knit•er•a•cy |'nitərəsē, 'nitrə-|

Here's a glimpse of the continuing Summer Sliding Sock. I haven't worked on this sock since Saturday, since I've been down with flu and I really am not up for ticky or difficult knitting. It's teddy bear jumpers and a ditty bag for me at the moment.

I'm into the gusset increases at the moment and will turn the heel fairly soon.

I'm really loving the way the colours are coming out on this sock. Thanks to everybody who encouraged me to knit this one: I think it's going to work out fine.

My only concern still is that the 3.25mm needles are not giving a very firm sock and that both the pattern itself and the garment will suffer for this. Then again, I still have my first pair of socks, made in sockweight Fortissima Socka, on 3.5mm needles, and they've held up fine. I can't help but think the pattern might look nicer with a firmer tension. The largest size for this fairly complicated sock is 70 sts around, so I had to find a tension that would give between 9.5 and 9.7 stitches per inch on 70 stitches. I settled on 7.5 stitches/inch on the 3.25mms, which will give me a sock 9.5" around -- half an inch smaller than my foot, but the sock should stretch.

It's still possible I'll rip this out; I need to see how the lace pattern looks once it's built a little more. I'll make a decision probably in the next two or three inches.