ProgressingProgressing

The foot of the Tyger, Tyger socks is almost 6 inches—a nice bit of progress. About 2/3rds done—but progress will halt—When I get to 7.5 inches, I am going to start on my next pair of socks, blue ones for myself. I'll bring the Tyger socks with me on Thursday, and let DD try them on, so I can make sure to get them the right size—With just the toe to do (I hope!) the socks will finish fast.

The Blue socks for me are going to be ones with beaded tops, because, why not? Or at least that is the plan right now. The yarn Filatura Lanarota's Fashion Toes, is really Plymouth's Happy Feet, and its a heavy (fingering weight vs sock weight) yarn. I might have a problem threading the beads onto the yarn.

I like this yarn, I bought 6 skeins of last month at the Smiley's close out sale, in 3 different colors, This blue sock yarn is from a previous sale—last year sometime. I have knit, easily, a half dozen pairs of socks from this yarn for me, and another 2 or 3 pairs that I have given away. I also have a scarf (knit a few years ago) in the same blue color way. 

 I had some (just 4 skeins) in my stash before last months infusion. I think there is one set of doubles (4 skeins in the same color way) I might, in the future, end up with an other set of matching socks and scarves.

This yarn bit heavier (on average) than most sock yarns—and makes slightly thicker socks, (great for the winter!) and will be a fast to knit pair, because of this. The last 2 pairs of socks I've made have been on size 1 and 1.5 needles, with fine sock yarn.

With Fashion Toe yarn, I will be back to size 2 needles. It's hard to imagine the difference that quarters and half millimeter in needle sizes make to the sock gauge, but it is there. Almost an inches difference for me, as I go from 8 stitches per inch to 9 stitches per inch.  At 8 stitches per inch, with 8 sets of 8 equal an 8 inch sock (knit with 64 stitches) With  9 stitches per inch, and the sock becomes 7 (and a bit) inches.

Smaller needles makes for a sock that is a lot smaller, and snugger. I wear WW shoes, my daughter fits fine into a standard B shoe—Her feet are longer than mine, and narrower. When I knit her socks, I have to change up a few things...a narrower, longer foot for one! This time, I did it with gauge, rather than few stitches. A nice tight gauge makes a firmer, longer lasting fabric, too. 

So, in a day or two, I will see if the beads I have will fit on the yarn.. and if they do, I will get them threaded. If no, well back to the drawing board to figure out what sort of pattern to do!