Crusoe Pattern Notes

Socks in the Garden on a Summer Morning...

Crusoe Socks
Free Pattern Knitty Spring 2003 Issue, designed by Marilyn Roberts
Knit with less than 2 skeins (178 yards/150 meters/skein) of Koigu Painter's Pallette Premium Merino (100% Merino Wool), Shade P110 on Antique Metal DPNs in size US2 (2.75 mm), in a guage of 15 sts and 20 rows per 2 inches in Stst.

Finished Dimensions:
Women's Size 7.5, Approximately 7.75 inches wide and 8.5 inches in length after blocking.

The Pattern:
I really enjoyed knitting these socks. The stranding pattern shows off the wonderful colors of the koigu to its best effect (which gave me some ideas as to how I might want to use it in future projects), and results in a really cute pair of anklets. The downside of the stranding is that it has absolutely no elasticity, which is a bit problematic in a sock. If you make the stranded portion of the sock to tight, you risk not being able to pull it over your heel. Make it too loose and it will bag unattractively.

My solution to this problem was to re-gauge the pattern to make a sock that fit snugly, but not so snugly that I couldn't coax it over my heel. (There was no way that I was going to make the designer's gauge without going down to size 0's, so this was a modification I was going to make anyway.) I ended up casting on 48 sts (7.5 sts per inch before blocking) and going from there. I also added several heel rows to accomodate the rocking arch I have going on. Other than that, it was all Marilyn. I'm very happy with the result.

Impressions of KPPPM:
I feel a little silly even putting this section in, since I think almost everyone in blogland has tried and loves this yarn. What is there to say? It is the only yarn that I have ever used for socks, so at this point I'm ill-equipped to make a full comparison to another sock yarn. I have been swatching with Cherry Tree Hill's Supersock which is also a 100% merino yarn and I can say already that KPPPM has greater thickness and a nice bounce in comparison. However, it's a trade-off because CTH has very nice drape and sheen (I think it would be excellent in a shawl). It's amazing to me how two yarns with the same fiber content can be so different, but there it is. Anyhoo, I digress. KPPPM is great, and we all love it. The only thing I have left to say is that I wish more places would carry it in some solid colors, because despite the rather brazen color combos I've had going on over here in honor of sockapalooza (which seems to drive us all to wacky colors and patterns) I am a solid color girl and would love to make myself a very subdued pair of cabled stockings.

Possible substitute yarns:
Any sock yarn that knits to guage. The Cherry Tree Hill Supersock springs to mind as a good all-around substitute for KPPPM, since the gauge is similar and the fiber content is the same. Just note the differences that I mentioned above.

Tips for Making Crusoe:
I'd aim for snug. Go with the gauge that works for you and re-calculate from there. Adding in heel rows for a high arch will help with the process of getting the socks over your heels as well.

It's a Sock Mandate!

After running the poll for a little less than a week, things have finally started to slow down, so I'm recording today's numbers as the final tally. The results are:

Out of 197 voters:
13 hate the sock (7%)
66 like the sock okay, but aren't groovin' on the color (34%)
32 are tacky and know it (16%)
86 may be smoking Mary Jane but are yellow shell sock lovers (44%)

Since our President won by an even smaller margin...

Looks to me like a sock mandate!

I know you're humming "Hail to the Sock" in your head right now. For the record, Moxie actually voted against my sock, on my computer! He was fair about it, and asked to see the sock again to properly appraise its virtues (or lack thereof) prior to casting his ballot.

Because I like to be familiar with my constituency whether they vote for my sock or not, I asked Moxie a few hard-hitting questions in order to fully understand his position. Since I needed a baseline for evaluating his sock tastes, I asked him what he thought of my Crusoe sock, which I think has greater mass appeal. (Not a better sock mind you - the masses don't always know what they're talking about.)

Here's Crusoe for comparison. I rather like them together.

Moxie: "You mean to wear?"

Me: "Well, not for you - for me."

Silence.

Me: "Not with shorts or anything. (You wouldn't catch me outside of the gym in shorts anyway!) You, konw, with jeans. You'd just see them peeking out a little..."

