Belatedly tangled

Not snippy at all

Ordinarily I get all snippy about patterns. Why did the designer do this in that silly way? Why, I could do better myself. I'd get rid of that seam. Make this stitch pattern element line up with that shaping. Or why not put a lovely edging on the whole thing?

(The answer, by the way, is generally BECAUSE IT WOULD BE A GIANT PAIN IN THE BUTT TO DO IT THAT WAY INSTEAD, as I discover when I try modifying whatever it is.)

But the Modern Quilt Wrap? I love the design more and more and more as I get further in.

The match of yarn and pattern? Perfect. Look, it's just hard to knit with Kidsilk Haze. The garter is dead simple and makes the fabric a little heftier in its fluff, while the the modularity keeps the number of stitches being wrestled with at any one time nice and small.

The distribution of colors? More careful than it first appears. And the variation in stripe width from square to square, and from stripe to stripe, keeps it from feeling too regular. (For both I'd love to know if the designer planned it, or just knitted and then took notes on what she'd done.)

Running the blocks of small squares on the diagonal keeps any tension weirdness well-distributed through the wrap. And alternating direction on the mitered blocks also helps balance out any drift, while keeping the overall feel pleasingly irregular (see, varying stripe width).

May particular version has some weirdnesses. I made the first row of blocks solid Drab, first because it was supposed to be swatch out of stash, but then because I thought it would look good. But I made it mirror image. Since it's solid I don't think it matters much (and I'll probably do the other end, if I ever get there, as a solid block of garter), but still. And I've had to monkey a little with the colors. I have only six, so some are paired -- avoiding adjacencies is non-trivial.

Little slippers, with pattern

So I'd seen lots of people talking about the new Cat Bordhi book, and about how she says you can put the gusset shaping anywhere and it will work out okay. I knit up these little slipper socks for Miss T. while I was waiting for my copy of Cat's book to arrive. Yes, there is a gusset to go with that heel flap, but the decreases are tucked into the purl ribs; you go from 2/3 rib to 2/2 rib very gently. I ran the ribbing down to the end of the toe, too.

While the gusset shaping ends up being similar to one of Cat's architectures (Cedar, in particular), the rest of the sock is actually based on Charlene Schurch's toe-up-with-gusset design from More Sensational Knitted Socks.

Mostly I wrote up a pattern because I wanted to try writing up a pattern. They are cute little slippers, very quick to knit, very satisfying in the hand, very pleasing to the recipient (who spent a morning wearing just the first one; she wouldn't take it off, even though the mate didn't exist yet) but in the end the fit and finish on a 40-stitch sock are going to be less than ideal, especially on such tiny feet.

(If you made them at 8 st/in, they might be great newborn booties, though!)

I am sort of happy that the pattern is self-contained---I'm going to knit up something from Cat's book (just as soon as I finish the 80-stitch Gentleman's Fancy Socks that drove me to sport weight toddler slippers in the first place) but when I do I'm going to keep track of just how many different pages I need to turn to in order to finish one simple pair of socks.

Please send me any comments or corrections you have on the pattern!

Download Streamline Toddler Slipper Socks

UPDATE, NOVEMBER 2007: See sarakate's comment in Punk Rock Knitters (at Livejournal) for a rewrite of the first few toe rows. I expect that everything she says is true (especially given her discourse on increases), and I'll go through the details and update the pattern when I have a chance.

The nerdiest knitting thing I've done

Ever have trouble picking out colors for something online?

Especially smoky and subdued ones, like many Kidsilk Haze colors are?

What I did: dragged individual images when possible, took a lot of little screen shots when not (e.g., when there was a single shot of the whole color card), and then threw them into a single folder and turned Icon Preview on. All the pictures in each row are from the same source.

What this will be, someday, after socks and other things get done: a Modern Quilt Wrap, but a lot more subdued, and only 6 colors, instead of 9. (Someone should sell kits! The whole thing probably takes, oh, maybe 3 balls, maybe 4?)