Sock knitting with Patons Kroy Socks FX on an antique sock knitting machine

My daughter & I were in JoAnn's the other day, and spotted some sock knitting yarn that I hadn't tried in my antique  Creelman Brothers sock knitting machine. The beast is about 100 years old at this point, and is quite picky about what yarn it likes to work with.

My go-to yarn for socks has been the Serenity sock weight yarn from the Deborah Norville collection. My machine loves it, and it makes lovely soft socks. But I spotted some Patons Kroy Socks FX yarn, and my daughter fell in love with one of the color combinations. We made a deal: she'd buy the yarn, and I'd use it to test in my machine. If it turned out, she'd get the socks. If not, I'd ball up the yarn, and she'd get the yarn to use in her crochet work.

So, off we went. I first noticed that the Patons yarn was thicker than the Serenity stuff. In the same 50 gram size ball, there were only 166 yards, vs. the 230 in the Serenity. I was going to have to be careful. I make the socks from the cuff down, and I was afraid of running out of yarn  before I finished the toe if I did my usual calf high socks. So I decided to change the pattern to come just above the ankle.

Onto the machine it went. I had to put it on and rip it out a couple of times while I tinkered with the settings on the machine. As it was a thicker yarn, I had to loosen up the tension, and add more weight down below. Even so, the yarn jumped off the needles a couple of times when I was just starting to turn the heels and toes. Luckily, I've gotten good at repairing a run, when I catch it early enough.

I followed my pattern for size 10 women's socks, that I had worked out for the Serenity yarn. It turns out, when your yarn is bigger, and when you have a looser tension, the same number of rows in the foot makes for a longer foot. When I was done sewing the toe closed, the sock measured 10 1/2" long in the foot. That is a half inch longer than what I was aiming for. Also? The yarn, which is a wool/nylon mix, was not as nice to the touch as the wool/bamboo/nylon mix I was used to. Hmmmm....

Well, I decided to throw the finished socks into the wash, and see what the water would do to them. I washed them in warm water with a load of regular clothes, and then tossed them in the dryer on medium heat. And hoped for the best.

It totally worked! The socks shrunk and fluffed a bit in the wet finishing process, and ended up just at 10" long in the foot. And, the fluffing made them softer to the touch. My daughter squealed when she saw them, and tried them right on. She oooh and ahhed about how soft and comfortable they were. And we both absolutely love the gorgeous color changes.

The color repeat is long enough that I couldn't do my usual trick of starting each sock in the same spot in the repeat in order to get matching socks. So, when I make socks with this brand of yarn, the socks will be similar, but the color repeats will be in different spots. Michelle didn't care a bit! I think she likes them better that way.

Overall? Two thumbs up. The yarn is a bit trickier to work with on the machine, but those colors are well worth the hassle. If you were using traditional knitting needles, the extra bit of thickness wouldn't be so much of an issue. And, from here on out I'll wash them in cold on a delicate cycle, and lay them flat to dry. That should avoid any more shrinkage.

Now, I need to make myself a pair!!

Socks and Hiking in the White Tanks

Well, the day has come. My eyes are getting old enough that I gave in, and decided to use a magnifying glass for sewing closed the toes on the socks that I make. It sure makes it easier to see the teeny tiny stitches, so I don't drop any by mistake when I'm doing the finishing work.

I was working on finishing up this pair of socks for one of my Sock-a-Month clients, when my husband got home from work and suggested that we take a bit of time to enjoy a hike in the White Tanks, west of Phoenix. I'm game!

We tried the South Trail tonight, since we hadn't been on it yet. It is a relatively easy mile to where it joins up with another trail, though it is a gradual up hill the whole way. My calves were feeling the work on the way in. We set a timer for 45 minutes, so we would have enough time to get turned around and back to the car before we lost the light.

We don't just do serious hikes though. I'm always on the look out for a good picture. And Eric is a very good sport. "Hey dear! Go force push that saguaro!!" I giggled, he giggled, and an epic shot was born.

We also spotted this little fellow. The lizards are hard to see sometimes, with their perfect camouflage coloration against the rocks. And they usually skitter away before I can get close. This one actually stayed still enough that I could use my telephoto lens from a distance to capture his portrait. "Can she see me? I'm very still. I'm a rock. Don't eat me. Rock."

We did get back to the car, just as we were losing the light. The sunset was beautiful. In just a month, I'm suspecting it will be too hot in the desert for hiking. But for right now, it is wonderful.

And yes, I finished up the socks when I got home, and put the listing up in the Etsy shop. So I'm feeling all accomplished this evening! Good day.

Studio woes

My studio has an owie.

The clothes washer declined to stop filling the other night, while we were all out of the house. We got the surface stuff mopped out, and my fiber equipment is fine, but the laminate flooring in my studio was buckling. Workers came out yesterday to do some demolition to trace how far back the water went under the flooring, and set up fans and dehumidifiers to dry us out. (No mold!!) The equipment will run steady for 3-5 days, and then we'll look at our next step.

Also? I can tell you that the combination of 9 industrial fans and two dehumidifiers is quite loud.

My poor studio....