Moxie: "Oh! You should have said that. For non-viewing socks they're great!" (Looks self-satisfied because he thinks he's said something nice about the sock.)

I am still laughing, and that was several days ago.

I have tested my sock pal however, and short of saying "I've finished one sock and it is yellow" and giving myself away, I have done everything in my power to make sure that she does not have any strong feelings against socks such as the ones she is receiving. She seems like a fun, colorful woman, if not a tacky one (which, honestly, folks, is what most of us really need in a knitted sock pal), and I think that she will appreciate these socks in the way that I and 60% of you (tacky and non-tacky alike) do. Plus, now she'll have socks that are famous. Who can beat that?

Don't you need another one of those?*

One of my great knitting accomplishments of the week was getting my first lovely Koigu Crusoe sock off the needles:

Click around for bigger views...

Now for a confession: I am no sock expert. Crusoe marks my third sock ever, and the first two were made long ago and far away, so it felt like a very new experience. Luckily I have several blogging pals who had been in Crusoe territory before and were happy to offer advice. The thing I heard most regularly was that although beautiful, this was a tough sock to fit - easy to get too tight and easy to get too loose. This is no doubt due to the lovely stranding pattern, which shows off the koigu beautifully, but is not particularly resilient.

Anyway, armed with this great bit of foreknowledge, I decided to leave the sock more than a wee bit small (my sock is my swatch - it's a tiny enough thing that a traditional swatch seems silly) and see how it went. As you can see it went quite well - tough to get on the first time, but fits like a glove ever after. I love it!

Having said that, I was not comfortable making this sock for a foot I hadn't had the pleasure of measuring personally (i.e. my sockapalooza pal!), so for that special someone, I've decided to use one of my friend Mary's (She of the Fabulous Socks) pattern recommendations - Little Shell Socks. These are also in koigu, though in a very different colorway. I've already started and you'll be getting a peek soon. Until they're done, I'm not starting the second of this pair. I suppose I'll be padding around the house in a single Crusoe for a few weeks!

*Yet another quote from my darling dearest - one to add to his running commentary on the state of my knitting. At this point I'm thinking that I will start keeping track of these little nuggets and gather them together for the "moxie awards."

The Mighty Mitre!

Every once in a while I interrupt something that I'm working on rather diligently (in this case, the Crusoe socks) to play around a bit with something I haven't done before.

The reverse side is even lovelier, in my opinion.

The swatch project du jour was mitred squares, inspired by the amazing Kay over at Mason-Dixon Knitting. Both Ann and Kay are famous for their over the top, quilt-inspired (and sometimes simply quilted [scroll just a smidge]) projects, and the Psychadelic Afghan that inspired my swatching is one of my personal favorites. (Click here for the original story on the Afghan.)

This type of random swatching is something that I like to do to get the creative juices flowing. I teach a beginner's knitting class, and my goal for my students has been to start them off in a manner that will make them feel free to experiment. We rip constantly, and we swatch a lot during the sessions to try out and compare different techniques.

Recently, two students of mine were learning seed stitch. They hadn't ever used the knit and purl stitches in the same row before, so they didn't know that the yarn must be carried between the needles when moving between the two. Since they were helping each other they both ended up making several yarnovers. After a few of these, they realized the mistake and asked what was happening. I told them to keep on as they were, knit another row and see what happened. As a result they discovered lace! (Wooly lace, but lace nonetheless.) Their excitement over the discovery and interest in seeing what would happen was really inspiring to me, and reminded me that it might be time to play around a little myself.

The way that I knit is generally pretty structured, and I think that can sometimes stifle my creativity. Since I am a naturally structured person, I make a point of departing from my planned projects whenever I'm feeling a little stale and just swatching around without much of a goal in mind other than to see what I can come up with. Today's experiment was the mitred square, a simple technique that I've never gotten around to using before.

