The cardigan has reach a point where I need to measure and make critical decisions to get the fit right, so I am procrastinating and avoiding the anxiety of all those decisions and knitting some socks instead. I’m trying out a new stitch for reinforcing the heels, called the Eye of Partridge stitch. A funny name for a very pretty-looking stitch!

Knitwear sizing is still hard. I knit gauge swatches and I measure and I calculate, and it still feels like hit and miss. Often the knitting behaves differently when there is more of it. With the ribbed cuff of a sock, there’s no point in making a decision about fit before there’s at least 5 or 6 cm of it. With these socks I made three starts (despite first making a swatch!) and still I’m not 100% happy with the fit. The next pair will be larger. My plan is to establish a good base pattern for this yarn weight and then just make variations of it – yarn colour, ribbing type, decorative details etc.

I thought I could give these slightly too tight socks to Adrian, who loves wool socks. It turned out that his ankle is as thick as mine, and his instep maybe even higher than mine. The only dimension where our feet differ seems to be length – his are about 2-3 cm shorter. So I guess I’ll keep these after all and wear them directly on the skin, rather than as an extra layer on cold days.

And I get the definite feeling that cardigans get narrower the longer I knit. I measured the black one when I had knit 10 cm and it was slightly loose. I put it around my waist again when I had 20 cm and it felt noticeably tighter. Perhaps the yarn’s own weight pulls it down?

You know what is more frustrating than having to rip up several days worth of knitting because you got the gauge wrong?

Having to rip up several days worth of knitting because you used the wrong yarn.

I made swatches with several different yarns and then picked one combination and ordered enough for a whole cardigan. Unfortunately the alpaca yarn I left in the knitting basket was not the one I had decided to use. And I discovered this when I had knitted most of the first ball of yarn.

With all the Christmas scarves, socks and mittens done (yes, the scarf was also a gift) I can start a new project, which will be the black cardigan I’ve been wanting to have for many months now.

Starting a large knitting project is scary. Despite all the measuring and gauge swatches, I have no real confidence in my ability to get the sizing right. Gauge swatches are so much smaller than cardigans that every measurement error gets magnified by a factor of 10.

It takes a long while for the errors to become really apparent in the real thing. Right now the cardigan is just a curled-up ribbon of knitting. If I gently pull at it a little bit in one direction, or another, its size can seem completely different.

Keep knitting and hope for the best.

I finished the Christmas mittens in time. Now that they have been unwrapped, I can safely post full photos here!

Raspberry red for Adrian, black for Ingrid.

Funnily enough both of them like the same colour combination but with different emphasis. Adrian picked out the red and blue yarn (without knowing what they were for) and Ingrid happened to show me her favourite desktop wallpaper which was mostly black with details in the same cool red and blue tones.

Adrian immediately started using his, even before I had woven in all the yarn ends (which I didn’t do in advance because I wanted them to try them on). Ingrid hasn’t worn hers yet. Perhaps she thinks she doesn’t need mittens any more. In which case I guess hers will become Adrian’s in a few years.

Guess who hasn’t finished the knitted Christmas presents yet…

All the socks I’ve planned to knit for Christmas are finished but there are still several weeks left until Christmas Eve so I thought I’d knit some more things. Both kids will get a pair of mobile mittens with finger openings. I found a nice easy pattern to follow in relatively chunky yarn – Keep in touch by Drops Design.

Ingrid isn’t supposed to get any Christmas gifts at all this year, because the gaming computer she got was expensive enough to be both a birthday gift and a Christmas gift and then some. But mittens are more like a utility so those don’t really count, I think.

Oh, let’s be honest. Every gift I knit is a selfish one. The knitting is as much a gift to myself as the finished object is to whoever gets it.

Nice easy patterns are quick to make but also kind of boring to knit, so I decided to add some cables to these mittens, inspired by another design I saw in a book. Then I had the idea of doing the cables in contrasting colours and when I pictured the result in my mind it looked so much better than what I saw in the original pattern that I just had to do it this way. I’ve never done intarsia cables before, but how hard can it be.

