Friday, October 18, 2019

socktober...

Turns out there is another meaning to it - a campaign to help the homeless and less fortunate. I went to Walmart and bought a couple dozen socks and dropped them off to our local shelter and felt much better about knitting nice socks for my friends and family. Being all fired up to knit a pair a day until my stash is gone and my new project arrives, I got busy winding. Last year, before Christmas, I got caught in the crosshairs of the Canadian postal strike - http://knitwords.blogspot.com/2018/11/goin-postal.html - ended up double ordering and by the time I finally got the Canadian order, I was socked out and just put it away. You know, out of sight, out of mind. The other day, I got it out and just started in on knitting without really evaluating the situation. After knitting the third pair of rather plain (for me) socks, it dawned on me, I think I had a plan when I ordered this stuff. Looked in my photo file and yeah, I did have a strategy. Not that I forgot about those awesome boots, but they were the inspiration behind this order. I wanted some red socks to wear with these boots – I had bought them a half size up from my other JFs https://knitwords.blogspot.com/2017/12/sox-talk.html  which were a little on the snug side but these red ones are a bit on the large size and, I thought I needed a longer cuff because the boots are higher. Anyway, it's really hard to find cool sock yarn to go with red boots. These are pretty boring except for those Kroy ones!

Realized I ordered the Patons Kroy for a reason – it’s a little heavier than most of the other sock yarns. Lana Grossa, Regia, Paintbox, etc. are 390 to 420 m to 100g which translates to 3.9 to 4.2 m per 1 g. Patons Kroy is 152 m to 50g which is 3 m to 1g. Never actually figured this out until now, I just knew from using it in the past for myself that the Patons socks were thicker when made the same as the other yarns - makes a difference when wearing other boots or shoes.
I know what you’re thinking, oh gosh, she’s going to go on and on about socks again! I’ll shut up now and just knit…

2 comments:

sageintaglio said...

Gosh - I love those Red Boots! I was wondering if you have a circular sock knitting machine to make socks? I always feel guilty that maybe all of us in the US bought all of the Canadian machines and left you with nothing!!
I have a Legare 400 and a Creelman Improved Moneymaker - both Canadian made, and one US made Franx & Pope - (which I really think was contracted to be made by Legare.) When I talked to Mike Becker, he told me these machines could be tricky to use, but having been a flatbed knitter, I had very few problems learning.They had been re-conditioned by a good seller, so were working well. Sorry,sorry,sorry to be hogging 3 machines!
Linda from Indiana

Mary Anne Oger said...

No worries, Linda! I don't need a sock machine! I'm using my Japanese Silver Reed knitting machine with ribber to make them in circular and the socks are fabulous with a nice stretchy rib cuff.