As promised, here’s a shot of the beau’s socks:

And the front of the Zhivago Top. Or is it the back? Doesn’t matter, they’re both the same:

And Snicket, with additional progress made in a waiting room today:

I love Snicket. The lattice design is dead easy, and after one pattern repeat I had it memorised. I reckon, though, that if you couldn’t handle cabling without a cable needle you might just go a little insane.

What I love about it is when the ‘strands’ of the lattice come together they twist around each other three times, and this is easily and elegantly done without a cable needle just by knitting into the back of the second stitch, then turning the needle to the front to hook purlwise through the first stitch, then sliding the two stitches off the lefthand needle, slipping the first stitch back and knitting it.

And I love watching the ‘strands’ of knit stitches weave back and forth, twisting with their neighbours.

What I hate, however, is that the pattern isn’t symmetrical.

(Okay, I’m aware that the following probably won’t be interesting to anyone except those knitters contemplating or making Snicket, so feel free to skip to the ***.)

As I’ve said before, probably too many times, I have narrow feet. I have to adjust patterns. After the disaster that my Jaywalkers were, when I knit Pomatomus I decided to knit as close to the instructions as I could. While I love my Pomatomus, they are a little big for my feet. If I knit them again, I’ll do them on smaller needles.

For Snicket I decided to add the cable stitch pattern to my heel-flap toe-up pattern. For me, the biggest advantage of toe-up is I can work out if the foot of the sock is small enough sooner. With a top-down sock I don’t get any warning until after the instep decreases are done. I could decrease a few extra times, but then the heel is usually a bit loose. Everything just gets out of proportion.

So anyway, I knit the toe for Snicket, worked out that 60 stitches was going to make a loose sock, frogged and reduced it to 56.

The instructions say the lattice is a repeat of six stitches. I slipped one stitch from the needles on the sole side onto either end of the top side one, so I had 30 stitches to work with, then started following the written instructions. I began to have gripes straight away.

I reckon a pattern ought to state the obvious. It’s reassuring. When a pattern says, for example, “*k1, p3* to the end” and you find that there’s an odd 3 stitches rather than 4 at the end you wonder if you’ve done something wrong. This pattern leaves you wondering about those last few stitches. Especially when the lattice strands come into play. I sat there wondering whether to knit or purl the last stitch a few times, and eventually just had to make an arbitary decision and see how it looked. A good pattern shouldn’t make you do that.

The next gripe is that the pattern has you move the last stitch from the previous needle onto the next for a bit of cabling… but never actually tells you to move it back again! Or to put the stitch you swapped it with on the last needle.

That wandering stitch bugs me on another level. I can see that it will be necessary when knitting the lattice all the way around the sock, but I don’t think it’s needed for working on top of the foot. Yet there are no separate instructions for the top of the foot that omit this annoying little vagrant stitch.

Which brings me to the lack of symmetry. The reason for it appears to be that using a multiple of six stitches just doesn’t make for a neat arrangment of the lattice. The chart shows a nice symmetrical pattern… but the chart shows three stitches plus six plus four. But that’s not a multiple of six!

What this means is that the leftmost lattice ‘strand’ moves to the edge and forms a nice little twisting column (which I love to bits), but the rightmost one disappears and reappears into the side, right where that vagrant needle-swapping cable stitch lies.

Reading and rereading the pattern, I can see that what I have is the result that I’d get if I’d knit top down – following what was set up for knitting the lattice around the sock down the top of the foot. Maybe there’s a good reason for it not being symmetrical. I’m reserving my judgement until I get there.

***And really, tha lack of symmetry isn’t that obvious. I’m sure nobody will ever notice. It surprises and embarrasses me that it bugs me as much as it does. It seems there’s an anal little fusspot inside me when it comes to knitting. (Which is suprising mainly because there certainly isn’t when it comes to housework.)

I’m afraid this might mean that if my suspicions are confirmed, and knitting the lattice around the whole sock doesn’t justify the lack of symmetry, I’ll frog them and start again.

I tell myself it’s not because I’m an anal fusspot, but (this probably sounds even sillier) this yarn is too nice not to knit perfect socks with it.

Last Wednesday we packed the newly gas-converted car (the beau had booked it in mere weeks before the rebate was announced, and now the waiting list is nine months long!) and headed to Johanna, a lovely little valley off the Great Ocean Road.

I knitted all of the way, via Colac and the Otways, and when we arrived I had only a bit of grafting to do before I handed over the beau’s latest pair of socks. (Knit out of Heirloom 4ply in a lovely black/red twist. Photo to come.)

The cottage we’d booked was every bit as lovely as I hoped, with this spectacular view.

