Evening Stockings for a Young Lady finished

Evening Stockings for a Young Lady
from "Knitting Vintage Socks" by Nancy Bush
Started: May 20, 2006
Finished: June 1, 2006
2 socks on 2 circular needles, US 0 Addi (2mm)
Schaefer Anne, colorway 7af-- 1 skein (!!)

Yup, one skein of Anne for these looong socks and 10" long women's feet. I had about 20 gm of the yarn left over as well! Shocked, but I will definitely be buying Anne again... there's no way I can see running out of yarn with a normal cuff length pair of socks.

Everything I said about the Anne before stands-- love it. A few notes though... I found a knot in the skein (fortunately and somehow it was in the 22 gm of leftover yarn!) which always disappoints me, esp. for the prices we pay for premium yarns. I think the retail on Anne is $26, I paid about 20 at Little Knits (she had them at 20% off, now they're 15% off)... I know its a small gripe, but I see a lot of smaller vendors selling "millends" or "endlots" instead of selling knotted skeins of yarn (Lisa Souza is going to start selling endlots too!!)-- and just think when you pay a premium on the yarn a knot should be a very rare-if at all kinda thing. I do know that some sellers may not even know or notice knots in yarn from their blanks vendors though, and this was my 1st time using Anne and there was only one knot... but it irked me for like 5 minutes and thought I'd share :)

I also blocked the socks by washing them in a bit of kookaburra and warm water (all pics are unblocked though... took pics right after they were done last nite)-- and had lots and lots of bleed. Not a shock since the reds are so deep, and since red has more of an inclination to bleed than other colors... I washed once and rinsed 4 times, all had red in the water. Not a big deal, I'll handwash these alone anyway, but just you know-- a note :) When I pressed them dry on a towel, there was no bleed on the towel though!

As far as the yarn fitting the pattern, I was able to hit the row gauge (8 sts/inch), but my column gauge was off-- the pattern calls for 11 sts/column inch, where I had 12 sts/column inch with the Schaefer Anne on US 0's (2mm). So where the leg was supposed to be 12" from cast on edge to top of the heel, I had 10.5" unblocked/unstretched. I didn't know if I would have enough yarn to extend the leg so its knit exactly as written-- mine is a bit shorter than the pattern calls for. Not sure I'd extend it though-- 20 gm may cut it close.





I did notice in shrinking my pic sizes that the super lowtek program is making me lose some of the resolution of the photos... have to install paint shop pro or photoshop again. Sorry :)





Round toe, very cool. No grafting. Very short though... good if you like that sorta thing, and you could make it longer.





Dutch heel. Looks quite cool with the purl compliment right next to the turn, I think.

The heel as written is much less sturdy than "regular" heels I'm used to-- its simply stockinette with a few columns of purl sts that flow from the above lace pattern. I think its perfect for this sock though, its a dainty sock and you don't want a double thick heel with slipped sts. If I wore anything but tevas and converse, these socks would feel great in a pair of low slung shoes, no bunching at the heel/back of the shoe, very nicely fitted especially in the superfine yarn.

I did pick up stitches at the heel by picking up the outside of the slipped st with a spare needle and knitting tbl, so the seam isn't on the inside... with the fine yarn, it makes for an even finer and well fit sock (no seams on the inside, very smooth feeling).



Back panel "seam" with decreases down the leg.



Lace panel. The fur is the yarn, not me :) It was getting dark outside...

Yay! I've started swatching for my next project and am still putting a few rows in Devan, but this post is too long as it is-- next time :)

Previous posts on "Evening Stockings for a Young Lady":
May 23, 2006
May 25, 2006
May 27, 2006
May 31, 2006