I worked with scraps of three very different cotton yarns (though it may be hard to tell this from the photo). The first yarn is Filatura di Crosa's Brilla in Burnt Orange - a stiff, shiny mercerized cotton. The second - also a solid yarn, though softer - is Brown Sheep's Cotton Fleece in Perry Primrose (a pretty raspberry color). The third is GGH's Mystic, leftover from my Honeymoon Cami prototype, in Cream. It's also a mercerized cotton, but not at all like the Brilla. It's soft and drapey and splits if you look at it sideways. The combination of the three is very nice. It's the perfect mix of drape, softness, and structure.

I have to admit that the colors do remind me vaguely of my Great Uncle Haddie's crocheted doilies,* but I like them together nontheless. Moxie thinks they are the color of curtains from a 1970's vintage VW bus. Whether you take that as a compliment depends on your feelings about the '70's, I suppose. I choose to be flattered.

As predicted by Kay, I find that the mitres are quite addictive.** So addictive, in fact, that like a craft crack addict, I have to make at least a small attempt to get you hooked. [To get this candy, go to the extended entry below.]

*My Great Uncle Haddie was a WWII veteran who walked with a cane and lived in a trailer in the western Pennsylvania mountains. He crocheted at least 500 rather intricate doilies during his lifetime. These doilies varied from one another only in color. Imagine, making the same doilie pattern 500 times. I only wish he were here today so that I could ask him about them. That is resolve, folks. Of the doiliest kind.

**Not quite as addictive as doilies, perhaps....

Lest you think that I forgot my Crusoe sock completely:

We have heel! Click here for a close-up of that little beauty.

A recipe for a mitered square of any size in any gauge:
[Use any yarn combos you like, alternating every two to four rows and carrying the unused colors up the side of your work.]

First, make a test swatch and determine what you would like your gauge to be. Reduce that gauge to sts/inch.

Next, decide how big you want your "big square" to be. It will take four of the "little squares" shown above to make one "big square". You can decide how big you want the "really big square" or Afghan to be later.

Multiply the number of inches that you would like your "big square" to be by your guage in sts/inch. Cast on this number of stitches. [Your cast on edge will actually form two sides of your "little square". When you put two of these together (2x1/2 cast on), you get one side of the "big square" - get it?]

Calculate what one half of the number of sts cast on minus two is - we'll call that number "M" for mitre. Knit M sts. K2tog twice. Knit M more sts.

On the reverse side you can either purl (for a stockinette st square) or knit (for a garter st square) - you choose! Mine is a silly garter.

On the next (3rd) row, Knit M-1 sts, K2tog twice, Knit M-1 sts, again. Continue on, knitting one less stitch before and after decreasing on each subsequent row. [M-2, M-3, M-4, etc. See, basic algebra is useful!] When you are down to four sts, K2tog twice. When you have only two sts left, slip one, knit one, and pass the slipped stitch over. Cut your yarn and put the end through the loopy thing. Voila! Make three more - get crazy and vary the stripes if you like - and seam. You have a psychadelic square.

Some "Progress" Pictures:

When you first start out you will have evidence that the corner of the little square is forming in the middle of your row:

Check out the nipple in the middle of that cast on - risque!
The square above shows you where that corner will end up.

Here we are pretty far along. If you made two little squares, cast them off at this point, and sewed up the sides leaving little holes for arms, you'd have a Chevron Tank for a Blythe Doll.

Socks Interrupted...

So I started the beautiful Crusoe Socks for my sock pal and they are coming along magnificently:

Click here to zoom out.

The pattern is great, and shows off the yarn brilliantly. I am really in love with these socks. Which is good, because I am going to be wearing them.

I have done what I knew I should not do. I have engaged in hopeful knitting sizing. Don't be tempted, it is always a mistake. I did this in two ways: first, I bought this particular koigu for my sock pal despite the fact that the Knit Cafe had only two skeins of it and I was pretty sure my sock pal's socks would require three. The color was just too perfect for her, and I wanted her to have exactly the thing that she would want. Second, I didn't adjust the pattern for a larger foot. I simply knit the largest size (for a 9-10) and prayed, despite the fact that simple math told me I'd get a foot circumference of 8", while my sock pal's circumference is 9". Not too bright, I know. But I only have two skeins of this, and it's perfect for her, if I haven't said that before.

