Part One: Sock Patterns...no, don't run away! Come back!

Um, so I've been looking at sock patterns like crazy lately, mostly because of the massive quantities of sock yarn I've been buying. Trolling for sock patterns and yarn does not equal actually knitting socks, but for the next month, what with the papers and whatnot, my knitting will be sparse and boring. (I cast on for the leg of the mate of the Regia Canadian Colors Eclipse sock I've been working on--no, the first one's not done yet, for, though I decided to go with the simple flap heel, I have not gotten any farther than knitting the flap for it--so I could have something to work on during the movie I projected last Wednesday. Between that, some library knitting, and the pilgrimage to the Princeton* library yesterday, I have maybe 3-4 inches done. My dilemma now is that dropped from 2.5mm needles on the leg to 2.0mm for the foot seems to be a bit too much of a difference, so I think that I'll move up to 2.25 mm needles after I turn the heel. A tighter fabric is better for the heel anyway, right? That would mean, however, that I will have used needles of four different sizes at various stages of this sock, which is ridiculous. Anyway! I hope to continue to plug away at these socks whilst I work on my papers.)

In any case, I thought I'd assemble a list of some patterns I'd like to try, and perhaps the largely silent, but copious (she says optimistically), readers of this blog may care to weigh in (anonymously if necessary) on which they find appealing and what they definitely do not.

I have Nancy Bush's Knitting Vintage Sock Patterns, and I love nearly all the patterns; from it, I'm especially interested in:

1. Gentlemen's Socks. This is my favorite out of the book; the stitch pattern is understated and visually interesting. I'd probably do these in a similar kind of yarn--I am really in love with yarn that's plied with two colors like the Lana Grossa yarn because it produces such a neat heathered effect. I don't have any of the Lana Grossa yarn because--well, if you know me, you know that my buying habits are often perplexing, in that I like to stalk things that I really want and not buy them for a long time, buying, instead, other, cheaper things that are sort of like what I want but are not quite good enough. Luckily, all yarn, some of the more outlandish jacquard patterns notwithstanding, is "good enough," so I can wait until I find a fine deal. Maybe.
2. Miranda Sock; on a model. This is my second favorite pattern. I think I'd do this one in a single-color yarn, or at least a subtly-variegated one. I hate the calf shaping on the sock, though--why is that necessary? It's not as tall as a knee sock. Unless I'm feeling like I really want to learn how to do calf shaping, I'll just use the stitch pattern.
3. Child's French Sock; another picture. Nancy Bush has adapted this pattern for a child's sock to fit a larger foot. I have the perfect yarn for it: some Chinese red/subtly blue-plied sock yarn I got for a song from a destasher on Etsy.

That's all for now, Reader.

*Lilyriver has referred to Princeton as the "pleasure palace of the privileged," which is as apt as it is alliterative.

In which it proves startlingly difficult to photograph a sock.

Today, Readers, I gave my beige tweed socks a test drive, and while I can't say I'm falling over myself in rapture to the joy of hand knit socks, they were lovely. I think they felted a bit on the bottom, which should not have happened but may prove fortuitous as it should make the fabric stronger.

But the purpose of this post is to showcase the sock at left. I've done the cuff and the top of the foot in a 3x1 rib using size 1.5 dpns (for the foot I'm using 0s). I made the cuff a bit longer than I've done before--it's around six inches--and that might cause me some trouble, as I have some concerns about running out of yarn. I'd just do the toe in a contrasting color, so it wouldn't be a disaster, but it's making me think about learning how to do socks via the toe-up method. In any case, it's another simple design, enabling me to knit while I'm reading (sort of) or screening films in the dark or whatever. The real pleasure of the project is the yarn, which, as I've mentioned before, came from kaleido's Etsy shop. It's 100% merino wool, meaning that it's not superwash and therefore must be handwashed, but 1) I'd probably handwash them anyway and 2) the yarn, without the nylon and the superwash wool treatment, is quite amazingly soft. One may, I realize, have some reservations about the colors (this is not a sock for the faint of heart), but as I've said before, sock knitting is all about putting one's pesky "taste" aside in favor of more interesting knitting. The picture at right I include because it's truer to the actual colors of the sock.

Oh! And the Brittany folks came through and sent me replacements for my snapped needles free of charge. In fact, they sent me an entirely new set, so if you'd like two five inch size 0 dpns, you know who to call.

