{"id":2016,"date":"2013-12-02T13:12:04","date_gmt":"2013-12-02T19:12:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/?p=2016"},"modified":"2013-12-14T00:14:50","modified_gmt":"2013-12-14T06:14:50","slug":"what-writers-do-in-off-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/?p=2016","title":{"rendered":"What Writers Do In Off Time"},"content":{"rendered":"

As I’ve mentioned before (maybe even with pictures–my memory’s shot),\u00a0 I’ve been knitting socks for a little under two years (will be two years January 28, 2014.)\u00a0\u00a0 When I started out, I used 100 gram balls of Ella rae Classic, 100% wool, worsted weight.\u00a0 That established a baseline for me and it’s proven to be a good yarn for the kind of socks I like: thick and sturdy and easy to work. Each sock used up most of a 100 g. ball; I saved the remnants, of course, and soon thought of using them to make striped socks.\u00a0 Meanwhile, riding the bike in hot weather, I decided I needed short socks.\u00a0 Short striped socks seemed a good idea.\u00a0 The first pair used up the remnants from two pairs of red “regular” socks, plus a little blue for a single stripe.But then…I branched out into other yarn brands, other colors, and more remnants were in the sack of leftovers.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 And I found a yarn I wanted to use very badly but I didn’t want to commit to a “regular” pair when I needed another short pair.\u00a0 Hence:<\/p>\n

\"2-pr-striped-shorty159\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The lefthand pair, nicknamed “Rainy Day Roses,” has been worn several times.\u00a0 The righthand pair, nicknamed “Sunny Day Roses” is new, with its yarn ends still loose inside.\u00a0 It’s intentional that the stripes don’t match.\u00a0\u00a0 The rose color was the new yarn–I will now make a pair of solid rose socks, but the rest of the balls used on these short socks will continue to make stripes with other colors.\u00a0 The dark teal, turquoise, and green yarns were leftovers from previous solid pairs, as also the purple stripe at the top of the green-based striped ones.<\/p>\n

But the weather cooled off before I finished the new pair (Saturday morning) so I knew I needed more regular length socks…and that led to the first striped pair of regular socks.\u00a0 They’re at the start of the toe decreases so it won’t be long before I have them in the rotation.<\/p>\n

\"red-blue-stripe158\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The regular socks have five inches of ribbing, then one and a half inches of stockinette (with a decrease to shape to my ankle.)\u00a0 I decided I did want matching stripes on the cuffs but unmatched on the foot.\u00a0 The heels are blue, and the toes will be blue with a single-row red stripe, just as the “sporty-shorty” socks have a single contrasting stripe on the toe.\u00a0 I’m still figuring out the best way to do this without having a zillion loose yarn ends.\u00a0 If the stripes are narrow enough, a color can “float” in the inside across the intervening color–very simply for one or two rows, OK for three or even four, but at five I begin to worry about snagging and breaking.<\/p>\n

Initially I thought it would be best to change colors along the side of the sock, but have now come down on the side of changing them up the center sole…they feel fine, and I don’t have to worry about the jagged places were the colors meet (or don’t)–I learned how to make striped not jag, but it involves a process that gradually shortens where you do that (becuase it’s a slip-stitch method) and I don’t want the sock foot to get sneakily shorter.\u00a0 Accepting the jag and enjoying the stripes elsewhere seemed more sensible.\u00a0 I may change my mind later, especially if I do knee-high striped socks someday.<\/p>\n

The red stripes are from leftovers of another pair of red “regular” socks and the blue here is a new blue.\u00a0 Since I started with the 100 g.\u00a0 balls, I will have quite a bit leftover, and my plan is that the next striped pair of regular socks will be this blue and leftover green.\u00a0 I have the feeling, though, that down the line trying to use up exactly all the leftover yarn will be like trying to get the gravy and what you put it on matched.<\/p>\n

[Edit: adding a picture of the finished socks]<\/p>\n

\"red-blue-socks-final\"<\/a><\/p>\n

At this point the yarn ends weren’t woven in yet, so I wore them only long enough to take the picture.\u00a0 Their first wearing came the following weekend, Dec 8.\u00a0\u00a0 They’ve now been washed and put in the rotation.\u00a0\u00a0 Next up is a plain green pair.\u00a0\u00a0 After that…not sure.\u00a0 But some plain pairs because it takes so long to weave in lots of ends.<\/p>\n

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As I’ve mentioned before (maybe even with pictures–my memory’s shot),\u00a0 I’ve been knitting socks for a little under two years (will be two years January 28, 2014.)\u00a0\u00a0 When I started out, I used 100 gram balls of Ella rae Classic, 100% wool, worsted weight.\u00a0 That established a baseline for me and it’s proven to be […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[112],"class_list":["post-2016","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life-beyond-writing","tag-life-beyond-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2016"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2016"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2016\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2021,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2016\/revisions\/2021"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2016"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2016"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2016"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}