Things have been happening here, although you certainly couldn’t tell from the lack of blog posts.

Windowpane Check Rib socks

So just to make sure you know that I’m still around, here’s a quick update.  I finished the Windowpane Check Rib socks, but have not yet sent them off to their new home.  First, I hung onto them until I could snap a couple of pictures.  Then, well, … I just haven’t gotten to packaging them up, addressing the mailer, etc., etc.

Here’s the picture to prove that there are two of them.  The Happy Feet yarn bloomed very nicely on washing, and they are softer than I though they would be.  I was perfectly satisfied with them before, but this is even nicer!

Now I’m working on a pair of socks for myself, and test-driving a new pattern.  I decided on this stitch pattern for another pair of thank-you gift socks, and for some reason felt like it would be a good idea to try it out before casting on to start them.  So, since I had some lovely Jojoland Melody fingering weight yarn calling, I answered.

That turned out to be a good thing!  The cable pattern, which I’m calling Shifting Cable Rib, came from one of my books (I can’t recall offhand which one it was, and I’m not inclined to go looking just now).  The 24-stitch repeat  fits three times around the leg of the sock.  This works out fine, although it does play mind games with me in the beginning-of-round department.

Shifting Cable Rib in Jojoland Melody

The problem I ran into, which was totally unexpected, was that the cable rib pulls in so much that it hardly fits!  I planned for a bit of that, and didn’t decrease the mini-gusset stitches as I normally would, but still!  I could wear it as is, but the cables are so stretched out when I put it on that they aren’t pretty at all.   So it appears that I’m going to have to rip back the entire leg and re-knit it with larger needles.  And since I’m going to rip it back anyway, I think I’ll do a few rounds of plain rib before I start the cable pattern, and perhaps do one less repeat.  We’ll see how that all turns out.

All of that brings me to this: I’ve decided to share my own sock recipe here in the near future.  I’ve hammered out a plan that works for me, and the result is that I can write everything I need to know for a new sock pattern on just a sticky note!  (And maybe a chart.)

As usual, it takes a lot longer and includes a lot more explaining to document it for someone else than to write notes to myself.  But I figure I’ll give it a shot, and if anyone uses it, perhaps they’ll let me know how it works for them – and whether I need to revise it.