On the left are the machine knitted ones, and the hand knitted pair is on the right. Now, I love being able to churn socks out on the machine quickly, as hand knitting socks is not really my favourite form of knitting (I suffer terribly from second sock syndrome), but I have to admit that the hand knitted ones are neater. It could be that my proficiency on the machine is at fault (in fact I'm sure it is), but even so.
Above is the toe as formed by the machine, and here is the heel:
You'll see that holes are formed when turning the heel and this section of the sock sometimes gives me the most problems. Believe me, you're seeing the "good side" of this sock! I would be far to embarrassed to show you the other side. And here is what the heel and toe look like on the hand knitted sock - no holes, see?:
So, on the whole I'd say the hand knitted socks are aesthetically more pleasing but the speed with which you can produce them on the machine is awfully handy when you want socks in a hurry. As usual my photographing skills when it comes to photographing purple fails me. There are shades of lavender in both those socks. The blue one was the November club yarn from my Assynt Storms Yarn Club, and the other was a one off which I did, but I love it, and so may repeat that one.
The next few weeks are going to be a little topsy turvy for me, but I hope to have lots of interesting blog entries for you while I do some travelling.
EDITED TO CLARIFY: I can see I wasn't really clear with my statement about completing 2 pair this weekend. I DID do the machine knitted pair over the weekend, but the hand knitted pair took quite a bit longer! I finished them this weekend, but I didn't knit them in a weekend. I wish I could, but sadly my hand knitting is a lot slower than that.
7 reactions
1 From Anne - 16/11/2013, 20:12
2 From Karen - 16/11/2013, 20:18
1) theres so many people that hate second sock - there must be a trend to exploit of sort of different second sock that looks like a pair.....im going to muse on this for future designs. sort of shaded yarn or patterns that match but tone. Anyway. Just need some sap to knit the ********** as i dont think i possibly could bear too
2) why dont you hand knit the toes & then load on machine,mzip along thevreq # of rows, and knit heel turn, put back on & finish. Fiddly but best of both worlds!! Or hand knit toes & just tube socks?? The context heres is that you havebto remember i am scarred re sock knitting from being forced to in school!! The benefits of a trad highland school education!
Ttfn
Karen
3 From Andrea - 16/11/2013, 21:22
4 From Ruan - 17/11/2013, 12:09
I agree that quick can be good but hand done is so satisfying! happy travels.
5 From Marilyn - 17/11/2013, 15:12
6 From Freyalyn - 18/11/2013, 12:55
7 From Hibiscus - 19/11/2013, 03:56