Kauni Socks

Well, I did finish my Kauni socks - actually they were done on Tuesday but I haven't got around to posting them til now. They did meet with a small pet disaster.



"I guess I feel a little guilty, but knitting needles sure are tasty!"

The door to the room containing my sock-in-progress was left open and Zoe decided that munching on the circular needles was a good plan. She chewed through the cord, but luckily no yarn was harmed. She's the one who was responsible for this too, so I guess I should have been prepared.

But despite their close call, the Kauni socks turned out just fine:



Yarn: Kauni 8/2 in colorway W-EQ
Started: 10/19/08
Finshed: 11/4/08

I'm quite pleased with them, and apparently my feet are the exactly right size (and my estimates on how long to make the leg are very good!) because I managed to make a pair of socks with exactly one rainbow. I knew it would work!

I've also gotten a few questions via the comments that I'll attempt to answer:

Cindy asks: So, what's your secret?? Is there particular pattern for how you pick up your gusset stitches?

I don't think I have a secret, as far as I know I pick them up the normal way - under both strands of the V made by the slipped edge stitch. I do tend to keep the tension pretty tight while picking up stitches, and I pick up an extra stitch by basically doing a m1 increase in the bar between the gusset and heel flap stitches to help avoid the hole. Then when knitting across the picked up stitches the first time I knit them through the back loop to twist them and hopefully tighten them up a bit.

Me (no, not me, someone named Me) asks: I only "know" Kauni from looking at pictures. The description always say it is such a rough yarn. Is it really going to be nice to wear as a sock? Or do you wear other socks under your handknit socks anyway? Or am I mistaken?

Kauni is a pretty rough yarn. That said, I don't think yarn needs to be particularly soft to wear on my feet. I walk around on them all day, they're pretty tough. ;) The Noro yarn is also not particularly soft and I like those socks just fine. Although it's also not machine washable so I'm sure the bottoms of the feet will felt a bit, I took that into account and made the socks a little bigger than I usually do. And really I was more obsessed with the idea of these socks than thinking of the practicality.

I don't wear other socks under my handknit socks, although it seems people must because I've been asked this a couple times. I can't imagine wearing two pairs of socks - I tend to run pretty warm and it's not that cold around here. Maybe on the coldest day in Boston.

Listening to: Youth Overrided (acoustic) ~ Cave In