Eskimimi Knits knitting blog

I have been applying myself to the k2, p2 rhythm of Nan’s jumper, with its even rib and repetitive motions, for the last few evenings.  It is fantastic television knitting, not requiring concentration or heavy application of the mental faculties, it leaves the brain free to wander over to what is flickering away on that big box of lights, watching the new political make-up of the UK unfold, refold and change its mind before playing happy families.  It’s not very engaging, though, for when you want to sit down and create, and watch a pattern unfurl itself from a pile of numbers and abbreviated terms into something surprising and wonderful. So, because I am weak-willed and too easily distracted, I have cast on for the aptly-named Diversion socks, from Knitty.

Like many of my knitterly friends in the UK,  I was tempted in the Kemps sale of a few months ago to part with some hard-earned electronic money in exchange for some sock yarn by Kaffe Fassett for Regia.  At £1.20 (or thereabouts) per skein it was too bargainous to pass up.

Regia Design line by Kaffe Fassett in 'Landscape: Twilight'

Since first using Regia’s Kaffe Fassett self-striping yarns I have been searching out patterns which employ various ways of using the stripes to create different effects.  The first pair of socks I knit were one of Kaffe’s colourways ‘Zany: Easter’, if I remember rightly, and I knit a very vanilla pair of socks and just let the yarn do exactly what it had been designed to be – be all ‘Kaffe’.

Stockinette socks. Regia Design line by Kaffe Fassett in 'Exotic Colour: Easter'

The next time I turned to this line of yarns for its ‘let me take care of the colour changes for you’ convenience I knitted Lucy Neatby’s Mermaid Socks, which has been re-published in Issue 4 of The Knitter magazine.  This pattern allowed the stripes to become fractured in a stepped spiral down the leg and along the foot to the very tip of the toes.

Mermaid socks. Regia Design line by Kaffe Fassett in 'Exotic Colour: Turquoise'

My most recent Kaffe-a-thon resulted in the extremely involved Harlequilt socks, from Sandy Beadle’s Annetrelac Socks pattern, which this time used and entrelac-in-the-round technique to utilise the stretches of colour in yet another variation of stitch and technique.

Annetrelac Socks. Regia Design line by Kaffe Fassett in 'Exotic Colour: Zany'

I have a few more patterns lined up for future uses of my Kaffe Fassett yarn, each employing the stripes in different and interesting ways, for when I need a diversion from other projects-on-the-go.

Harlequilt Socks

Behold the Harlequilt Socks, in as highly saturated a combination of colours as Kaffe Fasett ever did conceive.

I am extremely happy with how these entrelac socks have turned out, but I am glad that they are finally complete.  I did feel the project started to drag on a bit after about the fifth entrelac row of each respective sock, and actually found myself counting down until the end of the entrelac portion square by square, seeing the new task of turning the heel as a refreshing new task before sprint-knitting through the rows of stockinette to a short row toe.

Yarn is Regia Kaffe Fassett Design Line Crazy Colour in 'Zany'

This project is my first flirtation with entrelac, and thought the technique is quite engaging, the novelty of picking up stitches for each square wore off after the first sock.  Entrelac is not difficult. If you can knit, purl, decrease and pick up stitches, then you can do entrelac.  Once the foundation row of triangles have been completed, the structure is revealed and you suddenly have an epiphany over the logic of the technique, and it all falls quickly into place.  Entrelac is just stockinette stitch knitted in small blocks.  In this case, very small blocks. Entrelac isn’t time consuming because of complexities of this form of knitting, but because, when working in 6-stitch blocks such as the ones in this pattern,  you have to pick up a stitch for every twelve you knit.  You also have to turn your work every six stitches.  You spend more time turning your work than you do actually knitting, so an ability to knit backwards can be a great time-saver, though if you are like me getting the yarn set up in a position that makes backwards-knitting comfortable takes just as long again…

Finished and matching. I think the effort was worth it.

Despite the time-intensive knitting that I found these socks represented, I do not regret the added effort needed to complete them.  They are probably the brightest and boldest socks that I will ever make, and Craig has been asking over their progression every day or two and declared them to be ‘the best socks I have ever knit’ when I was only a third of the way into the first one.  I started each sock at the same point in the colour progression of the yarn, and I am overjoyed at how well my tension behaved during relaxing knitting sessions in front of the TV in the evenings, through discussions whilst on lunch break and whilst knitting under stress. Each rectangle corresponds perfectly with its partner on the neighbouring sock, matching from the socks of the cuff, through the heel and to the tip of each toe.

 

The yarn threw up some interesting effects, too.  Many of the stripes of this colourway change shade at a distinct and straight line, but at some colour junctions the new shade creeps in, making a wavy, patterned edge as you can see in the stockinette foot portion.  Whilst knitting the socks it started to become apparent that all of the solid colours were lining up at the front of the sock and these intermediate waves of broken colour were all pooling at the back.  What’s more, at the point where my 2×1 ribbing stopped to begin the foundation triangles, the yarn changed to a bright fuschia for the decrease round, before swiftly changing again, which give the impression of a line of little overhand stitches joining the ribbed cuff to the main body of the sock:

yarn and pattern coming together to produce a stitched effect

I didn’t like this at first, but as the lines of rectangles began to build like a patchwork quilt, with the appearance of little ’stitches’ where one colour would show through the decrease stitches that bind each tile to the next, I thought that these little chance quirks that came about because of the union of this particular yarn and this pattern were quite charming, and so suggested the name ‘Harlequilt’.