My adventure with The Simplest Socks in the World

Charmed as I was by knitting, I got very interested on a subject: socks. Reading the messages in the Crazy Knitting Ladies group, surfing the web and all, I decided I wanted to learn how they were made. I started by sending a message to the group, and the girls immediately encouraged me to started a pair at once, instead of keep trying to understand how they were made. And they pointed me the pattern for The Simplest Socks in the World, which is available at Tricoteiras.com and also at Ravelry.

Everything really got started when my friend L. lent me her set of double pointed needles and even gave me a ball of Bambino as a gift. With all that encouragement, there I went to start knitting. Right from the start, I found it easy to cast on and divide the points by four. But I didn't find it easy to unite the last stitch to the end, closing the circle. It took me a while until I managed it, knitting a stitch over the other, afraid that everything would fall apart. It doesn't, ok? You just need to keep knitting, the second row will hold everything together. Just hold tight the thread/yarn so it won't leave a space. (Yesterday I watched a video from Superziper, which teaches how to knit in circular needles. The trick it shows seems perfect to finish the first row of the socks!).

Something interesting is that right in the beginning I was confused and, when I got to the end of the first row, I started purling the wrong side, going back. It was when I found out that it was circular knitting, and in it you always work the right side - except for the heel, if you're knitting socks. You don't need to be a genius to find that out - but if I hadn't tried, I wouldn't have made that mistake and wouldn't have learned. Today is obvious day, isn't it? ;-)

Following the pattern, the sock starts by the cuff, with 10 rows in 1 knit, 1 purl. After that you enter auto mode, knitting several rows all in knit stitch, until you get to the heel. I've made 40 rows.

The heel is no problem in the first part - as the pattern says, "(...) work with 26 stitches leaving the other 26 on hold. Every two rows leave one stitch on each side on hold. Repeat 8 times". That's what I did, no problem. But when I started going back, I realized I left holes. I tried to close them in many ways, and each foot came out differently. The first one came out better, contradicting my idea that the more I make, the better results I get. But the next pair of socks will definitely be better.

I got little lumps where the rows joined back together. The first sock came out more uniform, but with bigger holes. Heels are not simple, definitely. But that doesn't stop me from knitting socks, no way!


And that's been my adventure. :) I finished it with great joy, having learned a lot about knitting and myself. And also as someone addicted to socks!

A WIP almost in the end

In the meantime I didn't write here, I've been working in one of the WIPs I showed you in the previous series: the shrug.

But this post is not about it.

It happens that I was really excited with the shrug, because, as I said before, I've started it with my friend S., and even though she gave it up later (but she has already made dozens of hats for donation, a beautiful vest and she's almost done with another shrug!) I kept going. I thought I would be able to make my first knitted garment.

The problem was that, after knitting all the parts and sewing most of them, I tried the shrug on. And behold that IT DOES NOT FIT ME.

A pause for you to think about how disappointed I was.

Exactly, I was crushed. I took it for my mom to take a look and tell me what I had to fix - I had already knitted one sleeve twice, because I made the armhole wrong (actually, I tried to follow the original pattern, and it just is of no help). Now I'll have to undo part of the shrug, increase the shoulders and remake the sleeves again.

And then I decided to take a break on the shrug and get back to a WIP that I forgot to mention here! So let's see it:

This was the beginning of my first knitted sock. I thought it would be very hard to deal with 5 needles at the same time, and since they have two points, I thought everything would slip from the needles all the time.

I decided to ask the Crazy Knitting Ladies for help and they encouraged me A LOT. As usual, knitters encourage beginners to "throw themselves" into the project right away, instead of wonder and try to understand all the details without even having cast on.

They suggested me the pattern for The Simplest Socks in the World. The problem was that the pattern, just like the name, is very simple. I had problems right at the beginning, to connect the first and last stitches, so I asked the list for help again, then my mother, and in the end I figured it out myself. It didn't end up very nice, that point is pretty obvious in the sock, but from then on it was only fun.

Oh, I can't forget to mention that if it weren't for my friend L., nothing of this would have happened. She encouraged me so much that she lent me her set of needles and gave me yarn to knit the socks. Note that the first sock was knitted with her set, gold, and now I'm using my own set, green. Of course I bought the needles. And with them 4 balls of another yarn for future socks! A girl must save money on delivery fees.

Knitting the sock was a delight, even with hard times in the beginning and the heel. But I loved the result! I just didn't start the second foot right away because of the shrug, but since it made me sad for a while, I got back to the socks. Look how it was in the beginning of the week:

And today it looks like this:

Now I start the heel. I can't wait to wear them!

Long, long ago...

... in a blog far, far away...

It seems like it's been YEARS since I last wrote something here, and it's really been a long time. But I was trying to catch up with the messages in the knitting list - the Crazy Knitting Ladies - when I found a message really nice from one of the girls to me. The filter I use to separate my mail left it buried among the others, so it was left behind. When I read it, I decided it was time to update the blog.


Meanwhile, I didn't stop crafting. :) That would be impossible to me! Many knitting rows have been completed, some sewing got done and I even got some boxes by mail (which seems that will slow down for a while, but I have enough supplies around here to keep my hands and mind busy for many years!).


The one who wrote is the owner of the blog Vanilla Babies - thank you from all my heart! I have been able to motivate myself to do lots of things, but it seems like I needed a little push to get back to writing. Thank you so much. :)

And now back to our regular programming, I'll show you what I've been doing all this time. To close up, two suggestions for who wants to learn how to sew:

• Teach yourself to sew: a sewing course since the basics! The site is rather complete, with tips and projects very well explained. I didn't follow everything available there yet, simply because it's just TOO MUCH stuff!
• How to Sew with Jenny T.: a podcast I found on iTunes (http://feeds2.feedburner.com/HowToSewWithJennyT). She also has a website, teaches paid lessons online, if I'm not wrong. The videos are simple, but they teach well.

I still have a great resource that ended up by chance in my hands. (Wow, the post is big enough and I decide to tell a story...). When I started to have seriou interest on crafts, I found the blog Superziper, very famous around here. And I saw a discussion about a book, that seemed to be the bible of sewing: Complete Guide to Sewing, edited in Brazil by Seleções do Reader's Digest. At the time this book was desired by 10 in 10 people interested in sewing, according to what I read on the web. And talking one day to my mother, I told her that the book cost 100 dollars at Mercado Livre (a national version of eBay). It was then that she stops me and says "but I have this book". Just like that.


Imagine my joy!


On the next visit to her house, I found the book in the back of a closet. My mom doesn't need it, she'a a fantastic seamstress. She got the book from a neighbor, who was moving and knew she liked sewing. And this craft treasure stood there, forgotten... imagine that!

That was how I got the book and the "bonus" that was inside - a leaflet with cheap projects to make. It's fun to see the suggestions, and I think few people probably have this nowadays.


A little time ago, after a lot of pressure from customers, the editors released an updated version of the book - which certainly must have forced its prices down in the auctioning site. But it's story will always be valuable to me. :)


One last thing: did you like the new look?