An optimist is the human personification of spring.
[Susan J. Bissonette]

I know spring is coming. Meanwhile, my hands were uncomfortably cold while I worked at my keyboard so I knit these mitts. I’d have taken a photo with them on my hands except my arms aren’t long enough to get a clear photo.

These are stranded knitting. The one on the right shows the palm. When I knit mitens, I increase toward the plam instead of the thumb since that is where I need the extra fabric. I worked these the same way.

Luck is the residue of design.
[Branch Rickey]

Here it is, finished. The first photo is the sock drying on the streatcher. While I was working the twenty five red rows for the foot, I was thinking I’d like to reinforce the toe too, so I repeated the cuff pattern. The plain grey on the toe is also knit with two strands of yarn although you can’t see that since they are the same color.

I like putting designs on the toe of a sock. I never know where I might take off my shoes. Even if I don’t, it is like having lace on my pettycoat. Even though nobody sees it, I know it is there and it makes me smile.

Only with winter-patience can we bring
The deep-desired, long-awaited spring.
[Anne Morrow Lindbergh]

Yesterday, I shoveled some more snow, drew some more flowers for an illustration job (nice counterpoint to shoveling snow), and turned the sock heel with a technique I’d not tried before.

Marilyn B. commented on the Design-1 post that stranded knitting makes her socks last longer. I find this to be true too—especially if I use a yarn that felts the strands on the inside as you wear the sock—so I decided to work a stranded heel. Had I worked a heel with a flap, this would have been a matter of working back and forth with the two colors. Then I could have switched back to the red to pick up stitches along the sides of the flap and decrease for the gusset. That didn’t dawn on me until I had finished the heel turn. Duh.

Instead, I worked the heel I usually use, and did the stranding with intarsia in the round. The red yarn makes a complete round and the grey yarn goes back and forth. Once I figured it out, it wasn’t hard to do. It is like working a puzzle. I did the check because it made it easier to purl the grey back to where it needed to be. Tomorrow, the foot and toe.

If love is blind, why is lingerie so popular?

I guess socks aren’t really lingerie nor as enticing as fish-net hose, but these Valentine socks are warmer. Since snow is blowing horizontally this morning, warmer seems like a good idea. The February Socks from …and a time to knit stockings use both stranded knitting and a dab of lace knitting — simple yarn overs and knit two togethers. Since lace spreads more than stranded knitting, it is best worked on smaller needles. The decorative cast on is longtail using red and white. The ends of the yarn are twisted into a little pig tail.

The shortest answer is doing.
[Lord Herbert]

Edie Stern in Yorktown Heights, New York sent me this photo of a pair of socks she knit using the “Waves & Rivulets” pattern in the Tongue River Farm Sock Collection. She writes, “I’ve been knitting 30 years or so, all of it as an intermediate knitter (nothing fancy). I lived in Florida for most of that time, and just moved north six years ago, so my knitting has increased obsessively. Living within driving range of Rhinebeck has done wonders for my obsessiveness too.”

Edie contacted me by email before Christmas for help with deciphering the heel instructions. When I composed the Tongue River book several years ago, I struggled with how to present the heel instructions, and, using feedback from knitters, I have since refined the way I present it in patterns. She has since finished the socks, as you can see. She writes, “I like these better than any socks I’ve knitted before, and they fit better too. They’re warm and lovely, and I’m ready to start another pair out of your book. This one was challenging and fun.”

You can imagine that this made me feel as warm and fuzzy as . . . well, as a pair of hand-knit socks. This heel treatment is the same as the one I’ve discussed in that last couple of posts. For more about the book she used, select this LINK.

Only she who attempts the absurd can achieve the impossible.
[Sharon Schuster]

This sock may be absurd, but it is not impossible. It is from my Tougue River Farm Sock Collection book. The heel is worked in the same technique as the little socks I posted yesterday. You can see by the stripes in the gusset how many stitches were added to allow ease in the heel shaping. Fit depends upon the shape of a person’s foot. For me, these fit well with no bunching on the front of my foot.

These socks are knit using two colors, stranded in a Fair Isle manner. The blossom idea came from a silk-screened komono. I have a sweater that uses variations of this pattern that I will photograph and post in the near future.

When I knit a sock using stranded knitting, I either knit on larger needles or add more stitches than I would with a plain sock since it isn’t as elastic. Vertical stripes make it even less elastic. When I knit a plain sock, I often rib the back of the heel and the gusset.

