The Flash

When I was a kid, I used to lie out on the sloping back lawn of my best friend Susie's yard and read through her vast collection of comics. One of them, a low-budget take-off on Superman, featured "Flash Kelly, Ace reporter". Flash was a particular kind of super-hero... smart, humble, helpful, and idealistic, able to leap small building with a single bound the help of a jet-pack hidden in his portable type-writer case...

Now I know my own Flash Kelly, and I've made him a pair of socks, size 10.5.



These socks are knit from a single skein of Blue Moon Fiber Arts Socks That Rock mediumweight on size 2 needles. They are toe-up and I made up the pattern as I went along. It went something like this...



Cast on 12 stitches and proceed with your favorite toe-up method until you have 17 stitches on each of 4 DPNs. Moss stich on instep only for 4 rows. Continue in St st for 6 inches, then decrease one stitch on each side of instep. Continue in St st until approx. 2 inch from end of foot (for the 10.5 size, this would 8 and 3/4 inches). Then, increase one st every other row on back two (heel) needles only until each of the heel needles has 27 stitches. Form gusset by knitting across 31 stitches, k2tog, K1, turn, Slip first st, Purl 10 st, p2tog, p1, turn. Knit across to one st before gap, k2tog, k1, turn. Sl first st, purl to one st before gap, p2tog, p1, turn. Repeat these two rows until all heel stitches have been used up. Knit two rows, closing up any gaps in the ankle stitches. Continue up leg with an interesting modified rib as follows:



Row 1 - K3, P1, K1, P1, repeat around
Row 2 - K3, K3, repeat around

Repeat these two rows for the desired length of the sock, or until you run out of yarn. I like this modified rib, because it's stretchy and has a nice ribby appearance, but it doesn't pull in the way the usual K3 P3 rib does. And I think it has a nice sort of masculine look, too.

Finnish with Sewn Bind off.

...and there you have it - socks just like Flash Kelly!

Jackie's Second Acorn...

So much has been happening I haven't even been able to keep up with it! And tomorrow we're scheduled to have something like 26 inches of snow (16 during the day and another 8 - 10 inches tomorrow night). Knitting has been happening, some out of necessity....

I finally wrote up the pattern for Jackie's Acorn - the winter dog-walking hat that I made for myself with Noro Silk Garden that my friend sent me from Seattle:


And no sooner had I done that, when I lost the hat! I think that it was in my lap when I slid out of the car last Saturday in front of the lower door to Macy's at the big Mall, because that's the last time I remember having it. When I went to use it that night, it was no where to be found. But, sadly, no one at the Mall customer service had seen it and one of the wonderful people from the Manchester Knitting Group even drove by the parking lot to try to find it...

So, I had to knit another this week; Jackie's Acorn Two:



Of course I like the first one best, especially since the yarn was a gift from a really good friend, but its great to have a hat again after a week of cold ears! The skein of Noro that I got for this was unfortunately flawed - it was knotted right in the middle of the skein with no regard to the colour sequence. So instead of the light brown to mid brown to deep chocolate brown, I got one 3-row stripe of mid brown and then right back to the grey again. You do take your chances with Noro!

The Socks That Rock KAL for Leyburns (on Ravelry) is still going strong (I think we have 200 people in this knit-along) and I've finally finished mine! (well, they're actually for a gift)



This yarn is BMFA Socks That Rock in Petroglyphs, lightweight, on a 2.5 mm needle. I knit them toe-up, with a gusset heel (no wraps) and used a shell picot bind off that I made up on the spot because I couldn't remember how to do the one I was thinking of at first. It turned out to be a nice stretchy edge...

Here's a good look at the colour and the heel:



Now I am finishing up the foot on a pair of fancy long 16th century stockings for Plimoth Plantation. If I end up staying home tomorrow because of the snow, those will be finished too!

progress....

There's some progress on my Leyburn socks, (STR Petroglyphs colourway, 2.5mm needles)though its not a very good photo:



When I got to the point where I would start the heel, I took a second set of needles and started the second sock from the other end of the skein. I did this for two reasons - The pattern has been a little bit fiddly, and I was worried that when I finally got finished with the first sock, I would lose motivation....

and, with a toe-up sock, I wanted a way to make these as long as possible while making sure that there would be enough yarn to make the second one just as long. By knitting from both ends of the center-pull ball at once, I can just keep knitting until I meet myself in the middle! (how zen)

I'm now ready to start both heels. Its so fun that when I'm finished, I'm finished with both! I think I'll do this from now on...

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

On the Vintage side, here is some information that might be useful for those of you who knit and crochet from vintage patterns. Below are three pictures of Nun's Nomotto yarn - the three types of Berlin wool. This was a commonly called for in vintage patterns, so I thought it was a good place to start:


This is called Berlin Wool. It's 4-ply and seems to me to be about DK weight.


Here is Berlin Baby Zephyr Wool. It is 2-ply and fingering weight. It looks just like baby weight wool that I see in the LYS - like Baby Ull.


This is called Berlin Zephyr. It is single ply and very soft and fluffy. It's lightweight fingering, and looks just like my lightweight sock yarns in thinness, although it's single ply and not tightly wound like most sock yarns. It might be easier to find a match for Berlin Zephyr in current lace yarns, which may not be as tightly spun as sock yarns...

There you have it - I hope to post pictures of more vintage yarn samples in the future...

It's cold here! Is it cold where you are?