office, or riding public transportation, or having coffee somewhere.
2. They’re great for testing out new stitch patterns or techniques. Why knit up a test swatch that you have no use for, or why knit up a whole sweater in a pattern when just practicing a few repeats is satisfying enough? Furthermore, there are so many interesting techniques that are used in sock construction that you will never run out of things to learn.
3. They make you look like an awesome knitter. Anything made with fine yarn on small needles just ends up looking more polished, no matter what.
4. Heels and toes are so much fun to make.
5. The yarn, oh, my, the yarn. There is so much beautiful handspun or handpainted yarn out there. It’s usually too expensive to buy the whole amount needed for a large project, but you can splurge on one skein and enjoy a luxurious fiber and miraculous colours.
6. You can play with colour. Watching the colours combine as you knit is absolutely mesmerizing, and the colours themselves are not as overwhelming as they would be if you made a large project. Highly variegated yarn doesn’t tend to look good in a sweater.
6. Handmade socks just fit better and feel better than store-bought socks. It’s a party for your feet.

(Most of these reasons are also why I like making dishcloths and lace shawls/scarves, as well.)

Socks are like sweaters. A pair of socks can have as many stitches as a sweater, and there are just as many techniques that you can use to create them. They aren’t exactly difficult to knit, but they are complex. Just look at the information available online. Out of the thousands of knitting blogs, hundreds of them are devoted to knitting socks. There are several people who have made a career out of developing sock techniques and writing patterns. To name just a few of the famous ones: Cookie A., Wendy Johnson, Ann Budd, Cat Bordhi, Charlene Schurch, and Nancy Bush. Search for socks on Ravelry, and you get 6,828 matches (as of today), 2,471 of them for free. Go to Amazon and you can find over a thousand books when you search “knit socks”. Then there’s the stuff on You Tube. Knitting socks itself has become its own culture within knitting culture.

You can knit cuff down, toe up, or side to side. You can knit them on DPN’s, magic loop, or two circulars. You can knit them individually, or two at a time. There are dozens of different ways each for cast-ons, toes, heels, and bind-offs. (Over time, I will try to collect information on these and post lists). And even after that, there are actually infinite patterns you can use for the instep and the cuff…..

So, what am I looking for in a sock?

I like to knit them magic loop. I personally think that it’s silly to spend hundreds of dollars for different forms of needles (straight, DPN’s, sock DPN’s, circulars in several different lengths), when one cheap bamboo circular needle in one length, used magic loop style will allow you to do everything you need to do. More money for yarn. 🙂

Also, I am extremely frugal about yarn. If I can manage to knit one pair of socks out of one ball of yarn, I will. At the same time, I don’t like wasting my time doing a gauge swatch (I know, don’t tell me, it’s not a waste of time…I know all the arguments….but if I can arrange things so it’s not necessary, I will.) Ergo, toe up is the way for me. You can knit until the very last few feet of yarn without having to rip anything back, and you can try them on as you go to get the right fit without having to calculate very much before you start.

I mentioned in my two previous posts which cast on I have decided to be the best for me, and which basic increases I like for the toes.

I still haven’t completely decided what kind of heel I like (I’m still experimenting), but I do know that a full short-row heel doesn’t fit as well as I would like, so I’m sure I will end up choosing some sort of heel flap. There are many different ways to do a heel flap, but I am also pretty sure that I don’t like the kind where you have to pick up stitches. So far there is one good heel flap that uses some short-row shaping to turn the heel, but I would like to find a heel flap that doesn’t even use short rows. Does that even exist?

Ah, the quest for a perfect sock…

World Wide Knit in Public Day

World Wide Knit in Public Day site

There is no event listed yet for Seoul, but I’m really interested in getting something started!

From the website:

WWKiP Day is really about showing the general public that knitting can be a community activity in a very distinct way. In some places there are many different knitting groups that never interact with each other, on WWKiP Day they come together in one place, making them hard to miss.

2005 there were about 25 local events around the world. In 2006 there were about 70 local events. 2007 there were almost 200.

Over the years there have been local events in Australia, China, England, Finland, France, Ireland, Norway, South Africa, Sweden, United States, and so many more countries.

WWKiP Day takes place on the second Saturday of June each year.

Increases for socks

These are my favourite increases for sock toes and gussets:

M1L/M1R and
KLL/KRL

See this article for videos, and a few other types of increases.

