Lacy Sock Cuffs Yawn
So I'm still working on those lacy-cuff socks. Or rather, I have been working on the socks. I finished the second cuff a night or so ago and then blocked it out and then today let Julie give it a spin. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
Here's what the new, second try looked like laying flat on the table...
I had to make it quite a bit fuller, by increasing quite a few stitches at the top of the ribbing, in order to get the lace to lay flat in a full circle for blocking purposes. And I'm not at all sure that this is a good thing, but again perhaps I am getting ahead of myself...
Here is a closeup of the grafted seam in the lace cuff...
It is not entirely horrible, but it is not perfectly perfect either. Really, it is not at all noticeable when the sock is being worn, but it is not exactly beautiful on closeup examination, as in the kind a State Fair judge would perform. My grafting skills, while good, do leave a bit to be desired when it comes to joining knits to purls and purls to knits and when it comes to yarnovers my mind just begins to boggle. Never mind that this is supposed to be a sock design that will be written up in a pattern, for which I will have to find a way to explain some kind of process in words as to how to duplicate whatever I did. Yick!
Okay, now on the left in this picture we have the new sock, with the very full, wide cuff, and on the right we have the older sock, with what I consider to be a quite happily proportionate cuff. I have to be honest here and admit that I prefer the one on the right, with the exception of the little problem with the non-matching cast-on and bind-off edges down the center front. But we'll get to that part in a minute.
Here are the socks being modeled by two wiggly little four-year-old feet. Old one on the left, new one on the right. Because there is more fabric in the new sock cuff, it is heavier, and hangs down further than the old one. An additional disadvantage, I'm afraid. This problem would be somewhat alleviated when the child put on some shoes, but we can't have pretty little sock cuffs dragging on the ground now, can we. Also, this picture doesn't adequately show just how big and floppy the new cuff looks in motion. It's quite full, but not really drapey enough to look frilly and gathered.
Our little photoshoot was held at the top of the stairs, where my darling model and my darling would-be model both wanted to practice their barre skills using the hand rail. Quite distracting from the whole attempted-sock-photographing.
But quite cute at the same time.
Here are Julie's feet in First Position. Can you see the floppy fullness I've described? I don't care for it, not one bit.
And all this has led me to put off ripping off a cuff and replacing it with a third try just yet. But I did have a brainstorm about simply adding a few rows of garter stitch to either end of the cuff with the open front a la sock #1 and hopefully making the edges acceptable to my taste. I decided to sample it with a little swatch before committing to another two evenings of cuff knitting...
...Still not perfect, but perhaps slightly more acceptable. I'm still trying to figure out what I really want to do about it. No rush, I suppose.
In the mean time, I finished up a little knitting for the lovely ballet teacher Rachel - I used up some of the leftover yarn from her socks to make her a pair of these...
Which I had seen some of the dancers at the studio wearing, and which she says they call "foot undies." She liked them, and wore them during our class, even though they are incredibly silly looking.
I also whipped out a pile of these over the weekend:
They are simple stockinette swatches, knit on my Singer LK150 machine. They are meant for my students to play with in the Damage Control class that starts this week. I find that a)some students fail to do their homework before a first class, and then have nothing to play with, leaving them disgruntled and irritated and b)other students have much less trouble working on a swatch in which they have no emotional investment, making them much more likely to succeed in learning what I'm trying to teach.
I really will have to get back to those sock cuffs soon, but in the mean time I think I'll spend what's left of this evening working on the snowflake scarf. Any thoughts or suggestions about the socks would be well appreciated. Thanks!
Here's what the new, second try looked like laying flat on the table...
I had to make it quite a bit fuller, by increasing quite a few stitches at the top of the ribbing, in order to get the lace to lay flat in a full circle for blocking purposes. And I'm not at all sure that this is a good thing, but again perhaps I am getting ahead of myself...
Here is a closeup of the grafted seam in the lace cuff...
It is not entirely horrible, but it is not perfectly perfect either. Really, it is not at all noticeable when the sock is being worn, but it is not exactly beautiful on closeup examination, as in the kind a State Fair judge would perform. My grafting skills, while good, do leave a bit to be desired when it comes to joining knits to purls and purls to knits and when it comes to yarnovers my mind just begins to boggle. Never mind that this is supposed to be a sock design that will be written up in a pattern, for which I will have to find a way to explain some kind of process in words as to how to duplicate whatever I did. Yick!
Okay, now on the left in this picture we have the new sock, with the very full, wide cuff, and on the right we have the older sock, with what I consider to be a quite happily proportionate cuff. I have to be honest here and admit that I prefer the one on the right, with the exception of the little problem with the non-matching cast-on and bind-off edges down the center front. But we'll get to that part in a minute.
Here are the socks being modeled by two wiggly little four-year-old feet. Old one on the left, new one on the right. Because there is more fabric in the new sock cuff, it is heavier, and hangs down further than the old one. An additional disadvantage, I'm afraid. This problem would be somewhat alleviated when the child put on some shoes, but we can't have pretty little sock cuffs dragging on the ground now, can we. Also, this picture doesn't adequately show just how big and floppy the new cuff looks in motion. It's quite full, but not really drapey enough to look frilly and gathered.
Our little photoshoot was held at the top of the stairs, where my darling model and my darling would-be model both wanted to practice their barre skills using the hand rail. Quite distracting from the whole attempted-sock-photographing.