Creativity can be described as letting go of certainties.
[Gaily Sheehy]

Over the years, I’ve knit socks with a wide variety of heel-turn techniques. Then I bought sock yarn that was dyed to fall into a pattern as it was knitted. As I was working on the leg, I kept asking myself how I would work the heel so it wouldn’t interrupt the pattern. I looked at the anatomy of my foot and unvented this non-stop heel. Since I make many stranded-knitting socks, I soon discovered that I could keep in pattern using this method.

At the end of February, I’m scheduled to teach this heel technique at a retreat in Ohio so I am currently working on handouts. I already had a small sock designed to teach a variety of techniques (the green and pink sock pattern can be printed off at this LINK). I also had developed the child’s sock pattern with the lace, leaf cuff. However, I wanted a simple pattern that wouldn’t take up much workshop time to knit the leg and get to the heel. The sock on the upper left is the result — knit on thirty-two stitches using DK-weight yarn.

Before you can do something that you’ve never done before,
you have to be able to imagine it’s possible.
[Jean Shinoda Bolen]

I’m currently working on a new pattern for a small sock that I can use as a workshop project. I want to teach the non-stop heel turn that I like to use, but don’t want to take up too much of the workshop time doing a leg to get to the heel. When I write a pattern, I try to imagine how a knitter will read it. I have varying levels of success and my greatest asset is having a beginning knitter use the pattern. If I can get someone to say, “What do you mean by this?” then I can write a better pattern.

Also, I’ve had a number of requests for the pattern I used for the argyle vest that I wrote about several weeks ago. I knit that thirty years ago and lost track of the pattern. One of my blog readers, Sara, found the pattern on line! That got me to thinking. I swore I’d never knit argyle again (intarsia isn’t a favorite technique of mine), but I now have a vest pattern growing in my mind. I’ll keep you posted on the development of this.

Surround yourself with people who are going to lift you higher.
[Oprah Winfrey]

I am honored that Schoolhouse Press is now offering my new CD book through their mail-order business.

Many years ago, I took my mother to Meg Swansen’s Knitting Camp in Marshfield, Wisconsin. My mother was wheel-chair bound, and I went mainly to care for her. Knitting Camp was wonderful, and I was bit by the knitting bug anew. The following year, we returned and I won a contest with a pair of socks I’d designed. I was so encouraged that I went home and designed all of the socks in the original version of …and a time to knit stockings. Meg helped me market my book and I sold out two printings.

After that, Mama and I made an annual pilgrimage to Marshfield for Knitting Camp. We enjoyed the companionship, stimulating ideas, shopping at the Schoolhouse press tables, and basking in the warm and encouraging atmosphere created by Meg and her team of helpers. Being a part of that gathering lifted us higher.

For more information about Meg Swansen’s Schoolhouse Press and Knitting Camp, select this LINK.

Just remember, there’s a right way and a wrong way to do everything,
and the wrong way is to keep trying to make everybody else do it the right way.
[Colonel Potter, M*A*S*H]

In knitting, any technique that produces the results you desire is “the right way.” In the text of an excellent knitting reference book, the auther insists that the best way to hold the yarn is between the thumb and first finger of the right hand without wrapping the yarn around any fingers. I insist that the best way to hold the yarn is the method that works best for you.

A two-handed method is commonly taught for managing two strands of yarn. I tried that long enough to get proficient at it, but was not happy with the results. I experimented with other ways to hold the strands, and the method demonstrated here produces the smoothest results for me. I am left handed so I do most of my movements with my left hand. My right hand mainly holds the yarn, kind of like a spool on a sewing machine.

1. This image shows the position of my hands and the yarn. The strand that lies nearest my hand (the light color) always falls on top of the darker strand as I change colors. I could hold it so the dark always falls on top. The main thing to remember is to keep the same color falling on top since it will show if you switch the order in the middle of a piece of knitting.

2. This image shows how I wrap the yarn on my hand—like threading a sewing machine for tension control. Notice that I’ve separated the strands with my ring finger. I find that this helps in keeping the strands separated over my index finger.

3 & 4. These images show how I select and knit first one color then the other.

When I taught myself this technique, I worked slowly until my hands were used to the new motor skill. Now, I can knit with the same speed and smoothness as though I were knitting one strand.