More Sock Books

The other day I went to the local used-book emporium and found these reasonably priced sock books.



Simply Socks: 45 Traditional Turkish Patterns to Knit.
Anna Zilboorg.
New York: Lark Books, 1994.
ISBN: 1887374590



Ethnic Socks & Stockings: A Compendium of Eastern Design & Technique.
Priscilla A. Gibson-Roberts.
Soiux Falls, SD: XRX, Inc., 1995.
ISBN: 0964639106




The Twisted Sister's Sock Workbook.
Lynne Vogel.
Loveland, CO: Interweave Press, 2002.
ISBN: 1931499160

I don't know when or even if I will ever get a chance to knit any of the patterns in these books, but they are all gorgeous. Ethnic Socks and Simply Socks are both about Eastern socks, which are knit toe-up, from what I understand. I now have some new glasses, with bifocals, so I am hoping to get back into knitting some toe-up socks.

The other day I got all my yarn out of the box and put it out in the living room to air out. Some of it was starting to get a slight musty smell. Now, after several days of being out in the living room, most of the musty smells are gone. I guess I caught it just in time.

Book Of Socks

This is an awesome sock knitting book!



The Knitter's Book of Socks: The Yarn Lover's Ultimate Guide to Creating Socks That Fit Well, Feel Great, and Last a Lifetime
Clara Parkes.
NY:Potter Craft, 2011.
ISBN(10): 0307586804
ISBN(13): 978-0307586803

Look for it at your local Public Library, or at AddAll.Com.

Darning Socks

I have been a knitting slug for the past few months. The only thing I have knit since I put my 2-at-a-time-toe-up socks project on hiatus is a four foot long deep purple scarf with white fringe, knitted with No.17 straight needles and worsted weight acrylic yarn.

Now I have another project waiting for me to work on it: darning the first pair of wool socks I made. They were my first pair of socks, and I did not know enough to add some nylon thread reinforcement to the heels when I was knitting them, so now one sock has a hole in the heel, and the other sock has a thin place in the heel.

I patched the hole in the heel before I washed the socks. Then I put them in a nylon net bag and washed them in the washing machine on Cold/Cold. The next step is rip out my temporary patch, and do some darning. For the thin spot in the heel of the one sock, I think I can use a techniques called Duplicate Stitch, aka Swedish Darning to repair it. For the hole, I'm not quite sure how I'm going to repair it yet.

Wool Yarn Ball Winder Repair

I took my DIY Wool Winder and DIY Umbrella Swift to the Yarn Festival at the LYS last Friday. The Yarn Campers were showing off all their work from a week of Yarn Camp. Not only had they learned how to knit, but they also learned felting and hand-dyeing yarn as well. They had some beautiful work to show.

My wool winder broke while winding one of the Camper's hanks of hand-dyed yarn, so the LYS's shop winder (a little Royal) was used to finish the last couple of hanks. Before my wool winder broke, all the Campers got a chance to crank it for awhile. My wool winder is brightly painted, and all the gears are exposed, so it is fun to watch while winding yarn.

The wool winder broke for the second time in the same place: where the tube connects to the 10-tooth gear. The first time it broke was shortly after building the prototype. I had only glued the tube to the gear blank. I repaired it by glueing and nailing the tube to the gear blank. The second time it broke in the same place, so now I know that this is a stress point in the machine. I repaired it the second time by drilling three holes equally around and through the gear blank about an inch into the tube. Then I glued the tube to the gear blank, glued wooden dowels into the three holes, and added a drop of glue to the nail holes, and re-nailed it. When the glue dried, I put it back together. This is the fourth time I've taken the wool winder apart and put it back together again. Each time, it runs a little smoother.

The next time it breaks, I think I'll sink the tube into the back of the gear blank, then glue and screw it together. To do that, I'll have to make another longer tube. I put a sketch of my suggested method of repairing this part on this page of the wool winder tutorial

Socks Socks Socks

I just found this book at the local library. 70 winning sock patterns from the Knitter's Magazine contest by 64 sock knitters from the USA, Canada, Iceland, and New Zealand. It was published in 1999, but the patterns are timeless. The Table of Contents lists seven broad categories of socks, including Simple Socks, Kids Socks, Lace Socks, Color Socks, Texture Socks, Whimsical Socks, and Icelandic Socks.

This book is for experienced knitters who want to learn how to knit socks, as well as for sock knitters who are looking for advanced socks challenges. It looks like it is still available from Amazon at a very reasonable price, considering how many patterns there are in it. The reader reviews for this book on Amazon are generally favorable. The biggest complaint is that some of the patterns have mistakes in them. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be an eratta page at the publisher's website. However, there does seem to be an Online Forum called KniTalk. This is the website for Knitter's Magazine, which I recently saw on the magazine rack at my local Borders book store.

I really enjoy finding these older sock knitting books, especially since I'm a beginning sock knitter.

When Knitting Becomes An Obsession

Directed by: Laura Neuvonen
Country: Finland
Year of Production: 2005
Running Time: 6:45

Watch on YouTube.

My Giant Knit-Knit

Yesterday, while at the Tuesday Morning store, I spotted a crank knitting machine. These types of knitting machines usually sell for about $30, but I bought it for $8.61 including tax. It came with two balls of DK weight acrylic yarn, totaling about 70 grams. There was also a plastic needle, a plastic hook tool, a yarn guide, and an instruction manual included.

The eight page instruction manual was written in seven languages, with GB (Great Britain - English) being one of them. Even with English instructions, I doubt that any child would have been able to figure out how to set up the machine, or successfully knit with it, despite it having For Ages 5 & Up on the box.

I have watched some videos on YouTube on how to set up these types of knitting machines, so I was able to figure it out. It only took a few minutes to knit a tube from one of the balls of yarn.

There is a switch on the front of the machine that can be set to circular knitting, or square/rectangular knitting. With it set to circular knitting, it keeps going around and around, making a tube. Set to rectangular knitting, it will go in one direction until it hits a stop, then it must be cranked in the other direction until it hits a stop. Working back and forth creates a flat panel. This machine has 22 needles.

So, what does this have to do with sock knitting, you ask? Well, some of the things I've run across while searching the Web for sock stuff, are sock dyeing blanks. People make knitted fabric on a knitting machine, then dye the fabric in all kinds of colors. The fabric is then unraveled, wound into balls, and socks are knitted from the hand-dyed yarn.

How To Get Want You Want has more information on various crank knitting machines.

For $8.61, I couldn't pass it up. My Giant Knit-Knit is now part of my knitting studio.