Where was I?

Where have I been? My mind has been elsewhere recently (and it's always a busy place in there!) and I hadn't realized how much time has gone by since my last bog. My goal is to blog about once per week at minimum but sometimes my life and my knitting don't always keep to that pace.

The most recent and pressing project has been socks for my Mom. Her feet sometimes swell and don't allow her slippers to fit onto her feet. But her feet still get cold so I wanted to make her some warm, beautiful sock. She's very sensitive to wool so I have been stumped to determine what yarn to use for her socks. I got the clue form the Entrelac Socks knitalong I have been participating in (see here for more on the knitalong) and was very interested in Bex's solution to problems she had with the socks being too tight - she used Cascade Fixation yarn, and elasticized cotton that is very springy and cushy for socks. She mentioned that elann.com had a similar yarn called Esprit that was less than $3 a ball. I immediately placed an order for 3 balls each of 2 nice teal-y- greens that I knew mom would like.

Using my favourite feather and fan lace pattern I made some socks based on the Yarn Harlot's basic recipe. The photo here shows the first sock done and the 2nd done through the turning of the heel. The yarn is VERY springy with a "boing" factor, and takes a bit of getting used to in terms of tension; do you stretch it while knitting or not? I found that if I stretched it making the stitches I soon ended up with the tightest stitches imaginable, so I kept fooling with it to find a relaxed and fairly even manner of knitting. Using size 6 US needles made for really fast knitting. The pair of socks used about 1 1/2 balls of yarn.

The socks were beautiful knitting up and stretched to fit anywhere from my little feet to my mom's larger size. I'll be curious to find out how well they hold their shape and wear over time, but I do recommend the yarn for knitting socks for a person who has problems with wool, and/or who's foot dimensions are unknown.