Well, I finally did it. I completed two new skills all in the same weekend. First I tried out a new dying technique and second, I made my first pair of socks on my Beautiful Legare 47 sock knitter. Woo Hoo!!!
As for the technique, I knitted two panels, 60 stitches wide and 155 rows long on my flat bed knitting machine. I then dyed them side by side with the same pattern so that I would have two of the same socks. After they dried, I unravelled them and wound them into center pull balls with my wool winder and was ready to go!
Not bad for my first pair of socks on the circular knitting machine. Since I have never worked from a pattern, I am pretty proud of myself. They are so warm and cozy. The only thing is I knitted what I thought to be the right amount of rows for the foot of the first sock and ended up with way too much foot length. Figured that I would unravel and knit the toe by hand. I should have done the same thing with the other sock because I knitted a smaller gauge than the machine did so my socks were about half an inch different in size.
After all is said and done I learned a couple things from this experience. One of those things being that I should knit about 5 rows, after making the cuff of the sock before I start the heel for a better fit. the second thing is that I think I like the cuff to be longer so I will knit more rows for that and put some spandex in them at the top fof the cuff.
