Correct stitch count: check.
Better yarn: check.
Loving the results: check.

The yarn I’m using is Cleckheaton Baby Cocoon. This is the softest, squooshiest sock yarn I’ve ever felt. Seriously, I’m considering only using sock yarn from Australia from now on (well, once I use up all that is in my stash currently!). The yarn I used for the Child’s First Sock in Shell Pattern was really soft too (Paton’s Patonyle, also from Australia).

They certainly know their wool down under!

The first go-around, I was knitting the sock on 64 stitches. No pooling.

2nd try, up to 72 stitches. And the colors started to stack up (most noticable was the orange).

I’m not completely anti-pooling, but I really didn’t want it to be so obvious on this sock! So I clearly need to stay in the 60-something area for the stitch count. Which means the herringbone pattern is just not going to work with this yarn.

I’m going to just knit this up in stockinette. Take THAT, Opal Handpaint.

I’m not abandoning the pattern design yet. I am just going to start over with another yarn (maybe a solid - no pooling issues then!).

So much for that “almost to the heel” thing. :)

Was almost done and figured I’d better try it on to make sure it wasn’t too tight. It was. Nothing to do but rip it out and add another repeat!

I’m designing a sock pattern!

I’ve had this Opal Handpainted (#11) in my stash for awhile. I bought it from Amber when she was destashing, but prior to that had been oggling it at the LYS every time I went in.

I kept waiting for the perfect pattern for it to pop up, but nothing ever did. After finishing my last projects, I decided to start socks in one of the oldest skeins of sock yarn in my stash. I think the Opal is the oldest skein, and I’d been wanting to knit it up for so long.

So I decided to design a pattern for it. My first plan was something cabled. I thought it would work with the yarn - a bold pattern that would show up in the variegation. But I was wrong! I knit a few swatches, and nothing worked. The cables got lost in the colors.

I thought for a bit that I’d just knit it in stockinette. Bah - so boring! I’ll save the stockinette for the self-striping yarns. But this yarn has so many colors in it (brown, black, greenish, teal, orange) that it needs something with a stockinette base.

I flipped through the stitch patterns, and marked a few to try. The first one I sampled was a “herringbone” stitch pattern. I couldn’t find any other examples of socks knit in a pattern like this (bonus!).

And I think it works.

Not too much action so the colors shine through, but a little something-something going on for interest.

What do you think? Have you seen a similar pattern out there?

If and when I write up the pattern, I’d like to have a couple of test knitters (one in solid yarn, one in self-striping). So if you like what you see above and want to test knit, let me know!

I’ve got to come up with a name too. My best one so far is “Bevel.”

My first sweater (for me!) is finished!

And it fits!

Details:
Started: March 26, Finished: April 30, 2008
Pattern: Basil, by Kim Hargreaves, in Rowan Summer Tweed Collection
Yarn: Rowan Summer Tweed, color 502
Needles: US8 and US9, Denise Interchangeables
Size: XL (or whatever the largest size was available)
Modifications: Added length (3-4 inches) to the bottom after finishing. I expected I would need to add some length, but figured it’d be pretty easy to add on exactly as much as I needed after it was finished. I probably added a bit too much, but slightly too long is better than too short!

The pattern called for 10 skeins of yarn. When I had finished knitting it according to the pattern, I had used less than 8! After adding the extra length, I had used up about 8.75 skeins. Crazy. I never use LESS than a pattern calls for!

I still need to wash it again. The yarn STINKS. I’m holding out hope that a good washing will fix that, and it will probably also pull up in length as well.

Kimberly had asked about the neckline. It is pretty low. But I’m going to be wearing it with a t-shirt underneath so it’s not an issue. If I were to ever knit this again, I’d probably change the neckline so it’s higher. I didn’t want to mess with the pattern on my first try this time!

Crown Mountain Farms is sending me 2 new skeins of yarn. Since they don’t have the same colorways anymore, I chose the closest they had (Wild Horses).

I think I may give my other 2 skeins of Wild Thing and then the Wild Horses a vinegar bath just to be sure! Then be extra extra gentle in any washing.

Hopefully it was just a fluke batch of yarn, and the other skeins don’t bleed so much!

In other news, I’m ALMOST done with my Basil sweater! Just one side seam remains to be sewn, then a little reinforcement of the back neckline.

Since I don’t have easy access to synthrapol, on the advice of others (and confirmation from a few websites), I tried a little dishwashing liquid in a soak for the Sock Hop sock, to try to pull out the excess dye, and de-orange the sock some.

