Sitka

Before I tell you all about the lovely yarns I got in Virginia and North Carolina, I have some good news to share!

 

I’d like to introduce you to Sitka.

 

 

These socks take their name and inspiration from the Sitka spruce, a beautiful northwestern evergreen tree. They are worked from the top-down with a slip-stitch heel flap. The interesting part of these socks is the two bands of color work, one around the leg and one around the ball of the foot.

 

 

Between these bands, the sock is mostly stockinette with a simple cable “clock” on each side. A clock is a stitch pattern that travels down the side of the leg and splits at the heel, like the hands of a clock.

 

 

Clocks were a popular design element in early socks and one of my favorite techniques. They add interest but don’t slow things down. Because the clock pattern in these socks is 9 stitches wide, the front of the sock has fewer stockinette stitches than the back. This allows the line of purls between the cables to continue down the foot uninterrupted.

 

Sitka is similar to Socks, circa 2008.  I love the look of a sock with a bit of color on top.  But Sitka has an extra band of color work at the toe, thrown in for free.  It also has simpler cables and a plain heel flap.  I saw the top band in a stitch dictionary (in very different colors) and knew that I had to design a sock using it.  The rest of the sock grew from that band.  The colors were the last thing to be figured out in this pattern- with a near frogging of the first sock when I had second thoughts!  However, the original colors I chose prevailed.

 

 

Sitka is for sale at Knit Picks as a PDF download.  You can buy the pattern by itself for $1.99 or as a kit.  I love their new Independent Designer Program and have had a great experience with the publication process.  I get all the proceeds from the pattern sales (they keep the yarn profits, obviously) and I keep the rights to the pattern.  I take care of all the errata and corrections, so if you have any questions about the pattern, please contact me at dailyskein (at) gmail.com or on Ravelry as CailynDragon.  If you’ve read any of the other entries on this blog, you probably know that all my “go-to” yarns are from Knit Picks.  The open invitation to submit patterns to them is something I’m really enjoying.  I have another pattern in the works for them… and probably a whole bunch more, too!

 

 

These photos were taken in the forest behind my house early one spring morning.  Lowell took this great shot of the sun through the trees.

 

 

 

One of our neighbors had taken a No Parking sign from the street and put it behind their house; I guess as a protest for the high number of them in our cul de sac?  They’ve moved now, so we’ll never know.  Made us laugh, though!  They hated those No Parking signs.

 

 

 

This is the tree I’m standing on.  See, we found out that the roots were rotting away and it might fall onto our house.  The top half of the tree got cut off and the rest left as a snag.  The top half was left in the forest and is now a great place for photos!  And wildlife too, since I guess the world doesn’t revolve around my sock-photo needs.