Saturday, May 19, 2007

Yardage

I think I may have a wee problem here.

Pomatomus and yarn

Left to right: Half of a skein of Colinette Jitterbug, in the Bright Charcoal colourway; what remains of the other half; the sock in progress.

I suspected the yardage might be a bit short for these socks (apparently I'm neither the only one with this problem nor the only fan of this colourway), so instead of doing the 3 Chart A repeats in the pattern I did 2.5, thinking I could adjust the foot a bit. Doing 2 repeats would have made life much easier but at the same time...eh...the leg would have been a bit too short for my taste.

I'm at the heel gusset now, and the yarn looks awfully low. The new scale and the old scale both insist that slightly less than half of the yarn remains, and since half of the stitches will now be stockinette part of me wants to think that will be just enough. But then I look at the used ball, and I look at the unused ball, and the other part of me starts freaking and saying hey, that does not look like slightly less than half of the yarn left in the ball, that looks like I'm going to RUN OUT OF YARN, I had better take out that 0.5 repeat of Chart A...but then the leg will be too short for my taste...oh dear.

Waffling over this has distracted me a bit from worrying about how I'm going to tweak Chart B. Have you seen Chart B of this pattern? Cookie A. threw in an adjustment factor to compensate for the pattern not being square, and I just can't visualize how to apply it when one starts the chart halfway up at what would normally be the right edge of the pattern (the K2tog tbl on row 12 in Chart A). Do I still add something on at the left of the chart, or do I now add it on to the right? Ack!

Other than that things are going well.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

First of all, that colorway knits up so, so cool. Second, could you do the toes in a solid-color coordinating yarn? you could put all the stitches on hold with the first sock, knit the second sock, and if you have enough yarn left, you can finish the toes. If not, you can finish both toes with a different yarn. Not ideal, but at least it would prevent ripping out?

chemgrrl said...

Hey, nice socks. :) Rachel had some good suggestions, there. I also have a teensy bit leftover from my socks that I could send you. Leave me a comment on my blog (that sends me an email) if you want it.

Not sure about the chart thing--I'd have to look at it again. Have you figured it out yet?

Theresa said...

I tried to knit those socks once on a train, and I just got too confused by the pattern. Sorry I can't help. But as for the yardage, knitting faster can help ;)

somebunnysloveDOTcom said...

I like what Rachel suggested. I have knitted up socks with matching heels and toes to make the yarn stretch in a pattern. Also, the stress of worrying made me learn how to knit 2 socks at the same time. Now if I can only do them toe-up... Good luck!
Bunny hugs,
=:8

Anonymous said...

Hi there, how are you doing on your Pomatomus socks?

I'm having the same confusion over Chart B... I've knit the first ten rows, and what I did was put the "left edge" thing in the triangle hole on the right edge... I think I'm doing the right thing but I have no proof!