The Knitting Fiend

This article will illustrate how to knit the first “point down triangle” for a seamless Argyle socks. Believe it or not, this is the part that describes the unusual techniques used to fuse different colored diamonds together. (The other parts of the knitting use relatively common techniques knitters use on other projects.)

Right now, you should have two point up triangles worked. The point up triangles are worked using short rows and wrapping stitches — both are fairly common techniques that I will show in another tutorial. While working this you should notice that every other stitch on each edge is wrapped. Once you’ve verified the point up triangles look ok, you will need to rearrange the stitches on the needles so you can fill in the “ditches” between the two point up triangle.

How to rearrange
The pattern will tell you how many stitches to have on the working needles. In my case, the sock has 40 stitches, so half plus 1 stitches equaled 40/2 + 1 = 21 stitches.

The instructions also told me to place 11 on the left needle and 10 on the right needle. (No matter how many stitches in your pattern, there will be one more on the left than on the right.)

The outer edge stitches are the “top tip” of the point up white triangles. So, you’ll be able to verify that by checking if they align with the markers the directions have you set when knitting the first row of the point up triangle. (Unless you skipped laying them because you figured that was optional? I did! )

When you have organized the stitches correctly you’ll also notice the stitch nearest the left tip is wrapped with the wrap sort of pulling it to the left; the stitch nearest the right tip is also wrapped, but with the wrap sort of pulling to the right. In the photo above left, I poked needle tips through the wraps to show they are really there.

You are going to start knitting with black; in principle, you pick up the black yarn now. However, in practice, you can leave it aside for a bit while you get ready to “knit through a stitch with its wrap”. (Some of you have done this when knitting short rows however you have approached the wrap from the other side. )

The goal of knitting through the wrap is to produce a nice untwisted knit stitch with the wrap hidden behind. The black yarn will pull through the wrap and the stitch thus preventing holes.
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I managed to sit myself down, knit the foot and toe of the “Seamless Argyle Sock”. I’ll be adding the criss-crosses using duplicate stitch.

Now, as everyone knows, every pattern needs a name. If it doesn’t have a name, there is absolutely no hope other knitting blogs can refer to it by name, create a “item X” knit-a-long, and generally create a knit blog induced frenzy. (Which is, it goes withough saying, the goal of every amateur knit designer with a blog. )

Granted, a clever name is not enough to create the frenzy. Neverthless, it is clear these socks need a clever name.

To that end I thought I would name them: “Seamless Argyle Socks” or “The Knitting Fiend’s Seamless Argyle Socks”. Clever, huh? Well, if you don’t think this is sufficiently clever, suggest some sort of appropriate name. Maybe you can refer to some sort of historical Scots event? Or translate “Black Diamond” into ancient Scots?

Unpronounceable words containing vowels that do not exist in English are more than welcome. (Extra points if you come up with a name that includes either the word “knitting” and the word “blog” in ancient Scots!)

Ok, do some want to get knitting more than they want to suggest names? Well, you can’t yet. I told blog readers this is a test knit and I’d be fixing the program. Well, I’m working on fixing, but now I want to test knit the fixes. (There really aren’t that many. Most are clarifications. One is something wrong just when you finish the black diamonds and start the next white bit. )

I re-coded a few lines and put the edited version in at a “secret” address where only I can run it. Now, I’m going to cast on and verify the code modifications are correct — at least for this sock.

At that point, I’ll consider the test knit “good enough” to re-inflict readers with this pattern. I’ll also get more yarn and knit a second pair of socks in a different gauge. The second pair will be finer gauge so I can verify there are no boo-boos when I knit a second set of black diamonds.

Besides test knitting the pattern, I also want to demonstrate more details on line. Now that I have a better camera, I can get good photos of details. Blogging also lets me show every single frigging step (which is useful here because this is an unusual technique I ginned up. ) So, during the course of next week, I’ll be taking photos of details techniques so people who read the pattern can see precisely how I knit it!

Did you know one of the purposes of writing a knitting blog is to remind myself what I did? Well, I’ll prove that today by describing the general method for knitting seamless argyles and also mentioning the mistakes I need to correct. Some of you may be interested in the general methods– likely only I am interested in the detailed descriptions of the mistakes. I intend to fix them, but need to write them down somewhere so I remember.

So, here goes. If the description of the mistakes are confusing…. well, sorry. The information is just specific enough to help me remember to fix it now that I’ve knit the argyle bits.

Steps for knitting the Argyles.
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