Kings County Socks

Posted on June 7, 2017September 7, 2020 by Laurel Grochowski

A pair of feet wearing variegated purple socks with cables up the front and ribbing along the back are resting on a driftwood bench.

Have you ever bought yarn that was just dying to be something specific? This happens to me with sock yarn sometimes; I’ll pick up a particularly pretty skein in store without a project in mind and end up browsing Ravelry for ages looking for the perfect pattern to bring it to life, but none of them seem quite right. That’s exactly what happened with this Malabrigo Sock Yarn that I impulsively grabbed the last time I was at Argyle Yarns. The multifaceted colourway (Aniversario) was calling to me but I wasn’t quite sure which sock pattern off my current “to knit” list I was going to pair it with. Once I got it home and wound it into a cake it became clear that this yarn had a mind of its own and I was just along for the ride, so I cast on without a pattern and ended up putting together a pair of socks fit for a king!

I named the Kings County Socks partly for their regal colour and partly because they’re inspired by Brooklyn’s unique mix of exaggerated aesthetics and no-nonsense attitude. They start off with a big, squishy fold over cuff which, let’s be honest, is unnecessarily luxurious. Usually cuffs are purely functional, but why not treat yo’self every once in a while? After joining the provisional cast-on, the cuff transitions smoothly into a 2×2 rib down the leg of the sock because there’s nothing better than a sock that hugs your foot. At that point the yarn was like, “hey, this is a good thing we’ve got going here… let’s just roll with it” so the socks incorporate a Strong-style heel (modelled afterthe one that Gerdine Crawford Strong designed for the Fall 2003 issue of Knitter’s Magazine) in order to maintain the ribbing right down to the heel turn.

The beauty of this heel is that not only does it allow you to increase in pattern and thus gives you a heel that’s well fitted to the curves of your ankles, but it has no wrapping, no picking up stitches, and no measuring anything. All it is is a super simple mix of gusset increases followed by short row decreases. This utility is offset by the cable panel that runs down the front of the sock between the cuff and the toe, which is from Norah Gaughan’s lovely Knitted Cable Sourcebook. The book is an excellent resource for any knitter because not only does it contain examples of different stitch patterns but also goes into depth about the way Norah works with the different aspects of cables to develop unique textures and motifs. I love the way that these turned out and I’m ecstatic that I was able to put together a pair of socks deserving of this skein of yarn; I hope you enjoy knitting them as much as I did!

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Provisional Cast On

Posted on June 6, 2017September 7, 2020 by Laurel Grochowski

My King’s County Socks are written with an optional foldover cuff that calls for a provisional cast on. I’ve found when working provisional cast ons in the past that most instructions are written to start with either a crochet chain or a looped cast on where the provisional stitches are held on waste yarn until you’re ready to work them again. Here’s the thing though (which I figured out one day when I was grumbling to myself about how fiddly it is to transfer those provisional stitches from the waste yarn onto a needle without twisting them or dropping them or hoping that you don’t have to go back and re-knit the whole thing because you cast them on too tight) – if you have a spare circular needle lying around with a cable long enough to hold all your stitches you can cast on onto that and then work directly from the needle later, saving yourself the time spent grumbling and fiddling to pick up stitches from waste yarn when you’re ready to knit from your cast on again. As a bonus, it’s much easier to get into the rhythm of a looped cast on with two needles than it is with one needle and waste yarn; score one for lazy shortcuts. While I wouldn’t recommend holding all your provisional stitches on a circular needle for larger projects like the body of a sweater (unless you have a very long cable for said needle and are very confident that none of your stitches will slip off before you’re ready to work them again) it works perfectly for smaller magic-loop projects like hat brims or sock cuffs. The needle sizes and number of stitches listed below are specific to my King’s County Socks, but this method can be used for any number of stitches and any weight of yarn with the appropriately sized needles.

Beginning Provisional Cast-On:

For this cast on you’ll need two circular needles:

one size 2.5mm/US 1.5 (or whatever size you used to get gauge) which will be used to hold the live provisional stitches and
one size 2.25mm/US 1 (or one size smaller than you used to get gauge) which will be used to knit the cuff itself

Note: you can use DPNs in place of the smaller needle if you’d like to knit your cuff with those instead of using magic-loop. In that case, I would cast on all the stitches onto one single DPN (steps 1-5) and then rearrange them when you are ready to join in the round (as stated in step 6.)

