It seems the Doctor and his TARDIS have landed on a planet populated by gigantic adorable toddlers...
Yeah, so, if you've watched any Doctor Who at all (latest episodes available on iTunes if you don't get BBC America), you know that the Doctor's time-traveling spaceship—aka the TARDIS for Time and Relative Dimension in Space—has a curious feature. On the outside it appears to be a small blue wooden British police call box...
But it's MUCH, MUCH bigger on the inside:
Which brings me to my TARDIS socks (full details here, including some mods I made), which, unfortunately are bigger on the OUTSIDE. See how they slouch and bag around the ankles?
They fit fine while I was knitting them (just the right amount of negative ease), but after I gave them a gentle bath, they started to grow...
And now they look good for a second when I tug them up...
But quickly slouch back into saggy baggy land within moments:
I really don't know what's going on here. I used a non-superwash 100% merino wool yarn, and knit them on the smallest sock needles I have (size 0). I've never had baggy socks before but they always had a bit of nylon in them, so maybe it's because these socks have no nylon content?
Anyway, all hope is not lost for my Time and Relative Dimension in Socks—the excellent Tech Knitting blog recommends a fix using elastic thread or an elastic garter at the top of the sock, so we'll see how that does!
Meanwhile, I swatched for my Delancey cardigan by Alexis Winslow. Here's the sketch (on bottom right) as you may remember from my Sweater Showdown decision post:
And here's my gauge swatch:
I'm using stash yarn, so my color scheme is based on what I have available. The main color is going to be the eggplant, and the sets of triple stripes will be in the gray, periwinkle and light purple. The aqua will be for the shawl collar and sleeve cuffs.
I'm going to knit a 33" bust size (even though my bust is 38.5") as I'm not getting exact gauge. I'm hoping it'll come out around 35", giving me 3.5" negative ease. I'd much rather it be a bit on the tight side than loose and slouchy (see my Not-Goldilocks and the Three Sweaters fitting post for more on this).
Those socks are cool! I'm from New Zealand and knit quite a bit with 100% merino wool (no socks yet though) and I find it does tend to grow after washing. Hopefully the elastic thread fixes your problem.
ReplyDeletelove your delancy color choices!
ReplyDeleteI think the "door panel" squares are destined to fold at the purl rounds--it's just what garter stitch is born for. In any case, the socks are cute as can be, slouching or not. (When did the Tardis turn blue? I haven't watched for a long, long time.)
ReplyDeleteI was thinking more about this last night since my Tardis socks are also a bit big. With mine I think it's just the large number of stitches cast plus the superwash I used - it's very springy!
ReplyDeleteAre you sure that yarn isn't superwash? Because I had the very same thing happen this week, mercifully to a shawl, and I swear it's the superwash-ness. My yarn is madelintosh dk. Anyway, if it truly isn't superwash, I'd recommend trying a bit of fulling to try to control size.
ReplyDeleteSo frustrating, as one the really cool features of handmade socks to me is precisely the fact that they stay up, contrarily to industrial ones :-(. And yours look so cute..
Yeah, it's definitely regular merino, not superwash. I've never had this problem with non-superwash wool before! It's gotta just be that I knit them slightly too big and didn't realize.
DeleteWell, I've also usually knit sock patterns that had more ribbing and lace to them, so were probably more inherently elastic, too.
DeleteGreat colors! Can't wait to see what you pick!
ReplyDelete