For Baudelaire, my toe increases are as follows:

R1: [k1, KRL, knit across, KLL, k1]x2
R2: Knit

Knit without increasing until the narrowest part of the sole. Then start the gusset.

For the gusset, my increases are as follows:

Odd rows: Knit
Even rows: Knit instep pattern as established, KRL, knit across, KLL.

For example:

Circumference: 60 (64, 68) stitches
Top of foot: 30 (32, 34) stitches
Bottom of foot: 54 (56, 58) stitches, after the gusset increases

Magic Cast-On

How to do a Magic Cast-On for toe-up socks

Here is an article from Knitty, with photos:

http://knitty.com/ISSUEspring06/FEATmagiccaston.html

And here is a YouTube video. Even though it is blurry, it is the best video I can find.

Why I Knit

I learned to knit, like a lot of girls, when I was about 10, from my Nan (I love my Nan). I didn’t do much with it at the time, but then picked it up again when I was in high school and knit this big ol’ striped blanket using a pattern another knitting friend gave to me. My ex-fiance still has that blanket. Then university got in the way and I didn’t knit again until just after I got to Korea. There was this Roots blanket that looked like a work sock, which I had seen at Sears for some exhorbitant sum, and I thought, as all knitters/crafters do, “Hey, I could make that cheaper!”

So I went to the awesome wholesale yarn market at Dongdaemoon and bought a ton of cotton for 40 bucks and went to town. Though, being an inexperienced knitter, I didn’t realize that the cotton was pretty much laceweight and, by choosing to knit it in a 3×3 rib, how much it would expand to, and cast on way too many stitches. Eight years and just over a quarter of a million stitches later, the darn thing is still on the needles. Only about 15,000 stitches to go, and it will be done! And it shall be the coolest and most idiotic thing I have ever made.

But I wasn’t working on it constantly for eight years. I think I didn’t even look at it for three years at one point, so even though I had something on the needles, I can’t really say I was really into knitting all that time. But the desire to craft was percolating in the back of my brain somewhere, and then, without much warning, last year, something snapped as I walked past the little knit shop in the subway station near where I was working–there was a big table full of bins of cheap and colourful acrylic (green! green yarn! the colour of grass in the spring!)–and I walked away with a huge bag of rainbow colours and a crochet hook. I came home and taught myself to crochet that weekend and went to work on another blanket (hey, they’re square and you don’t have to fiddle with things like sleeves and collars and buttonholes…). Then another, with the leftover scraps, then another, and then yet another. I kept waiting for the thrill to wear off and for this to turn into one of those temporary obsessions that peter out after the first little while, but it didn’t happen.

Then I was in Canada, hanging out with family for the whole winter. I scoured Value Villages all over Toronto for bags of unused yarn and sweaters to unravel for yarn; I went to Michael’s and Walmart for cheap yarn, and I even got a chance to go to a real (oh, bliss!) yarn shop (they had sheep outside!) and drool all over their handspun yarns and displays and spend way too much money for two hanks of Sea Wool (oh what, oh what shall I make with them??). I went to the library and took out almost every single book and magazine they had (the librarian scowled at me as if I was doing something wrong–neither of us knew exactly what, but taking out 44 books on knitting HAD to be wrong, somehow) and then proceeded to cram my brain full of every scrap of information I could about designing and shaping knit garments. At the same time I cast on for nearly a dozen projects, and knit and frogged, and knit and cursed, and screwed up and started over and knit and knit and knit, and then ripped out again, changing designs as I went and being woefully wrong, time and time again. I loved (am loving) every single minute of it. Especially when I had to completely frog sweaters that I had already spent hours/weeks on…my mother was horrified that I could so gleefully pull and pull and pull until there was nothing left of something I had spent so much time on. No worries! More knitting for me!!