1. Leaving a two inch tail, tie a slip knot in your yarn and tighten it around your smaller (working) needle.

2. Use your right hand to hold this needle and the tail of the yarn with the larger (provisional) needle directly below.

3. Wrap the yarn in front of and under the lower needle…

4. Then in front of and over the upper needle.

5. Repeat 3&4 until you have 60[68] stitches on each needle; ending after a Step 3. Pull the lower (provisional) needle through so the stitches rest on the cable.

6. Rearrange your stitches & join to work in the round. The lower needle will hold your provisional stitches until you’re ready to join them.

Joining Provisional Cast On

Once you’ve worked 30 rounds of ribbing you need to join your provisional cast on to create the fold over cuff.

1. Fold the bottom of your cuff upwards so that you can position your provisional stitches inside of the round you just worked. Pull the stitches off of the cable and onto the needles, arranging them so that they match up with the stitches on your working needle.

2. Working in your established pattern of 2×2 rib, when you come to a knit stitch place your right needle knitwise through the front of the first stitch on the working needle and the first stitch on the provisional needle and knit them together, combining them into a single stitch.

3. When you come to a purl stitch place your right needle purlwise through the front of the first stitch on the provisional needle and the first stitch on the working needle and purl them together, combining them into a single stitch. You should end this round with 60[68] stitches total.

If you want the security of waste yarn keeping your stitches safe or you don’t think navigating around the bulk of an extra needle for a few rows is worth saving a step when picking your provisional stitches back up to work them again, I’d recommend Purl Soho’s One Step Provisional Cast On tutorial which uses a crochet chain method. What’s your favourite way to cast on provisionally? Do you have any other tips & tricks for lazy knitters like me?

My 2017 Knitting Bucket List

Posted on April 21, 2017September 7, 2020 by Laurel Grochowski

A blonde woman sitting cross-legged in a grassy area of Washington Square Park, knitting a pair of pink socks.

Now that the first quarter of 2017 has come and gone (I’m sorry, it’s April already?! Are you sure?) it seems as good a time as any to check in with where we’re at in terms of the goals we set ourselves at the beginning of the year. I don’t usually make any formal new year’s resolutions, but I did have a few overarching knitting themes for the year; they say tracking your progress is important in goal setting and so is accountability, so I’m going to let y’all have a peek at my knitting bucket list. It’s ever-evolving and I keep doing that thing where I find fun new projects that I want to knit rather than actually working through the ones that have been in my queue for ages with yarn wound and ready to go, but there’s still 8 whole months left in 2017 right? I’ll get to them eventually.

Related to that mindset, one of my biggest goals is to make 2017 a year where I focus on destashing. I’ve got trunks full of yarn with projects in mind for most of it and because I’m the world’s slowest knitter I’m trying to focus on chipping away at those. They’re all patterns and garments that I’ve had my eye on for a long time (my next sweater project has been in my Ravelry queue since November 2015.) I know I want to knit these items, and I have the means to do so, but they keep being pushed to the back of the list by shiny new project ideas. So a big part of how I’ve been sticking to this goal is that I’ve put myself on a strict yarn diet. I know that if I get excited about a new project and buy soft new yarn to make it out of then the equally soft equally lovely yarn for an equally exciting project that I already own will get pushed to the back of the queue and forgotten about. That’s how I ended up with trunks worth of yarn for personal projects in the first place.

I’m very good at enjoying the process of knitting a garment. I try to remain present and aware of each step in the creation of whatever I’m making, which is good because if I was only interested in the finished product then I’d have quit a long time ago. But even with the whole idea of mindful focus and enjoyment of the present project, guess what? Not buying yarn is hard you guys! So I have a sneaky way around this: I’m only allowing myself to purchase yarn for specific business-related projects. Obviously custom orders and made to order items will require new yarn when I run out of my current stockpiles (aka this is a casual plea to order something please, so that I can engage in retail therapy) and as I branch into design work I’m allowing myself to purchase yarn in order to knit my sample garments. One day I’ll be a big deal and my favourite yarn companies will send me yarn support to develop patterns for them, but for now, I’m just plugging away slowly, making things that I dream up out of yarn that I can afford on a student’s budget.

This leads me to another one of my goals, which I’ve started to put a lot of energy into working towards in the past few weeks. I recently published the patterns to all three hats in my Autumn in the City collection (they’re free on the blog here, here, and here) and listed them on Ravelry. Writing them out and sharing these patterns was something that I put off for quite a while but I found that I really enjoyed the process. Because of this, earlier in the month I enrolled in the 10 day long Initiate Knit Design Challenge put on by Francoise of Aroha Knits on a whim. I’ve been knitting for a long time and I frequently modify patterns and figure out how to make things for myself all the time, but have always felt intimidated by formal pattern writing so I’m hoping that in what remains of the year I’ll be able to publish a few fully developed patterns that other people can knit for themselves and take inspiration from. I’m currently in the process knitting up my sample from the design I came up with during the challenge, which will be an asymmetrical triangle shawl done in fingering weight yarn held double to make use of a marled gradient. I’ll put out a call for test knitters once I’ve hammered out some of the details so if you’d like a chance to be one of the first ones to knit it, then subscribe to my mailing list or follow me on Instagram.

