Knitting - Daniel Kenneth

August 9, 2017July 17, 2020

August 2017 YarnBox Socks

I was pretty excited when I realized the bag in the mailbox was my YarnBox shipment. Or maybe I should say YarnBag shipment. I ripped it open right in the car. To be honest, I wasn’t that excited once I saw it. Last month, I really didn’t appreciate the skein I got until I started knitting it up, then I absolutely loved it. So I hoped that would be true of this month’s yarn as well.

This month’s skein comes from Lucky 13 Fibers out of Chicago and is dyed Purple and Gray (which doesn’t show up that well in my photos). I’ve never been a fan of the colors mixed with gray, it usually comes off looking a lot like it is worn out or some of the colors didn’t take. Purple, on the other hand, is the best color on the planet, but I don’t really wear purples in my wardrobe.

I put it right through the sock machine last night and stitched up the toes during lunch today. I know, my socks are pretty boring and basic, but this is what I like to wear.

It came out better than I was imagining and they are nice looking socks, but they still weren’t anything exciting. With that said, the purple is on the darker side and the gray does tone it down a bit putting it more on the masculine side, so I can appreciate that. Most commercial sock yarns are very bright so it’s nice to get a yarn like this now and then.

August 3, 2017

The best sock yet

I was going to cool it on the sock posts for a while. I didn’t want to bore anyone who might eventually read these posts. But I made the best sock yet and I’m excited about it, so I thought I’d show the internets.

I wore them yesterday and they fit perfectly. The stretch over the day was minimal and they still were snuggly pressed to my ankles when I took them off last night. I think that’s because this is wool and I’ve mostly dealt with cotton/nylon mixes.

I think they also look great. That has nothing to do with me though, I just splurged on some pricey yarn. This is Feza Yarns Uneek 3008, or as I call it, “Bumblebee Massacre.” Unfortunately, I think this line of yarns has been discontinued but you can still find it on etsy and in some yarn shops for $20-30. I think I got this one for $25. Which, is more than I’d normally spend on my basic looking socks, but it looked so interesting on the shelf I couldn’t resist.

July 14, 2017

July 2017 YarnBox Socks

A month or so ago I signed up for yarnbox and I received my first shipment a few days ago. What attracted me to the service was that it sent me yarn (yassss!) and second, they had a sock box (double yassss!). I also hoped it would be a great way to get the yarn I either wouldn’t normally get for myself or get yarn that isn’t available to me locally.

This month’s “box” was a generous 434-yard skein of “Corrie Sock” yarn from Flying Goat Farm. I say “box” because it was really one of those gray bags that many magazines are sent in. Most box services I see are done really cute and presented well, but this was very much just yarn in a bag.

The yarn itself is not something I would normally buy, which made this even more interesting. I have nothing against it, but this is not something I would consider my style. So, I guess I got exactly what I was hoping for! I also wouldn’t buy this because it’s $28 and I’m more of a $5/pair of socks type of guy. My socks are for utility and allergy relief, not beauty, though I do like when they end up looking unexpectedly nice. Since the sock box is about $20/month and this is a $28 skein, I think it’s still a deal.

I also noted that the yarn was noticeably thicker than any sock yarn I’ve used, so machine knitting could be problematic but I was sure I’d get through it. I’d just be pushing the limits of my 72 needle setup.

I cranked away at the sock machine with only a few issues and I was pretty happy with what I saw being knit:

I was surprised how the striping came out and now I’m even more glad I ordered sock box. I definitely never would have picked this skein up off a shelf or internet store, but now that I have the sock in hand I can say I’d totally wear it… and I will. Tomorrow, most likely.

July 12, 2017

Fun with Tie Dye

I recently ordered a bunch of skeins of lace yarn with the intention of dying it myself. I had been watching a lot of YouTube on the subject and decided to give it a shot. Even if it didn’t work out, I would still have a bunch of natural/almost white skeins to make socks with.

I decided to try the Tie Dye method since it didn’t require simmering on the stove but I knew going in it would be a lot more time-consuming since it’s a 6-hour wait period while the dye does its magic.

I got out a marbling tray that I had bought a while back when I was planning some other projects (which I never got to, but we’ll ignore that part). I covered it with plastic wrap to keep things clean and got to dyeing my yarns.

My main goal was to make rainbow yarn. I’ve seen a lot of beautiful rainbow yarns out there but I wasn’t willing to pay the high price for most of these hand painted yarns. I started squirting color on the yarn but all it did was bead up on top on top of the yarn and wouldn’t soak in. Tapping/Dabbing it into the fabric seemed to work but took forever. Most yarn dyeing involves pre-soaking your yarn in water, but Tulip’s instructions didn’t say to do that.

Since I prepared a bunch of skeins I was planning on trying a bunch of different methods. On the second skein, I presoaked the yarn and dyeing went very quickly and the color bled very easily through the fibers.

I also tried soaking a skein in the dye (see bowls in the picture) but that really didn’t turn out. It dyed the outermost layers, but the inside of the skeins was completely untouched and dry. So yeah, don’t do that. I’ll have to re-dye them later in a darker color and see if they can be saved. Right now they look awful.

After 6 hours of waiting, I rinsed them out and hung them up to dry. I’ll show you two of my favorites. The rainbow yarn turned out amazing:

While pushing the dye into the yarn took a long time, it gave me a great amount of control. The dye didn’t bleed at all, so the color only went where I put it.

When the yarn is pre-soaked, it pretty much does its own thing, but that can also be amazing.

The picture makes it look pretty dull, but in real life, it came out like a shiny oil spill. I don’t know how well that will translate into socks, but it was still fun to create.

Last, I got to unwind these knitted ‘blanks’ and turn them into balls of yarn ready to knit.