Not very hard, it turns out, but fiddly. So my quick pairs of mittens are now not so quick any more. Every other row there is cabling to do, and in the rows between the coloured stitches have to be knitted backwards because the yarn end is at the wrong side of the coloured band. It’s not quite double the work but almost. Maybe it would have been wiser to stick to a simpler design for a last minute project like this… but I do like these a lot. I have two weeks left still so it’ll be fine.

I can knit for Ingrid right here in plain sight without her noticing anything. She’s busy with her own thoughts. If you asked her, she would probably be able to tell you that I have been knitting, but not much more.

It’s much trickier with Adrian. He is curious and sociable. He looks at my knitting, comments on the design, opines on the colours, tries it on even when he knows it’s not for him. There is no way he would not notice. So I’ll have to make his late at night when he is in bed. Or perhaps during the day when he is at school, if I can find the time.

Here are the finished 1337-themed woollen socks in all their glory. I hope my colleague likes them.

The yarn is Novita’s “7 brothers”, so I used Novita’s “basic wool socks” pattern which is made for this yarn. (The pattern only has sizes 30, 38 and 46 though, so I had to make up my own variation for size 42-43. Luckily 42 is right in the middle between 38 and 46.)

I first tried knitting the logo but it was fiddly and the result didn’t look good, so I ripped that up and knitted plain socks and embroidered the logo afterwards. It came out much better this way – nice and even with no puckering, and only very slightly stiff. And as a bonus I learned the Estonian term for “duplicate stitch”.

The cuff has a hidden “1337” in it as well. One row of blue, three rows of blue, three again, and then seven.

Four socks 100% finished now, after I wove in all the ends. Feels good.

I was going to take photos of the whole finished thing and show off my embroidery but forgot to do it while I had daylight, and these really do deserve daylight. It’s a good thing my colleagues don’t read this blog or otherwise I’d have to keep these under the wraps until after Christmas! (Like I will do with the other pair which I knitted for a family member. He might not even mind, but I still think a Christmas present ought to be at least a little bit of a surprise.)

It feels unfair that the last step of a knitting project would be the least enjoyable one. I don’t enjoy the weaving in of ends. It’s like cooking a meal, seasoning it, tasting it – and then having to end it with peeling potatoes. I even like peeling better than weaving in ends, because you can’t really get the peeling wrong, whereas with the yarn ends I can never get them quite as invisible as I would like.

My knitting basket is overflowing with nearly-finished socks. First I knitted one pair, to give away. Figuring out the sizing took a few attempts, but the second sock went fast because I now had the pattern worked out for this exact size and this exact yarn.

Well. If the first sock is the time-consuming one and the next one goes fast, why not make more of those fast ones? I have the pattern now, and I have one more skein of the exact same yarn, so let’s be efficient and make use of this! I know more than one person with size 42/43 feet who might benefit from a pair of sturdy woollen socks. Actually, most people in this part of the world probably would.

The second pair will be for a secret Santa gift exchange at work. They’ll have some nice tretton37 styling in duplicate stitch, i.e. embroidery that looks like knitting (maskstygn/can’t find the Estonian name). I’m excited about doing the embroidery so I’m all focused on finishing the second sock in this pair and getting started on the decorations, and putting off the much more boring work of weaving in the yarn ends on all the finished socks. 3 socks 99% done, 1 sock 90% done, not one 100% done.

When I had come about halfway on the first sock, I ripped up all I’d done and started over. And then I did it again when I had done two thirds of a sock. Today I started on my third try and finally it feels right.

It’s just a pair of socks, how hard can it be! It’s not like I haven’t knitted any before. And it’s not like I don’t have a pattern to follow. But getting the fit right with a new yarn still takes some trial and error.

The first time the ribbing around the calf looked ugly when stretched out.

The second attempt with more stitches looked better but fit worse – it was way too loose around the heel and ankle. (The socks are not for me but my feet are the closest so I try them on my own feet anyway… The difference in width isn’t huge.)

For the third attempt I am using the lower stitch count again, like the first time, but 1×1 ribbing instead of 2×2 – and now I’m happy with both the fit and the looks.

With my previous attempts I kept guessing and trying it on and hesitating. I kept putting the knitting away because it didn’t feel quite right. Now that there is a feel of rightness about the whole thing, progress is fast. Although I started from zero today, after an evening of knitting I’m back where I was yesterday evening.