And while I knit, though I do think about my life, my career, and how long I can go without a job, and human nature and a million other things, I think quite a bit about knitting. And of course, since I am really the only one I know who knits (this much), and since the knitting bug seems to be intensifying, rather than fading, I think about why I knit. This is what I have come up with (so far):

1. It allows me to explore my creative energy
2. It is a source of aesthetic joy
3. It fulfills my need to create/nest; even though I don’t want kids, my biological clock does influence my levels of domesticity
4. It is a way to celebrate the domestic arts
5. It is in harmony with the ideals of sustainability and simple living (making your own stuff, opting out of rabid consumerism, being able to repurpose used materials)
6. It fosters an ethic of self-sufficiency
7. It is a form of materialistic anti-consumerism–enjoying the items you make and posess, while not having to depend on large corporations as much
8. It is an act of being different/non-conformist
9. It provides amazing sensual/tactile pleasures
10. I can play with colour–wheeee!
11. It is a reminder to honour the labour that goes into each item we own, teaching us empathy and respect for others from a global perspective
12. It values slow living and lets me practice delayed gratification
13. It’s all about design–design, baby, that awesome place on the corner of Art and Science
14. It allows me to focus on detail, by giving me the context in which to explore freely the OCD side of myself, without seeming abnormally anal
15. It gives me the enjoyable sense that I am good at something
16. It embodies the spirit of giving and nurturing–to self and others
17. It is a source of warmth and comfort
18. It allows me to be productive–at least I can do something with my hands while I wait or watch movies
19. It gives me more choice and better fit of clothes (especially as a plus size woman); I can choose styles I want in colours I want and I don’t have to schlepp through soul-destroying malls to find clothes
20. It is a skill I can use in order to re-use fibers and use natural fibers
21. It is a tradition, and by knitting, I can honour the women who came before, who passed these arts down through the generations
22. It fosters patience, a sense of humour, and peace and quiet
23. I devilishly delight in the linguistic elitism of knitting–i can rattle off knitting jargon (SABLE, UFO, KIP, tinking, frogging) and sound all cool, and nobody knows what I’m talking about, unless I deign to explain
24. It’s a good way to de-stress (watch your tension, though!)
25. It encourages me to participate more in life, by involving myself in the process of what I own
26. I knit for the pure pleasure of both the process and the product
27. It can be a spiritual/philosophical/intellectual challenge–knitting has deep meaning and symbolism
28. It is an instance, for me, of Maslow’s discussion of peak-experiences: “These experiences were of pure, positive happiness when all doubts, all fears, all inhibitions, all tensions, all weaknesses, were left behind. Now self-consciousness was lost. All separateness and distance from the world disappeared as if they felt one with the world, fused with it, really belonging in it and to it, instead of being outside looking in.”
29. It is fulfilling
30. It gives me time to think
31. I can have fun little conversations with the wool/pattern/designer
32. It is a path that leads to insight and discovery
33. I can kinda be part of the new DIY craft/punk movement
34. It is a product of my impatience–sometimes it actually takes forever to find what I want and I want it now
35. Through knitting, I can express my uniqueness/individuality
36. I’m friggin’ CHEAP–my Scottish blood??
37. It’s extremely practical
38. Taurus traits lend themselves to this kind of activity (stubborn, practical, down-to-earth, domestic, homebody-ish, sensual, materialistic, patient)
39. It is a way to practice mindfulness
40. I enjoy complexity
41. I like to learn
42. I’m a bit of a show-off (Look! Look what I made! I made this with my own two hands! Isn’t it awesome?!)
43. I love classic, romantic, timeless, graceful styles, and sometimes the fashion of the times leaves a lot to be desired (especially in my price range); on the other hand, the really great styles of the moment are also quite often out of my price range (did I mention that I’m cheap?)
44. Today’s clothes are cheaply made, and the price doesn’t really reflect the true cost of making the item
45. I like not flashy, but quality made designs
46. I’m single–knitting fills the time, replaces sex, gives me something to do other than change diapers and cook for a husband
47. It is one step in my Master Plan to become the crazy old maid cat lady who talks to herself, has wild hair, and goes to the grocery store in her housecoat (note to self: must get cat)
48. I like collecting (can you say SABLE? I’m working on it)
49. Maybe I will smoke/sleep/snack less?
50. It is deceptively simple–I can appear hugely talented without actually being talented
51. The coolest thing is that there are only two stitches but infinite combinations–kind of like the yin and yang of Taoism resulting in the myriad things, or like DNA, or language patterns/syntax, and other discrete combinatorial systems
52. It satisfies my inner geek: knitting patterns are like computer code
53. Misgivings about knitting being a bourgeois activity make me appreciate my life more
54. It encourages me to experiment more with different colours and styles that I would hesitate to choose off the rack
55. It’s a natural alarm clock–I wanna get up and knit now
56. It makes me feel feminine and domestic
57. It gives me something to say when people ask me what I’ve been up to lately
58. It also gives me a topic I can drone on infinitely about, allowing me to get certain people to go away and stop talking to me
59. It makes me feel like part of a community (yay for Ravelry!)
60. It’s probably the only area in which I have no fear of making mistakes–in fact, I want to make as many mistakes as possible, and there is absolutely no sense of personal failure if I do–in contrast to just about every other area of my life

That enough for ya? 🙂

Greetings from Canada!

