Sunday 23 March 2014

Barking Mad Socks Finished - With Spring Green Socks Translation

My Barking Mad (Spring Green) socks have been finished with only a minimum of frogging and tinking. Not perfect, but I learnt so much from this, my first socks project so all in all, I'm very pleased with them.
Here's what I found:
My tension/gauge of using 2.75 mm needles was very close to that on the pattern for 2.5 mm, but despite that, they are a little baggy, particularly around the heel as the heel flap seemed quite long, at 36 rows.
I have very wide feet (24 cm, same as my foot length) and large ankles, and these socks have more than enough room!
The twisted 1/1 rib seems to stretch out and stay there (instead of shrinking back), something which I've found on a pair of mitts using the same rib, so I might avoid that and perhaps do a longer rib on the cuff for my next pair of socks, and maybe also do the rib on a size smaller needles but with a stretchier cast on, or something.
I found I needed to pick up 18 or 19 stitches on each side of the flap to avoid holes, instead of the 17 given in the pattern.
At 9 or 10 stitches, the point of the heel is a little narrow  for my round heels.

I can understand why Ulla magazine doesn't publish an English translation.  Why should they, when there is so much available in English but very little in Finnish (or should that be Suomi?)?  And although it seems like doing things the hard way to select a Finnish pattern and translate it, I've also got another couple of patterns from Ulla queued up, both featuring leaves and crying out for green sock yarn (which I currently don't have, hence the reason these socks weren't done in the original, lovely green!)
So, with thanks to Kristel Nyberg for her original pattern, here is my translation of the pattern into English [with editor's additions in square brackets, where I've remembered! I've included a few of my own observations, which might be useful to beginners and are probably completely self-evident to knitters with some experience in sock making!].  I haven't reproduced the charts or written them out as instructions.  It was my first time for using charts and I was impressed with how easy they were to read, so suggest you visit the Ulla online magazine for the charts, and to see how lovely the original Spring Green Socks look.

Spring Green [Barking Mad] Socks
by Kristel Nyberg, published in Ulla 02/08

Spring Green socks lace pattern reminded me of fern fronds. The gently undulating pattern is also suitable for graduated yarns. The pattern continues to the toe of the sock and the toe decreases have the lace pattern arranged between them. If in doubt about colour pooling, knit alternately from two different balls.


Yarn
Shibui Knits Sock (100 % merino wool; 50 g / 175 m), 100 g green (7495, Wasabi) Fingering/4 ply; [300 - 350 m/328 - 383 yards]

Tension gauge
About 34 sts and 48 rows in lace pattern in the round = 10 cm [4”]

Needles
Sock needles, 2.5 mm or to get gauge

Size
A woman's wide, describing size 41.
The model is designed to fit wide feet. You can narrow the socks by using thinner yarn and knitting needles or by adding gusset decreases.

Method
Leg
Cast on 72 sts on double pointed needles and share the stitches, 18 stitches per needle.
Knit in Twisted Rib (P1, K1 tbl) for about 2 cm. [I did 8 rows]
Next, knit lace pattern according to chart 1. Repeat the 20 rows of the chart twice, or until the sock leg is as long as desired. With two repetitions the sock length should be about 10 cm. Each pattern repeat extends the leg by about 3-4 cm. [Tip - Finish after an even-numbered row]

Heel
Start the heel flap on the next row.
Slip first st knitwise. Knit the next 35 sts. Turn the work.
Slip first st [purlwise]. Purl the next 35 s. Turn the work.
Repeat these two rows, until the heel height is 36 rows and the last row is WS row.
Slip first st knitwise. Knit the next 20 sts.
SSK decrease, K1 , turn the work.
Slip next st [purlwise]. P7, P2 tog, P1, turn.
* Slip first st knitwise. Knit to the stitch before the gap from the previous decrease. SSK, K1, turn the work.
Slip first st [purlwise]. Purl along to the stitch before the gap from the previous decrease. P2 tog, P1, turn. *
Repeat from * to * until all heel sts are once again involved in the work. Heel flap is now 22 sts.
Slip first stitch knitwise and knit the heel sts.
Pick up 17 sts along the heel edge. [I picked up 19]
Knit the instep according to the row on chart 1. [If you did 40 rows for the leg, this will be row 1, otherwise it will be the next row from where your leg left off and preferably should be an odd-numbered row.]
Start working with another needle. [This will be needle 4]
Pick up 17 sts along the other heel edge and knit 11 sts with the same needle up to the next needle. [Needle 1]
Mark this row as the starting point for the gusset. [This will be the mid point of the heel]

Gusset
Start gusset.
Knit until 3 sts are left on needle 1.
K2 tog and knit the last st.
Keep knitting sts on needles 2 and 3 according to chart 1.
On needle 4 K1, SSK and knit the remaining sts on the needle.
Knit the next row sts. [The pattern is for plain knitting on odd-numbered rows.]
Repeat gusset decrease every other row until needles 1 and 4 each have 18 sts remaining. [So the gusset decreases happen on even numbered rows, where there are also pattern increases and decreases from the charts.]
After the gusset decreases, the starting point for subsequent rows goes back to the side of the foot. [And needles are therefore renumbered.]
Knit needles1 and 2 in stocking stitch for the sole, and needles 3 and 4 lace pattern according to chart 1.

Toe
When the foot length is about 6 cm less than the desired length of the sock, start toe decrease according to chart 2.
Work decreases on chart rows 1, 10, 20, 23, 25, and 26 on both the sole of the foot and instep needles. Continue with lace pattern, however, only on the instep needles.
After chart 2 row 26, cut the yarn, pull it through the remaining sts and fasten off. [The Ravelry tags include Kitchener.  I did some sort of 3 needle cast-off.]
Weave in ends. If you want, lightly moisten the socks and spread out to dry into shape. [That is, block them.  But I didn’t, they went straight on my feet!]

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