Saturday, April 16, 2011

herringbone ribs for me


I've been thinking about my sister-in-law over the last couple of days, and not just because it's her birthday Monday. I've made a start on my herringbone rib socks with this beautiful Merisock yarn - I received the pattern book and the yarn as birthday and Christmas presents from her family at the end of last year.

This pattern has its challenges:

There are two sizes, but based on various Raveler's notes about how tight the sock is across the instep at the small size, I've chosen to knit the larger size albeit on smaller needles. With 72 stitches in each round, it should fit, but to be sure, I plan to knit a deeper gusset and longer heel flap than what's written in the pattern.

Because several Ravelers noted that the pattern eats up a lot of yarn, I'm knitting toe-up to make sure I get the most sock possible from the yarn. These socks are for me so I definitely need a long foot and knitting the larger size is already likely to use lots of yarn.

And, with all the passing over of stitches back and forth to create the herringbone pattern, tinking or ripping back is all but impossible. I've got my stitch markers out and I'm going to have to count every round to make sure no yarn overs are missed.

It's pretty though; the pattern does a good job of mixing up the colours so that there's no pooling. Now, fingers crossed that all my mods work out for the best!

3 comments:

Elizabeth said...

Your package arrived yesterday and I took off the brown wrapper today, but I'm saving the presents for Monday! I did open the card - very funny and oh, so true!
Your herringbone socks look great. I have a herringbone cowl (Big Herringbone Cowl by Purl Soho) in my queue that looks elegant and squishy, all at the same time. I'm looking forward to making it, maybe in time for next winter.

WildflowerWool said...

Your socks are looking great so far. Good luck with your mods. I am sure they will end up fitting great.

One pair of Hands said...

Toe up really does make sense doesn't it? That's a really intricate stitch not one to knit while watching telly perhaps - in my case at least.
Thank you so much for your crochet rescue on my blog. Why didn't I think of asking google?