Round Five – Mad to Dance

We are so happy that you all enjoyed the Mad Weave and we hope that you’ll enjoy this pattern as well.  I know I did. This pattern was such a surprise to me.  I’d never done a Norwegian cast-on before and I found that I really like it.  I’d never done anything other than a regular short row or flap heel before either and this heel has cables.  Yup – cables!  (You can see them in the picture at the right) They’re pretty cool too.

 With so many cables involved, it may help to learn how to cable without a cable needle – I did!  Here are a few places to learn:

Annie Modesitt showed how it’s done on Knitty Gritty.

Wonderful Wendy can show you how it’s done too. (it’s on  YouTube too)

I’m sure that there are many more out there if you look.

The cables aren’t restricted to the heel either.  They are combined with a bit of lace to produce a pattern that dances back and forth from top to bottom.  Watching the discussion that preceeded each round there was alway a lot of discussion of cables and lace.  Finally they have appeared.

As you can see, I knit this in a variegated yarn with lots of bright color.  I really didn’t know how it would look but I like it.  Another cool thing is how the pattern opens up.  As I knit it, the sock looked small but the lace opened up really nicely on my foot and it fits my size 8 and a halfs like a glove – a really comfy glove.

As usual, our designer has a few words to share with you. 

I think that socks are my favorite thing to knit. They are quick, portable and available for almost any design exercise that you can imagine. I am mom to 2 teenaged boys and I go to college full time, while squeezing in a part time job to pay for gas money and sock yarn. It seems that the further into the semester I go, the less time I get to knit on the big and/or complicated projects that are in work around the house.  So I want something that will keep me in tune to those same projects, but not take up too much study time.

That said, this particular pair was designed to complement a sweater that I may make some day. I really like this pattern, so put it into a pair of socks so that I could still have it and enjoy it till I get to the sweater. I’ve been seeing some intriguing combinations of aran cables and lace on the blogosphere lately, and I wanted to see what the fuss was about.

There are a lot of sock patterns out in the world and on the web, but none seem to fit the image of what I want at the time I need them. So I’ve started designing my own. ‘Mad to Dance’ is the first sock I’ve attempted to write a pattern for and I hope that you enjoy the knitting of it. I know that I did! Thanks
Theresa