I also participated in a fun little knitalong on Instagram at the beginning of April run by Shannon Cook, Caitlyn Hunter, and Andrea Mowry where we practised steeking. Steeking was on my 2017 knitting bucket list, but I never really understood how it worked further than the fact that you basically cut your knitting in half. The #stEEKal was quick and easy, we knit up and then cut up some swatches, but it was a really good opportunity for me to do some research on the concepts behind steeking and when and why it would be useful. It makes sense to me now that the whole thing doesn’t fall apart even with minimal reinforcement because knitting unravels horizontally and a steek cuts through the work vertically (knitting theory is so cool you guys, I swear!) And it makes sense to me that a stranded colourwork project like a cardigan would be easier to work in the round where you don’t have to carry your ends back and forth across the work like you would if you worked it flat, hence the reason people do this crazy thing. That’s not to say that the idea of knitting up a full garment and then taking scissors to it doesn’t scare the pants off me still, but at least I have some practice under my belt before I decide to woman up and do the real thing on a real project. I’ve had my eyes set on a Brooklyn Tweed Redshift shawl for a while (but am going to have to buy new yarn for that, so the official steek project might have to wait until I’m finished with my destash goals.)

My last big knitting goal of the year is that I’m attempting to participate in the Box O Sox KAL challenge, and so far I’m (mostly) on pace for this. The idea is that if you knit a pair of socks every month, by the end of the year you’ll have a whole box worth of lovely handmade toe warmers to treasure for years to come. After being (needlessly) intimidated by how fiddly and complicated it seemed, I finally knit my first pair of socks shortly before Christmas 2015 and was immediately hooked. Because I’m an insane person, I then decided I was going to knit a pair for each member of my immediate family and banged out four pairs within a month. I’m taking on the Box O Sox challenge with a little bit less of a fevered pace; I’ve knit five pairs of socks this year, but one I started on Christmas Eve and one was for someone else so two of those technically don’t count. Still, catching up is definitely doable. Socks are the most common type of project for me to take on my commute because they’re so portable and easy to pick up or put down in the middle of a row if I need to change trains or am distracted by subway performers so I can definitely make up an additional one or two pairs if I fall behind. I love my small collection of hand knit socks that I’ve put together thus far and am excited to add to it. In most of my other personal knitting, I lean towards neutrals like greys and beige and black with the occasional jewel tone, but with socks I go wild. I want colour, I want patterns, I want texture, I want speckles and stripes and gradients and excitement (and then I want to hide them inside my black boots, tucked under my black pants, but that’s another story.) One thing that I especially like about them is that because they’re small projects, I can afford to buy and use quality yarn from local indie dyers. Eventually, I would like to have a whole drawer filled with brightly coloured socks with a wide variety of heel constructions and patterns and yarns, but this year I’ll start by working towards filling a box with twelve.

What about you? Did you set any knitting goals this year? Where are you at in terms of your knitting bucket list?

The Bute Hat

Posted on April 2, 2017September 7, 2020 by Laurel Grochowski

Three grey hats with an argyle knit texture and colourful pom-poms lie in the snow.

Bute is a textured latticework hat inspired by the peaks and valleys of Vancouver’s coastal mountain ranges. Sized to fit a woman’s head and worked with Cascade 220, it’s a quick knit that will keep you warm no matter which of our local hills you’re frolicking around on.

Finished Dimensions:

17 finished circumference, will comfortable stretch to fit a head up to 25″ in circumference

This should fit an average woman’s head. For a larger or smaller size, either increase or decrease your cast-on by a multiple of 16 or choose larger/smaller needles to modify your gauge.

