Back To The Drawing Board

Having drawn up the four charts for my 'Full House' sock designs, yesterday evening was spent knitting a trial swatch to see if the charts produced the effect that I was looking for. Unfortunately, I have failed at the first hurdle for although the draft charts looked fine, when they were transformed into knitting they didn't have the impact that I was looking for.

This morning I have done another test using just one of the charts, this time testing whether the design looked better as stocking stitch against a reverse stocking stitch background, or reverse stocking stitch against a stocking stitch background. Again, the effect was disappointing so it was back to the drawing board.

For my third attempt I am going to increase the size of the motif in the hope that it will look better when knitted up. I have redrawn one of the designs in this larger size and I am about to knit the test swatch to see if this version is any better.

Having to use larger motifs means that there will only be four on each sock, and the impact of the fifth sock design will not be as great as I had hoped but I will still be able to put all four motifs on one sock which means that I should still be able to create this set of designs as I had originally envisaged.

While there are many exciting sock patterns out there for anyone to try, sock designs for men are a bit more difficult to find. I am hoping that the 'Full House' set will be able to fill the gap in this area. It does mean that I am going to have my work cut out knitting all these socks for the competition, but I am hoping that the originality of the set of patterns will give me a bit of an edge when the judging occurs. Winning one of the prizes would give me some extra funds to spend on wool to add to my stash. And their stash is every knitters home for future projects and dreams of things to come.