Conform. Consume. Obey

I feel like I'd be a better person if I patronized one charming vendor instead of hunting for "bargains" on eBay, but part of the fun of yarn-buying is the thrill of the hunt. Without further ado, the sock yarns I'd love to buy if I were independently wealthy and/or could knit fast enough to justify adding to my stash:

1. Regia Canadian Colors in Brasil (#4741) or Canadian Colors Fashion Collection in Winnipeg (#4734). Yes, this is yarn from a German company made in Italy in colors inspired by Canada. Or, in the case of the 4741, yarn inspired by Brazil from a German company made in Italy in a line made for the Canadian market.
   
2. Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock, in Vera, Watercolor, Baltic Sea, Aslan, Gold Hill, Pioneer, or Argyle. I am really enamored of LL's colorways--you can look for yourself if you'd like. They're a gold standard, as far as I can tell. People have all kinds of pooling problems with this yarn and bitch about it constantly (not so much in the link I sent you to, just wanted to give you an idea of what pooling is). I'm not sure I care overmuch about that; it's kind of a neat effect. What stands between me and LL bliss is the roughly $9/hank price tag (it takes two hanks for socks), which, again, I can't really justify. People do talk about this yarn like it'll cure cancer, though.
   
3. Opal Feelings #1704.
4. Opal Hundertwasser #1432, Der Blaue Mond--this looks especially great knit sideways, and I'd really like to give my sideways pattern a go. The pattern I have is an Opal one, I think, and it's in German, meaning that I could chalk up the knitting as a learning experience vital to my scholastic career. That totally justifies the $14-$20 price tag, excluding shipping, right? Right?
5. Knit Picks Simple Stripes in Vineyard. This yarn has been discontinued; a helpful lady at Knit Picks tells me that they stopped using one particular factory in Italy and thus haven't been able to offer striped yarn since. I'm really annoyed because someone was offering two skeins on the Destash blog for $4 (including postage!), but they got snapped up before I even saw they were there. I hope people don't mind that I'm creepily linking to pictures on their blogs....
   
6. Everything in kaleido's Etsy shop! I'm working on a sock in this right now to take my mind off the Almost Argyle Almost Disaster sock. Downside: handwash only.
   

Be bold; be not too bold.

A joyous post may follow sometime soon about how I learned to walk and chew gum at the same time, but for now, I will note that though I am almostbutnotquite done with my current sock project, I decided to attempt something slightly more challenging--a knit/purl one color argyle pattern from Knit Picks--and am feeling rather exhausted. One problem with knitting on double points is that it can be difficult to pull the stitches tight enough at the joins between the needles; this is particularly a problem if one is trying to join two purl stitches. A way out of this, at least mostly, would be to use two circular needles. I, however, kind of hate circular needles, in the way that one hates things that flummox one, and am not especially inclined to try either the "magic loop" technique with one circ or the double circular needle technique or the double-circ-two-socks-at-once technique either. In any case, I'd forgotten how much trouble the "laddering" effect can be, and it pretty much ruined my first attempt at the argyle pattern; you can see why in the picture. I had to frog about fourteen rows. I decided to go down a needle size (the pattern recommends 2.75mm; I went down to 2.25mm) and also go from using five dpns to four, eliminating one joint and possible site of ladders. The pattern repeats in increments of 16 four times, so having five dpns worked out nicely, but after redoing the 14 rows I ripped out, I think it looks a little better.

The yarn is Knit Picks Essential in Grass, and it's really soft, especially for a superwash yarn. I'm worried about durability, but so far I'm really pleased with how it feels.

Based on a true story.

Lilyriver and I have temporarily left the world of crafting for the world of pastoral poetry. We hate pastoral poetry. Well, I hate pastoral poetry, partly because it's all about sheep, and sheep equal wool, and wool equals yarn, and yarn equals things I'd rather be doing than reading pastoral poetry.

Check out that smooth transition.

