Socks – Honeycomb – Adventures in Knitting
Well, having laryngitis does limit some of the things you can do and the cold that goes with it sort of implies that one should stay inside and not do all the yard work that’s been piling up. So, it was time to finish up the first of the pair of Honeycomb socks. However, once I got one repeat of the honeycomb pattern I got a shock…
The problem resulted from a number of things. First, I’m using a much heavier yarn because these are socks to kick around the house and/or sleep with during the cold winter months. That means they need to be warm and loose. So, I’d had to adjust the pattern for fewer stitches which still gave me a sock that fit but loosely (not to cut off circulation when sleeping but snug enough not to come off during the night under blankets). Well, when I finished the heel and got to the start of the pattern it said to increase and that the honeycomb pattern was a 12 stitch repeat. Okay, says I, I’ll make sure I add enough to be a multiple of 12 and off I go.
I’m sure most if not all of you knitters are just shaking your heads in disbelief… You’re right. The pattern pulls in, as you can see in the photo, since there are too few stitches to accommodate the reduction in circumference caused by the pattern which causes the stitches to pull in as it makes the honeycombs. The top of the sock is now smaller in circumference than the sock body below it — too tight by far.
So, it was back to the pattern (written for regular sock yarn) — check the stitch count, check how many additional stitches were added for the honeycomb section and then doing some math (ratios do come in handy eventually). Once I frogged back to the beginning of the increase section and picked up the appropriate number of stitches things looked a lot better.
As you can see the honeycomb section no longer pulls in the top of the sock — giving it a textured look and flaring above the body of the sock. When I got to the next section, I chose to decrease some, but not all, of the stitches, letting it flare a bit because now it’s up the calf of the leg and the person these socks are destined for (currently not on the internet) likes to tuck the legs of her PJs into her sleep socks. So these should be perfect. Now I just have to remember what I did and start that second sock.
Unexpectedly, I learned that doing the honeycomb pattern on four needles is quite painful for my hands when trying to get the yarn tight on the joins. I think for this next sock, I’ll move to circulars for this section. Hopefully that should make it a lot easier to keep an even tension without straining my thumbs and fingers.