Luckily, I had a backup plan, and purchased three skeins of a different koigu colorway just in case something like this happened, so her socks will get done and they will be fabby. I'm just a little less sure of my second choice than I was of my first. My plan is to knit the sock I've already started for myself and make any little tweaks in fit that I think I need to. Then, satisfied of the fit, I'll resize the pattern and break out the second colorway for my pal. I should still have plenty of time to do that. I'm glad that I love this pattern, since I will be using it four times this month!

Knitted Feats and Knitted Feets

First the knitted feat, though it really wasn't a big deal: Asana is finished!

Aren't these labels cute? My "happy 3rd anniversary of my 30th birthday to me" gift last month, courtesy of The Yarn Harlot's Christmas Gifts For Knitters links.

Well, at least the knitting and seaming portion is done. I have a wee (very wee) bit of sewing to do, and then I just need to size it for others, send it off to Knitty and hope for the best. Not to jinx myself, but I will be shocked if it doesn't get published - I'm very excited about the way this one turned out. (But I'll still love ya regardless, Amy!*)

Wallce, on the other hand, is not finished, but perhaps I'll get to work on it during the SuperKnit. I mean Bowl. Superbowl.

Now for the knitted feet. First, for all of you who have been coveting the fresh baked bread that my little tootsies recieved last month, my friend Mary has kindly provided the "recipe", which you can find in the extended entry. It is a recipe in Southern style - an amalgam of sockish wisdom, though not perhaps something for the sock uninitiated - my favorite kind!

In addition, I have been busy getting ready to knit some feet myself. After scouting around my Sockapalooza sock pal's blog to figure out what colors she likes, I picked out a bit of koigu for her while we were in LA. She likes "bight colors." I'm guessing these will fit the bill:

Loverly, eh?

Since she also likes ankle socks, I thought Crusoe would be a good choice. I may have to make a pair of these for myself as well....

Finally, I could use a little fabric moral support. I found this great stuff at G Street Fabrics the other day and am planning to use it to make fabulous curtains for the bathroom:

I think it's rather hard to resist....

Moxie has made exactly two comments:

"It looks like a flower threw up."

and the real winner:

"Don't get creative in my environment."

Ours is a candid marriage.

*Speaking of La Knitty Queen, did you see that Amy re-worked my teeny tiny sweater pattern to fit her Blythe dolls? Too cute!

Mary's Sock Recipe and Yarn Info

"Here's the sock poop:

I wasn't following a specific pattern when I made your socks. I generally cast on 64 stitches on size one (2.25 mm) when I'm going to do stockinette with sock weight yarn. (When you work with 5 needles, a cast on multiple of 4 will make ribbing easier.) I work about 1 and 1/4" with whatever ribbing I feel like, then I do stockinette until the leg is about 7 and 1/4". I work a heel flap of 32 rows over 32 stitches, turn the heel and pick up and knit the gusset stitches. I pretty much use the same heel and toe methods that Sally Melville writes about in her sock pattern in her "Knit Book," except that I make the toe more round (by decreasing every other row down to 5 stitches on each needle), and I pick up a couple extra stitches on each side when I do the gusset. I knit down the foot until it is about 2" short of the length I want, and begin decreasing for the toe. I graft my toes following the directions for Kitchener stitch that you can find in the back of every issue of Interweave Knits. It's the clearest instruction I've ever seen for Kitchener stitch. Unless I'm knitting for someone I know has larger or smaller feet, I start doing toe decreases when the foot is about 7 and 1/4 to 7 and 1/2" long. That will fit most women who wear a size 7-8 shoe.

The yarn I used was Froehlich Wolle - Special Blauband that I bought at Cloverhill Yarns in Catonsville, MD. In August. I was there on Friday, and they don't have any more of that color, although they do have several tweeds in other colors. Aylin's Woolgatherer in Falls Church also carries that yarn, but I haven't been there in a while, so I don't know what the current color choices are. Special Blauband is one of my favorite sock yarns."