Osborn Fiber Studio

At the tender age of 8 months, Nomeykins is not a very well-traveled person. Outside her native state, she’s really only visited Maryland (unless you count West Virginia, the only parts of which she has visited outside of a car being Sheetzs).

She can only imagine fondly when we describe to her such far-off climes as California, Utah, Colorado, Arizona, or New Mexico. But I can bring the flavor of such places to her. In the form of socks, of course.

These are October’s entry from my tour of the world via knitted footwear. Knitting randomly through Nancy Bush’s Knitting on the Road, this pair is called “Santa Fe.” Apart from making me break out in song, the design around the cuffs is also reminiscent for me. Ms. Bush said the cuff design was modeled after a Navajo basket pattern. I realized that at a church meeting I go to every week, on one of the shelves is a set of baskets with just this pattern! I had stared at them in interest on many occasions, and was pleased to replicate it. I wish I could find a picture of the pattern now.

Pattern Review: This is really a fairly straight-forward, vanilla, top-down sock pattern, with some fair isle added in. I don’t really have any complaints about it. I adjusted it to be 60 stitches around, rather than the given 50 or 55, because I found out on last month’s socks that the yarn that I bought for this pattern was not quite as thick as I thought was. But that wasn’t the pattern’s fault. It was easy enough to adjust the pattern by multiples of five stitches.

Well, I do have one not-quite complaint. Out of all the toes on all the socks that I have made over the last half-decade (probably 30 pairs), the only toes I have ever had give out on me are round toes. Nancy Bush seems to have a thing for round toes, over the more common contemporary ones with side decreases and kitchner in the middle (I forget at the moment what that type is called). I suppose they tend to give out because the round toe is finished by threading the yarn through the last 8 stitches and pulling tight, like at the top of a hat. That’s a lot of tension on one little bit of yarn at the toe, a well-worn spot on the foot. I tried to compensate this time by weaving the end in further, but I realize as I write this that that probably won’t make much difference. The issue is rubbing and tension on that one gathered point that makes the yarn in the point give out. Maybe it would help if I put the yarn through the last 8 stitches twice? Maybe she said to do that and I ignored it.

Anyway, I love them. And they are not Steelers socks, thank you. That’s blue. (Not that I wouldn’t knit Steelers socks. I would, but not until after I knit myself about twelve pairs of Redskins socks.)

Naomi enjoyed this pair very much, and wanted to know when she was getting her own miniaturized set.

I’m afraid you’re not, little dearie. But you are getting something even more interesting. A little tiny project that is quickly unfolding into something grand. Can you guess what these are?