So I got here in mid-December…I suppose that’s news to a lot of people 🙂 But don’t take it personally that I haven’t gotten in touch, I just needed some time to myself. Since I got here, I’ve been:

1. De-pressurizing and de-stressing
2. Hiding from the entire world (think Thoreau’s Walden, not the hunchback of Notre Dame)
3. Having Christmas

4. Trying not to think (and mostly succeeding) about the fact that I have no job, no income, almost no home, and no apparent job prospects…whoops! better be careful, I almost thought about it…
5. Knitting

6. Augmenting my yarn stash

7. Baking and cooking

8. Reorganizing my online experience
9. Looking at the snow

10. Preparing to enter Phase 2 of my four-phase plan to Get A Life, which is getting in touch with people and joining the human race again 🙂 Talk to you soon!

craft and food update

Well, since the last time i updated this journal, i’ve been busy! This week, i decided to jump back into translation. Hyunjung and i have decided to study translation together in preparation for next year’s translation contest. With all the putzing around i’ve done this year, and all the miscommunications with Paul, there’s no way we will be able to do anything about submitting this year. Anyway, we have lots of research to do, and i have decided to just get lots of practice by translating all the stories in the 2007 Yi Sang Short Story Collection, and will decide later what to submit for the contest. Good luck to us! I haven’t studied Korean seriously in such a long time, it is rather slow-going at the moment

1. yarn2, 2. blanket pile, 3. what a mess, 4. testflowers, 5. red ripple, 6. turquoise ripple, 7. chevron swatch, 8. multicolour crochet circles, 9. candleflame shawl swatches

So, i finally collected all the yarn colours for my two new ripples, though i am on pause with both of them at the moment, as i have run out of the base colours–i need to go back to namdaemoon and pick up more of those honkin’ huge skeins of turquoise and red. Meanwhile, i have untangled all the scraps and have started making granny-square flowers a la yarnstorm, though i’ll be outlining them with black instead of white. i have about 35 so far, but i need about 120 for a full size blanket…depends on how much leftover yarn i have, i guess.

Also, i have rearranged things so that i can pile all my blankets in one place. i love the look of that!

I’m also swatching for two other projects: a chevron scarf, and a candle flame shawl. I definitely won’t be using these yarns for those projects–i need to hit an upscale yarn shop and invest in some beautiful, soft, natural fibers (hopefully for a reasonable price!) Love the patterns though! Much more fun and challenging than stockinette, or the 3×3 rib i’ve been doing for YEARS on the grey blanket!! I also want to try this pattern.

1. peanutbutter cookies, 2. beef and veggie stirfry, 3. honey whole wheat bread2, 4. out of the oven 2, 5. with a bowl of chowder, 6. homemade sausage and egg NkMuffins, 7. baked eggs, 8. comfort food, 9. pizza fresh from the oven, 10. banana bread, 11. butter tarts done, 12. tzatziki and pita snack, 13. July14dinner, 14. sort of greek dinner, 15. french bread 3, 16. french bread 5, 17. i love cherries, 18. my favourite oatmeal raisin chocolate chip sunflower seed cookies, 19. potato salad, 20. moussaka done, 21. at dunkin donuts, 22. apple bread pudding crisp, 23. tuna salad, 24. frozen berries 2, 25. banana coconut bread 3, 26. bruschetta 4, 27. pasta salad 2, 28. butternut squash salad, 29. turkish delight from haily, 30. iced coffee

Recipes and details to follow…but the highlights are: my awesome bread-baking skillz, homemade pizza, tzatziki, moussaka, and the egg mcmuffins! 🙂

baby blanket–in progress

began on thursday afternoon

square #1 finished, friday evening
modeled so beautifully by my new student, Eun

square #2 in progress, saturday evening

and, i forgot to add this to the pile of books i bought last week, but, a little reading–non-fiction–to go along with my knitting (if only i had three hands so that i could read and knit at the same time…)