Needles:

one 16″ circular needle in size needed to obtain gauge (suggested 4.5mm)
one 16″ circular needle one size smaller than first needle (suggested 3.5mm)
one set double pointed needles in size needed to obtain gauge

Additional Tools:

stitch marker

pom-pom maker

Gauge:

22 stitches per 4 inches in lattice pattern, after blocking

Materials:

143 yards of worsted weight yarn (1 ball Cascade 220 shown here in Jet, Charcoal Grey, and Silver Grey)
optional 33 yards of contrasting worsted weight yarn for pom-pom (1 ball Cascade 220 shown here in Straw, Lavender Heather, and Nebula Heather)

Abbreviations:

K: knit

P: purl

C1F: slip one stitch to cable needle, hold in front of work, knit one, knit one from cable needle (left leaning cable)

C1B: slip one stitch to cable needle, hold behind work, knit one, knit one from cable needle (right leaning cable)

K2tog: knit two together (right leaning decrease)

SSK: slip slip knit (left leaning decrease)

P2tog: purl two together

Special Instructions:

To keep the lattice running continuously around the circumference of the hat, pay special attention to the transition between the last C1F on Row 6 of the pattern and the first C1B on row 7 especially if you are working solely from the chart; the second to last stitch of Row 6 will be a part of both of these cables and thus requires the following steps once you reach this point. Once you come to the last two stitches of Row 6:

slip 1 stitch to cable needle and hold in front of work
knit 1 (this was originally the last stitch of Row 6)
remove beginning of round marker
move cable needle to back of work
knit first stitch of Row 7 (this now becomes the last stitch of Row 6)
place marker
knit one from cable needle (this now becomes the first stitch of Row 7)

When you reach the end of Row 7, the last stitch was already crossed over as part of this transition so you can knit the last 7 stitches before the marker and continue on with Row 8 as normal. These instructions are included within the written pattern in slightly less detail than above. If this seems convoluted, try to think of it as a braid.

Brim:

Using smaller needles, cast-on 96 stitches. Place marker and join to work in the round, being careful not to twist. Work 15 rows of modified rib.

Modified rib: *K2, P1, K2, P1, K1, P1 repeat from * to end of round

Body:

Switch to larger needles and work rows 1-12 three times:

Row 1: *K3, C1F, K3 repeat from * to end of round

Row 2: *P2, C1B, C1F, P2 repeat from * to end of round

Row 3: *P2, K4, P2 repeat from * to end of round

Row 4: *P1, C1B, K2, C1F, P1 repeat from * to end of round

Row 5: *P1, K6, P1 repeat from * to end of round

Row 6: *C1B, K4, C1F repeat from * to 2 stitches before end of round. Place next stitch on cable needle and hold in front, K1, remove marker, move cable needle to back of work, K1, place marker

Row 7: K1 from cable needle, K6, *C1B, K6 repeat from * to 1 stitches before end of round, K1

Row 8: *C1F, P4, C1B repeat from * to end of round

Row 9: *K2, P4, K2 repeat from * to end of round

Row 10: *K1, C1F, P2, C1B, K1 repeat from * to end of round

Row 11: *K3, P2, K3 repeat from * to end of round

Row 12: *K2, C1F, C1B, K2 repeat from * to end of round

Work rows 1-6 one more time

Crown:

Continue working in the round, switching to DPNs once the decreases cause the circumference of the hat to become too small to continue on your circular needles.

Row 1: K1 from cable needle *SSK, K2, K2tog, C1B, K6, C1B repeat from * to 1 stitch before end of round ending after K6, K1 (12 stitches decreased, 84 stitches remain)

Row 2: *C1F, P2, C1B, C1F, P2tog twice, C1B repeat from * to end of round (12 stitches decreased, 72 stitches remain)

Row 3: *K2, P2tog, K4, P2tog, K2 repeat from * to end of round (12 stitches decreased, 60 stitches remain)

Row 4: *K1, K2tog, K4, SSK, K1 repeat from * to end of round (12 stitches decreased, 48 stitches remain)

Row 5: *K2tog repeat from * to end of round (24 stitches decreased, 24 stitches remain)

Row 6: *K2tog repeat from * to end of round (12 stitches decreased, 12 stitches remain)

Row 7: *K2tog repeat from * to end of round (6 stitches decreased, 6 stitches remain)

Cut working yarn and thread it through remaining stitches to bind off. Make sure to block your hat to help it have a soft drape, I would recommend shaping it around something round like a bowl to give it some shape. Then weave in ends and attach the optional pom-pom and you’re ready to go!

RAVELRY LINK

The Davie Hat

Posted on March 26, 2017September 7, 2020 by Laurel Grochowski

Three grey hats with alternating knit cables and colourful pom-poms lie in the snow.

Davie’s alternating cables are representative of the Vancouver shoreline and the various ebbs and flows that make up our day to day lives. Sized to fit a woman’s head and worked with Cascade 220, it’s a quick knit that will keep you warm during walks along the seawall and windy trips to the dog beach.