But quite cute at the same time.
Here are Julie's feet in First Position. Can you see the floppy fullness I've described? I don't care for it, not one bit.
And all this has led me to put off ripping off a cuff and replacing it with a third try just yet. But I did have a brainstorm about simply adding a few rows of garter stitch to either end of the cuff with the open front a la sock #1 and hopefully making the edges acceptable to my taste. I decided to sample it with a little swatch before committing to another two evenings of cuff knitting...
...Still not perfect, but perhaps slightly more acceptable. I'm still trying to figure out what I really want to do about it. No rush, I suppose.
In the mean time, I finished up a little knitting for the lovely ballet teacher Rachel - I used up some of the leftover yarn from her socks to make her a pair of these...
Which I had seen some of the dancers at the studio wearing, and which she says they call "foot undies." She liked them, and wore them during our class, even though they are incredibly silly looking.
I also whipped out a pile of these over the weekend:
They are simple stockinette swatches, knit on my Singer LK150 machine. They are meant for my students to play with in the Damage Control class that starts this week. I find that a)some students fail to do their homework before a first class, and then have nothing to play with, leaving them disgruntled and irritated and b)other students have much less trouble working on a swatch in which they have no emotional investment, making them much more likely to succeed in learning what I'm trying to teach.
I really will have to get back to those sock cuffs soon, but in the mean time I think I'll spend what's left of this evening working on the snowflake scarf. Any thoughts or suggestions about the socks would be well appreciated. Thanks!
posted by Shelly Kang at 8:39 PM
14 Comments:
Hi Shelly--
Love the lace--so pretty! My only suggestion is to move the lace opening to the side a'la Summer of Love Lace and Rock and Weave from Blue Moon. I am not bothered by the cast-on edge being different from the bind-off edge--that's pretty common with lace, and I like the asymmetry.
'Any thoughts or suggestions about the socks would be well appreciated'...i think you should call them the clydesdale socks.
I agree with comment #1. I thnk it would be cute to have the sides open. Of course that would lead to each sock being assigned to one foot only, so that the opening would be on the outside side.
I also vote for less is more. Having two girls, they both seem to not like too much fuss around the ankle. Plus, too much fuss could cover up the shoe... KWIM?
Remember the fad of sock cuffs being dressed up with pony beads and crochet? My girls would always want to wear them, then declared them too "big".. that is what I mean about less is more.
Ok constuctive criticism aside. I love the lace pattern. Very cute. I also like seeing the creative process that is usually behind the scenes. Please do keep sharing that with us. It's easy to think of the finished design and pattern just jumping off a designers' needles. This make us more thankful for designers, what they go thru to give us patterns, and the cost that we pay for a pattern.
Keep up the good work!!
Off to get my coffee...
GORGEOUS socks! I think that cuff would be amazing on knee highs, too. Great tip about making the swatches before the class. I'm going to remember that one.
I wish I could help...and my best advice on the grafting is to talk to the Girl from Auntie - I Love her Rogue hoodie pattern - had no problems at ALL...until I had to kitchener the cables at the top of the hoodie - and that credit goes to a lovely lady from the LYS who truly enjoyed the challenge...while I looked on;)
how about a much smaller faggotting area? And the hell with grafting, nice loose 3-needle bind off will never show in the cuff.
Okay, maybe I'm just completely clueless about what's "appropriate" in lace sock cuffs (actually, there's no maybe about it!). I think the cuffs would look adorable with that split in the back... They're absolutely gorgeous, but I do like the older one better than the newer one. Plus, they'll be droopier as a day of wearing them goes on...
How about open in the back with a bow shaped button or ribbon bow at the top of the opening?
I definitely like the smaller cuff sock. I think they would look better even a little bit smaller than that. A sock is a good way to try out lace without much of a commitment. Good luck!!!
With lace cuffs like these, you can turn your kid into a human Swiffer.
I've been out of touch with blogs for a while, glad to be back and catch up on all your stuff.
I'm with Katie; I think the opening in back would be good, and I love Louise's suggestion of using a ribbon to tie them. While I prefer the first sock cuff to the second, in the shot of the two girls from above (amazingly cute, btw), I thought the second one looked better, but only because it was complete across the front. Since that's the one place an opening will really fall open, it's the place I'd avoid.
Ooh, what about a little motif in the back (or side, or wherever) where the edges meet, under the cuff, in kind of a peek-a-boo style? I also think the garter stitch edge was a good idea. And the lace pattern is very pretty.
Also, I agree with swissknits! that it's valuable to see the steps a designer goes through. Thanks for sharing this!
I agree with whoever said the lace would look great on a pair of knee high socks. soooo pretty. and with a little colored ribbon woven through maybe?
They are pretty neat as is as well.
Did you make the sock yarn sweater that Sophie is wearing in the pic on the stairs? I am so impressed. I made one for my first grand-daughter but didn't finish it in time for her so figured I had a good start on it for the second grand-daughter but didn't finish in time for her either
Ewww... that pile of swatches look kind of like a pile of knitted used tampons. (I think I may have that idea because another blogger I read had her WIP compared to a tampon by her husband.)
When I'm grafting lace I like to knit a copy of the grafting row both at the beginning and at the end with waste yarn in a contrasting colour. Then, when I'm grafting, I use those stitches as guides as to where I should be going with my grafting stitches.
I like the less full cuff better too, and the garter edge looks nice. :)
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