We spent the first day just slouching about. I finished the front of the Zhivago Top (photos to come). By the end of the week I’d finished the back. I have one gripe with this pattern – it doesn’t give a new lace knitter any idea of how to add armhole shaping to a lace pattern. I eventually figured it out for myself… a few days before I found Interweave Knits in the Colac newsagent and found there was an article on the subject inside. (Oh, and yes I found IK in a country town after failing to find it in any suburban newsagent. Figures.)

I wore handknit socks every day. My Mega Boots Stretch socks saw the Triplet Falls,

Otway Winery and Colac. I checked out the Colac habby shop, which had a small but decent range of yarn and knitting bits.

My Secret Pal socks have seen Apollo Bay, Lorne and the Cape Otway Lighthouse.

My Stripey socks admired the spectacular coastline that includes the famous Twelve Apostles,

(There aren’t twelve, by the way. I’m not sure if there ever were. Erosion works at this coast pretty quickly. The bunch of rocks at the front is an apostle that recently collapsed.)

London Bridge

(Last time I visited, back in my 20s, the section linking the bridge to the coast had recently collapsed. A few tourists stranded on the island and had to be rescued. I don’t know if there’s any significance that the two times I’ve visited the area have come a little while after the collapse of something. I know neither incident spurred me to visit. And it was the beau’s idea to visit this time.)

And the Grotto

Johanna beach served up the most wildlife. Early in our week away we watched at a respectful distance as an echidna made its way down the beach and inspected a few footprints, perhaps looking for insects or crabs stirred up by passing humans.

And on the last day (just after the previous blog entry photos were taken) a surfer excitedly approached and pointed out a whale frolicking out beyond the surf. We’d spotted a whale while at the Twelve Apostles, but this was nicer, as we we could just sit there for a few hours watching it.

Okay, it’s really too far away for this to be an exciting photo for anyone but me.

We also saw two other echidnas and what looked like a venemous brown snake exploring the roadside. There were birds everywhere, pretty and drab, some that sang beautifully, and one that I think was a kestrel. And on the last day, as I started filling the sink to wash dishes, something odd floated to the surface – a cute little skink! I fished the lizard out and put him outside on the edge of the garden bed. After ten mintues he revived and took off.

It was a lovely, relaxing week and if you like what you see, I can definitely recommend Johanna Seaside Cottages to you. However, I did note that there was no airconditoning in what were pretty exposed houses, so maybe the height of summer might not be a good time to visit. Perhaps the sea breezes would make up for it, though. They do come direct from the Antarctic.

On the way home I had to take the opportunity to cross off another yarn shop in my list. I directed the beau to Web of Wool in Geelong… only to find it had closed for a temporary break the day before. And after witnessing a car accident, eating bad sushi (bbq beef handrolls are not worth satisfying your curiosity over) and being asked for directions to the local correctional facility – all within five minutes – we had an unexpected hankering to get home.

Next post: Snicket makes it very clear that, deep down, I’m just a bit anal.

What’s that in my hands?

Snicket!

More later, when I’ve had a chance to wash clothes, pick up the cat, answer email and sort through the photos.

I probably won’t be blogging for the next week. The picture I leave you with is of my Dad’s re-soleable socks:

Notice something odd about the leg pattern? They’re fraternal twins, not identical. Why? Er, ’cause it amused me at the time.

Being the lazy gal I am, I’m going to take back the old pairs of socks that he’s worn holes in and ‘save’ the leg part. I’ll knit new feet using this re-soleable method. That way I can make him more socks without knitting entirely new socks.

I’m going to make another pair, this time toe-up. Then I’m going to post both patterns here. They’re for dk/8ply sock weight wool, but I will probably go on to write a sock/4ply weight version later on – after I’ve tested them.

I knit another dishcloth.

I’d run out of the yarn I was making Dad’s re-soleable socks out of, so I dropped into Spotlight yesterday. I had a voucher for 10% off if I spent $50, which I was going to use to buy a mini plywood drawer thingy. But they didn’t have any, so I ended up buying $50 worth of yarn.

Mostly Cleckheaton 8ply for socks for Dad, and a few balls of cotton to make, yes, more dishcloths. As I said to the beau, this is bread and butter yarn. Basic stuff for wear-outable objects.

I think it’s terribly unfair that the local wildlife has taken up residence in our new extension before we got a chance to.

I’ve been looking for a sock pattern to knit up using my ball of Lisa Souza mahogony. It’s a dark colourway, so the pattern couldn’t be too detailed. But I wanted something more than basic rib and I wasn’t in the mood for cables. Maybe a wavy rib. Maybe a waffle-like texture…

I think I just found it. The new Magnits is up. All I can say is … “Snicket!”

Snicket Snicket Snicket!

Sniiiickeeeeeeet!