Once I saw them being wound I got pretty excited to use them. Unfortunately, the sock machine is still being used for sock yarn and I’m not ready to switch over to lace yarn just yet. So these are being put aside until I work my way through the enormous pile of sock yarn still waiting to be turned into socks.

June 28, 2017

Ribbing results

Yesterday, when I got up and got ready for work, I popped on my new jelly bean socks as I had planned. I was surprised just how loose the ribbing was. It stretches and lays flush with the ankle, but it really had no strength to it. It wasn’t squeezing around the ankle like a commercial sock would. But then, my ribbing has no elastic woven into it like a commercial sock would either.

By the end of the day, it was just as stretched out as my non-ribbed sock was. And to be honest, I didn’t care for how the ribbing looked once it was on my foot and stretched.

I can see how ribbing could be useful for a smaller ankle. But my ankle is quite large and it doesn’t seem to make any difference unless I decided to start putting elastic in my sock… which I won’t, because I’m allergic to it, hence the reason I’m making my own socks to begin with.

I could also see myself using ribbing if I was making socks for someone else, they do look more polished and commercial if you add ribbing. But for me, the amount of work and time that goes into adding ribbing is not worth it. I think my future socks will just have a plain hung hem (like the bottom sock in the picture).

I may play with adding elastic just to see how well it works out and for any socks I make as gifts.

June 26, 2017

Ribbing success

Last night, I was so excited when I finally got through a ribbed cuff on the knitting machine. Until now, I kept dropping stitches. The way the ribber attachment is placed on the machine blocks the view of the sock until you remove it. By then, you’re usually pretty far into the sock and it’s so disappointing when you find it didn’t turn out and you’ll have to manually fix it. But, I took my time and watch every dang needle grab at the yarn trying to figure out why I kept dropping stitches. It was painful and slow, but I got through the whole ribbing section without any issues. So maybe I just need to go very slow.

In case you were wondering this yarn is Red Heart’s heart & sole – jelly beans. For lunch today, I stitched up the toes and hid all the loose ends. Tomorrow, I will have some jelly bean colored socks on my feet and I’ll get to test how much of a difference the ribbing makes. The colors aren’t really my style, but they’re the first with ribbing at the ankle, so I’m wearing them!

Just visually comparing the two styles of a hung hem and a ribbed hem you can see a pretty big difference. I know it’s hard to tell from the photo but that’s about a 2″ difference. The bottom one is about the actual size of my ankle, so the ribbed one should grip on pretty well. But then again, I’m comparing two different yarns, which by the size of the stitches look to be pretty different…. so who knows.

Once I get some more practice in on these hems I’ll be moving on to the next item on my checklist: rounding out the heels and toes better. I’ve been watching YouTube videos on it and it looks pretty simple, so hopefully, that goes quickly and easily.

June 21, 2017

Wearing Socks and Continuing to Improve Them

My first round of socks have all been sewn up and I’m starting to wear them. I’ve noticed a few things:

First, they are super cute.

Second, they are so soft and stretchy.

Third, it will take some time to get used to the texture on the bottom of my foot. Because I’m using sock yarn, and not a lace weight yarn, each loop is noticeably bigger and you can feel that on your foot when you walk. It’s not uncomfortable in any way, but you will notice the difference from a commercial sock as you wear them.

As I wear them I am slowly creating a list of changes and things to learn as I make each future sock. A few of the future changes will be:

Change hung hem to a ribbed hung hem
Round out the toes and heels better
Try lace weight

Last night, I started playing around with the first one and started setting up the ribber attachment. I got a lot of extras with my machine so I’ll be slowly trying and playing with each thing until I get my ideal sock. Getting the ribber set up was a chore, but once everything was aligned and screwed down it was pretty simple. It was, however, very slow and tedious to remove and replace needles all for 30 rows of a cuff. I know I’ll get fast at it, but it seems like a very big pain in the butt for such a small section of each sock. But I got it working and the ribbing does seem like something I will want on my future socks.

June 14, 2017

A Birthday Gift to Myself

Every year I usually buy myself some crazy expensive gift for my birthday. Some years I go a little crazier than others and this year I think I kept it pretty tame.

I have been looking at sock machines for years on eBay. But the price point for something like a 70-year-old machine with no support (especially if you have no idea how to use one) is pretty high.

A few weeks ago I came across a post the Erlbacher Gearhart has started reproducing their old machines. So I jumped on it and got their new speedster model with a bunch of goodies to go with. I was emailing back and forth with them for a while before purchasing making sure I would have everything I needed to hit the ground running when it arrived.

Two days before my birthday, a small wood box arrived with everything screwed down inside. I was surprised that it actually came with tools (like, real tools, not cheap things you’ll throw away), a spool of scrap yarn, a picture of the box (which I assume is there to help you put it all back in if you decide to put it away), a starting bonnet and a bunch of other stuff.

I had already done some yarn shopping before it arrived and watched a bunch of YouTube videos so I pretty much instantly started pumping out socks as soon as I put it all together.

There are still some manual and tedious things to do in sock making even with a fancy machine like this. Hanging yarn on the little hooks isn’t my favorite thing in the world, but now that I’ve done it a few times I am getting pretty quick at it. And I find sewing up toes with the dreaded Kitchener stitch actually pretty relaxing.

But ask yourself how long would it take you to knit a sock? Hours? Several evenings? As a beginner it’s probably taking me about 45 minutes with this machine and that is taking my sweet time and learning as I go. There are videos of people easily making a sock in 8 minutes. Isn’t that crazy!?

And watching it work is pretty mesmerizing even if you’re making a boring grey sock…

And here’s a sock I just cranked out that I’ll be wearing tomorrow.