Patently Ridiculous

Since the Oliver socks are on hiatus after realizing I was going to be woefully short of yarn, I decided to tackle a sock project that I'd had in the back of my mind for a while. The navy Cascade Heritage sock I'd ordered through The Knitting Nest came in this week, and now I can start.

The pattern is one I'm making up on the fly. I'm starting a cuff using an Estonian patent stitch pattern that I learned from Merike Saarniit at the Sock Summit last summer. I'm using the aforementioned Cascade Heritage along with some Shibui Sock that I purchased at Knit Purl -- also in Portland. The class was all about using handpainted yarns in creative ways -- working with the colors rather than fighting them or expecting them not to pool. I'm also using a neat braided cast-on that's not difficult, but kind of fiddly.

Unfortunately, I didn't clue into the fact that using this kind of stitch requires casting on fewer stitches than one normally would, hence the lovely 6-inch-wide cankle cover in the first picture. My knitting buddy Janelle and her family have been visiting the last few days, and she, being sharper of mind, remembered from the recent Merike Saarniit class that she took, that this little adjustment would be required. So I ripped out and re-cast on 48 stitches instead of my normal 72. The proportions look much better -- although still maybe a bit big.

I'm pleased with the way this looks. My plan is to do the patent stitch only on the cuff, and then knit the rest of the sock from the heel down in just plain navy yarn. Somewhere before the heel I'm going to need to go up from 48 to 72 stitches. Not sure how I'm going to execute that. Should I do it all at once? Over a few rows? I'll think about it -- in the meantime, I'm having fun with this project.

Hope everyone out there is enjoying their holiday and getting a chance to hit the needles!