Helix Socks
These are from the book Brave New Knits with patterns from famous knitting bloggers/designers. To be honest, I haven’t read the blog of the designer, but these socks are so adorable I had to make them.
Pattern: Helix Socks
Yarn: Another mystery yarn from All the Fun of the Fair
Needles: US 2
Started Some time in January
Finished February 18
Mods: I had a different gauge than specified, so I cast on 66 stitches a reduced them to 65.
I love the look of these socks. The yarn, with its tonal qualities, really adds visual interest to the spiral pattern. I have to admit, this wasn’t the fastest pattern for me to knit (not including the break I took to knit the Scent of Lavender socks). I tend to prefer lace socks with 10-15 row repeats, whereas this sock didn’t really have what I would call a repeat. Technically there was a 5 row repeat, but really, once you got started, you just went around and around in pattern. I couldn’t trick my brain into thinking I only had one or two more repeats to go, I just had to knit until it looked okay. Overall I do love these socks, and the pattern is well written, but they weren’t the most fun socks for me to knit.
Alcea Shawl
This is the other Susanna IC pattern from KnitCircus, and it’s the one that made me buy the subscription in the first place. This pattern is gorgeous!
Pattern: Alcea
Yarn: Malabrigo Lace
Needles: US 4
Started February 10
Finished February 18
Mods: I used size 4 needles as I was struggling with the fragile malabrigo yarn on bigger needles. Therefore, the shawl is very small.
Susanna IC is known for her crescent-shaped shawls, and this is one of her most beautiful. It’s a bit daunting at first because you start by casting on something like 300 stitches and work the lace edging, before moving on to stockinette shortrows to make the body. As I said, Malabrigo lace was not the best choice of yarn, I don’t think. I would like to make this shawl again and I will either use a plied laceweight yarn or I will make it in fingering weight. I just could not get the Malabrigo Lace to knit up on needles any bigger than US 4s.
