Tag Archives: Adult Moc-a-soc

Every little bit counts

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My 2019 resolution was to try hard to knit all usable quantities of a colorway before I proceed to a new yarn for a new project. Kind of “finish your peas before you eat dessert” thing. Well, except that Schoppel-Woole Zauberball and Cascade Yarns Superwash Sport are hardly the peas of the yarn world. Apologies, to you pea lovers, but peas taste terrible and I bet somewhere deep down you know that too.

So, first I used a smidge of the Daffodil colorway to knit my Annita Wilschut Vera bear a rain hat.

Perfect. That was in the summer of 2014.

My Daffodil languished. Next, in the fall of 2018 I knit Wolkig in my black/gray/white Zauberball.

I broke into the  Daffodil for the cuffs of my adult moc-o-socs.

Such a great pattern by Rebekah Berkompas.

Then, with most of the leftover Zauberball and a dainty amount of the Cascade 220 sport Daffodil, I knit Justyna Losorska’s freebie beanie, Fasolka. I followed her instructions exactly, except that I went my own way on the color combination.

I see this sportweight hat as a great success. It even has an excellent crown, with no hint of the dreaded pointy beanie syndrome.

The Zauberball colorway worked out so excellently, I will be indulgent and give you another view.

What next to knit. I’d been eager to give Cecelia Compochiaro’s “sequence” knitting a try. My first attempt was her Swirl Hat, using her spiral sequence method.

If case you haven’t heard about or tried sequence knitting yet, let me intrigue you. All the patterning on this hat repeats the same 10-stitch sequence. Yep, the diagonal slices, separated by a few rows of stockinette, are several rounds of the same sequence worked over and over again, ignoring the end-of-round marker. The shift in the direction of the slice happens magically (or so it seems to me) by a minor adjustment to the number of stitches in the round that happens in the stockinette section.

There was even enough Zauberball left for a right-sized pompom.

My Cascade 220 superwash sport hadn’t run out yet, so I couldn’t quit on it. This next hat is Susan Villas Lewis’s Vitruvian Man.

The Vitruvian Man, at least the one who isn’t a hat, is DaVinci’s drawing of a man stretched out in a circle, with his arms stuffed into the top of a square and his legs stuffed in the bottom of a circle. You know, this guy:

It’s a fun motif to knit. The entire hat is very cleverly designed.

Check out the great crown.

I have a big gumball sized ball of Zauberball left. And what’s left of my Cascade 220 sport isn’t quite a golf-ball sized ball. Every useful bit is used up.

For your feet

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These are Rebekah Berkompas’s a/k/a/ Bekah Knits’ Adult Moc-a-soc. It’s such a clever design. You knit the slipper part flat. Yes. Flat. On straight needles (or circulars used as if they were straights).The pattern is available in a fold-out pamphlet in many yarn shops and by download on Ravelry.

The slipper part is knit in worsted weight and seamed on the bottom and mid-heel. I used Cascade’s 220 Superwash Wave, an almost-gradient. Then stitches are picked up, in the round, on the inside of the slippers. The ribbed sock part is knit in a sport weight on double-points or magic loop.  I used Cascade 220 Superwash Sport. I’ve knit the adult version of these 3 times now. Check here to see an earlier version, along with a baby-sized pair. My recent pair is my favorite. There’s something about looking down at feet and seeing all that sunny color that makes a person smile.

The Moc-a-soc is slipper and socks combined. Sort of. This next bit of footwear at first seems like just half a slipper.

Most knitters who visit yarn shops (always a good idea) will have seen Lorna Miser’s Suede Soled Slippers. Miser’s slipper kit is a slipper sole that ends up as a whole slipper.  I probably knit my first pair twenty years ago. The kit is a slippper-bottom, a small skein of yarn, and a pattern.

Follow the included pattern to knit this:

Yes. Where’s the rest of your slippers? All is as it should be.

I am completely crochet-impaired. If you’re not, you will probably use one of those amazing crochet stitches I know nothing about to attach your knitted slippers into the soles through the holes in the slipper bottoms. For my part, I just sewed them on. I’m also almost completely sewing-impaired, so I just stitched through the sole-holes and into the knitted fabric. Easy peasy.

Miser’s kit knits up in two shakes of a lamb’s tail. Heck, there’s almost nothing to knit!

Next comes a holiday gift I knit for Steve, a man who loves hand knit socks. One of my knitting circle mates says she sees red reindeer running across these socks. I don’t think so. But these socks definitely look festive.

These are cobbled together from a number of patterns, so I’ll just call it my personal sock pattern. It started out life as a sock whose designed heel just didn’t look like it would hold up to feet. So I knit a traditional heel instead, in eye-of-partridge, and simply did a standard toe.

Steve’s socks are knit in Schachenmayr Regia’s, Design Line by Arne & Carlos, a 75% wool, 25% nylon fingering weight. Both the yarn and the heel will be able to stand up to almost anything feet can dish out.

Sticking to the theme of failsafe foot stuff here’s my recent knit of Nola Miller’s Nola’s Slippers. Mine are knit in Harrisville Design’s WATERshed, worsted and doubled (as the pattern calls for). They are knit flat and seamed at mid-bottom and mid-heel. I’ve knit gobs of these over the years. They never disappoint.