Whilst at the MoMA, I decided that the colorways I'd like to pursue for my planned yarn dyeing adventures will be based on art pieces. See, for example, the Andreas Gursky photograph at right. My plan is that the hank (I'm envisioning it to be about 220 yards, or enough for one sock) would be dyed a chalky gray. The top maybe 25 yards would be handpainted at regular intervals with flecks of red, to represent the red balls on the powerlines, and that halfway through the hank or so, I'd have a few bits of bold color like the corporate logo signs; the bottom fifty yards or so would be a darker gray. This is all obviously very literal, and I think it would be interesting to experiment with how far the concept can be taken. We saw about half a dozen Seurats chock full of the tiny pointillist dots, and it's just insane how many different colors go into creating the effect of even one square inch of a painting (Lilyriver and I felt extremely sorry that Seurat did not live to see pixellation; he'd have peed his pants). That'd be really fun to reproduce on yarn (this, I realize, is the principle of variegated yarn, but, um, art's all about context, right?).

Needle in the hay

Did I learn my lesson posting about all my unfinished sock projects? The lesson about how I should frigging stop buying yarn? No I did not. Another eBay non-steal: three skeins of Lion Brand organic cotton in Cypress. Lilyriver's love of organic food has spread to my yarn. What does "organic" cotton even mean? I mean, yes, I can read what Lion Brand says that it means, but while reading up a bit about this, I found someone making an apt comparison between Lion Brand and Wal-Mart, and we know that Wal-Mart lies. This does not prevent me from shopping at Wal-Mart, that steel-toed boot of oppression on the neck of--well, you name it, Wal-Mart's there. Something tells me Lion Brand's Yarn Empire might be more of a Barbie shoe. This metaphor has gotten away from me.

What's attractive to me about the LB organic yarn is, of course, the color palette; I've been crushing hard on earth tones lately (forays into Kool-Aid notwithstanding), and I love the idea that this color was produced in the growing process. As far as colors go, the real winner in that line is Bark, in terms of saturation and loveliness, but I think Cypress will suit the washcloth project I have in mind. --Oh, drat. I just saw the care instructions. Hand wash only. fjdlasjf;ldjasl;j

Secrets and expiation.

At right are the dark secrets of my soul: unfinished sock pairs. My collection drives Lilyriver crazy. And I understand this, I really do.

And I'll come totally clean: the two socks on the far right and the bright blue sock won't ever have mates. The bright blue sock is obviously deformed. The yarn is a Jawoll cotton blend, and it's light and nice, so I might reclaim it. The yarn of the other two, however, really isn't. It's Lion Brand Wool-Ease worsted, which I was horrified to find is 80% acrylic. It's way too heavy for ordinary use and doesn't breathe well. Also, I pillaged the yarn to make mittens. I do, however, intend to finish the other three pairs. I have two of the one, but I still need to weave in the yarn ends and block them. I am most excited about the beige tweed socks. I cannot think of an appropriate joke to mitigate the effect of revealing that I am excited by beige tweed socks. The yarn, however, is a fingering weight (I think?) Phildar Preface, and it's quite soft and (I hope) eminently wearable. With that sock, I finally got my pattern modifications down. --I'll take a moment to note that my yarn supplier for the finishable socks is Judy at www.doublediamondknits.com.

You have to be a sock knitter to understand some of the astoundingly awful sock yarn on the market. Logically, you know and I know that multi-colored stripes are usually ugly. But I, with an all too easily accessible PayPal account and an itchy mouse finger, look at this stuff online and think: self-patterning yarn? What is this miracle? I must have some! Two balls! Twelve balls! But I'm not going to lie: I have no perspective when it comes to yarn. In sock yarn, I've got some brown Phildar Preface waiting for me, and, from knitpicks.com, some green and some reddish brown tweed. I will come for you, yarn, and it will be glooooooorious.

Quote of the day, from Lilyriver, opening a package of knitting supplies sent from home: "I remember these needles! They're like old friends."

The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test.

Scroll down for awesome.

Dyeing to meet you.

I had set dyeing as the outer limit of my yarn fetish, the Thing I Wouldn't Do, the I-tip-my-hat-to-you,-yarn-dyers-but-I-am- perfectly-happy-with-commercially-dyed-yarn-even-though-it's- probably-made-from-the-blood-of-rats. (Lilyriver describes herself as a grad student with hobbies or a hobbyist dabbling in grad school; unfortunately, given the torturous construction of that last sentence and the sentiments contained therein, both my "grad student" and "crafter" cards have been revoked. I can't go on; I'll go on:) As with all limits, of course, this one falls by the wayside as easily as any Lenten promise. I'm currently eyeing a pound and a half of cream-colored wool yarn on eBay, offered at a suspiciously low price, and thus I have set my eyes on the prize: Kool-Aid. The fruity smell will fade.