More—But Not Enough

Yet. I wonder if there will ever be enough! I haven't moved the stitch markers since yesterday—you can see, more than a half inch of knitting has been added; And still more is required--not much, BUT!

Will this heel ever be done?!

I realized last night-I am going to need a third needle (or to transfer half the stitches on to a stitch holder) when I finally finish this section and begin to work on the foot.

I think this is the time to make use of my Boye Interchangeable needle set, and to knit the final row onto a cord, remove the needle tips and cap the cord.

I actually have 3 Boye sets—I went out and bought one some years ago—after procrastinating forever. And then, less than 6 months later—I inherited one with stash—and then, a year after that, with a second inheritance (another SABLE that came my way) a third one. The last set came in pieces—I had to go hunting among a bunch of UFO's to find all the pieces—but they were all there.

I know I have supported Boye needles and the interchangeable sets in the past –(and I still do). Having learned to knit with the old fashioned circulars that had piano wire type cables, even Boye's stiff cords are a pleasure—but both stashes came with LOTS of needles—not just the Boye sets; and I had lots of needles to start with—so they are over kill, and rarely used. When you have a choice of super flexible cables, or stiffer ones—well, the super flexible ones win out every time.

But the interchangeable sets still have there uses—and these socks will will make use of them! It's so much easier to knit stitches on to a holder than transfer them--(and the same goes double when it come time to take them off the holder!)

Since I finished my secret socks—I had freed up another small clear plastic purse (and a set of sock needles) —and wanted to stock it with another sock kit for my personal club socks—

So first I had do dye up some yarn.

Here is the black eyed-Suzies yarn--(for a pair of color work socks) –the yellow is too orange, the red, too pinkish-purple, the brown, too light. The colors are all wrong—but I love them! The result is too beautiful for words! I think the results will be beautiful—if not a perfect match to the most common Black Eyed-Suzies. Thank goodness flowers come in all sorts of colors!

I have to ball it up and to divide it still-- And to divide a skein of green, too, for the second color (a plain simple green) While I have some ideas of the stitch patterns I want to use—I haven't settled on any ones yet.. So the sock kit will hold some graph paper index cards (and some colored markers) .

(and I am sure I will end up consulting books, too, before I settle on the stitch pattern I want)

That will makes 7 kits set up. That's more pairs of socks than in many clubs!

So far I have:

1—The Black and White Cookie sock (black and white cookies are NYC favorites—and sold elsewhere I am guessing)

2—A simple sock in Fashion Toes (aka Plymouth Happy Feet) sock yarn—a not quite plain vanilla sock—but almost—just a bit of texture in the stitching to break up the colors.  (The hard to see balled up color way!)

3—White topped brown socks—Plain white giving way to some color work, then changing over to solid brown (for the foot)--maybe a bit more of patterning just before the toe shaping. Inspired by Katherine Misegades design—but not quite the same.

4—Solid green for a leaf design—a lacy, leafy cross band border, and a leaf motif in the leg, too.

5—A spiral rib in stripes—a solid pumpkin with a striped pumpkin--the stripes will be narrow enough to carry the yarn (no cut ends to weave in!)

6-- A plain vanilla pair of sock in Kroy fx –color way clover.

The Black eyed-Suzies will be kit 7.

A nice mix of colors, techniques, stitches.

Some of the other ideas for socks in 2012 are:

1—Spats (aka saddle socks) a two tone pair of sock that look like spats.

2—A Pastel spiral (helix) sock.

3—Dragon Socks—In red and black (2012 is the year of the dragon!)-- But since its also a water year—I have been thinking--maybe the sock won't be red and black—but will be blues and green dragons!

4—Another pair of beaded socks—Prussian blue, with silver bead work.

5—Another pair of puffy socks—but in a different color way—tentively, Yellow, going to marigold, to orange to rust to brown (there will extra brown left over from the brown and white socks!) And at some point, there will be a pair of puffy socks in shades of blues and greys.

6—PINK! Maybe to keep, maybe for a fund raiser, maybe for a gift. (Goodness knows I have a lot of pink sock yarn!)

That's 13 pairs of socks already thought out and planned—and there will be secret socks, too, and other knitting... A pretty ambitious plan for next year! Especially considering, I still haven't finished Decembers sock (but I did knit two secret socks this year (one in the summer, and the pair just finished)) so I have already knit a bakers dozen!--Decembers sock will be the 14^th pair for the year.

As an aside--all this sock knitting is still not enough to make a serious dent in my sock yarns stash--and  sales and yarn companies are likely going to try to entise  me to buy more sock yarn. Knitting up all my sock yarn is a Sisyphean task.