Well, it worked.

Too well.

See how dark the water is? This wasn’t even the first soak (this is the second), which was just as dark.

After a rinse, the sock has now lost most of it’s dye.

I’ve washed hand-dyed yarn with dishwashing liquid before. This has never happened. It’s as if the dye was not set at all.

I posted again on the Crown Mountain Lovers Ravelry group, and Teyani suggested that I contact Klaus at Crown Mountain farms about it. She agrees that this shouldn’t have happened, but can’t offer a reason why (other than the brown and red dyes she used tended to bleed a little - but not like this).

So I’m doing that today. I’m just sad that this beautiful (and expensive!) yarn is ruined. And that my time knitting that sock is for nothing (unless I wash all of the dye out of the other skein I have, so that they would match).

Made breakfast.
Unloaded the dishwasher.
Reloaded the dishwasher & ran it.
Unloaded the dishwasher.
Reloaded the dishwasher & ran it.
Sorted, Washed, Dryed, Folded, & Put away 7 loads of laundry (with about 5 more to go. How the heck do we generate so much laundry? I think part of it is Kevin didn’t finish it all last weekend. He’s been slacking on laundry duty. But the girls do come home FILTHY from school, especially now that they’re playing outside.)
Made lunch for the girls (I never got any myself).
Helped Emily finish painting her bird feeder.
Cleaned up mess from painting.
Put Emily’s birdfeeder together.
Made chicken stock.
Made turkey meatballs (with Emily’s help).
Made turkey meatloaf (to freeze so we have quick dinners later on).
Cleaned the stove (this took 4 hours - and it’s still not completely clean as I’d like it…that cooked-on grease…but in general it’s SHINY).
Ran the self-cleaning cycle on the oven. Damned if it doesn’t actually work! Stinky though.
Washed a sinkfull of dishes by hand.
Swept the kitchen floor (with a broom).
Mopped the kitchen floor.
Broke up a million fights between the girls.
Dusted the family room furniture.
Dusted the stair railings.
Made dinner (spaghetti & those homemade meatballs. YUMMY!).
Played outside with the girls.
Got the girls ready for and in bed.
Vacuumed the family room and dining room carpets.
Wiped down all of the kitchen cabinet doors and drawers.
Wiped down the counters and kitchen table.
I’ll keep working on the laundry and probably unload the dishwasher tonight.

Oh, and did I mention Kevin isn’t home today?

Now I’m trying to decide between having some popcorn and a Pepsi, or a Margarita. I think popcorn is going to win (since I have no tortilla chips to eat with the Margarita!).

Remember the Sock Hop sock I started way way way back when?

One of them is done.

I’m not happy with it though.

It fits just fine. But the yarn bled, and now the sections of yarn that were white are orange. Everything is orange. Not so much “Brown-eyed girl” as “Oranged-eyed girl.” If you click on the 2nd “way” link up above, you can see an old photo of the pretty colors. Granted, this photo was taken with crappy lighting (I should take another one now that I have daylight in the evenings), but it’s pretty clear that the sock is way more orange than it used to be.

I rinsed and rinsed and rinsed.

And then I rinsed and rinsed and rinsed some more.

Orange, orange, orange.

I posted about it on the Crown Mountain Lovers group on ravelry, and the dyer responded:

Sorry that I am late on the response to this thread……………..
What we found is that several of the fibers responded poorly to “city water” in some areas…… (it happened the worst with the deep browns and deep reds) as in, if the chlorination was high in some areas, the Cushing dyes that were used to dye the old Sock Hop that I used to dye, would bleed. There wasn’t much that could be done about it, aside from getting some of the Synthrapol to suck off excess dye from your yarn. For sure, do NOT use vinegar, as it will stick the dye to wherever it has bled. I am sorry for these dilemmas. It’s a problem with the Cushing dyes that I used when I made these fibers awhile ago.

I hope that this is helpful - please feel free to send my an email through Ravelry if I can help further.

Well, I don’t think that we have very highly-chlorinated water out where we live, but it is what it is. I am going to try the Synthrapol and see if that helps. I really loved the white parts of the yarn! I have another colorway of Sock Hop too, and I would hate for it to end up looking as bad as this first sock did too. Especially since the yarn was so expensive.

So, anyone have recommendations on where to find some Synthrapol?

See? Here’s proof: