Fiber Babble: Sock Yarn

Sock Yarn

February 06, 2007

... and some serious asterisk action.

Edited after a bit... if you've already gobbled up the techo-info at the end of the post, I needed to change it after realizing that the placement of the < and > escape characters was off (I fixed a line break or two while I was at it, too). If this means absolutely nothing to you, um... never mind.

I went to my favorite yarn store last week and fell off the no-yarn-buying wagon. I didn't do major damage, just 2 skeins of Cascade Fixation. You see, I'd just finished an unsuccessful top-down sock* in LB Wool Ease and decided I needed to use "real" sock yarn.

Well, at least, that's the story put out there for general consumption. (Don't click on the links unless you want to go, "Eewww") Actually, I'd been inspired by a pattern from Frecklegirl which then put me on the road to other items of that ilk. After playing around with the first pattern (in a less expensive "test" yarn), I decided that I wanted more lace, better fit, yadda yadda.

Side trip: I sure seem to be doing the "yadda yadda" thing a lot these days. I don't even care for the TV show that pushed those words into the common lexicon. Apparently I'm getting too lazy to actually say what I mean to say.

Back to the test knit, I ended up pulling out my Barbara Walker books** and finding a lace pattern that could grow as the project was shaped. Of course I didn't stop there. I found a knitter's font. I created a document, charts and all. Even came up with a name for "my" pattern - No Diré. I expect that if I stay semi-focused (oops! already too late!) I'll come up with a pattern for a "set".

*The unsuccessful sock incorporated a lace panel-ish thing down the front of the sock, again from a Walker book. I did a picot top, but it flares out because of the thickness of the yarn. I tried the sock on as I went (and wrote down EVERYTHING I did in anticipation of a second sock), but when it came off the needles I found that the heel flap was too short. No way am I gonna frog this one. I'll just chalk it up to experience and start anew*.

**I tend to want to own an entire series of books. In fiction, I actually won't read a book that looks interesting (if it's part of a series) until I have at least the first two or three books in that series. Then I read them in order. I have Barbara Walker's Treasuries 1, 2 and 3. #4 continues to elude me. It's certainly not in a local shop. Amazon/BN has it (occasionally), and I've been watching for a copy on eBay or Half.com. The problem is that the #4 book doesn't seem to be discounted appropriately ANYwhere**. And since I haven't actually seen inside the book, do I really want to pony up almost-full-price for what may be an uninspiring rehash of patterns I already have? (L shared some wisdom with me: "Exactly how many stitch patterns do you really need?")

*I got the Twisted Sisters Sock Workbook from the library. Though I'm avoiding the whole spinning thang, I'm expecting to be educated and inspired by the actual knitting info in there.

**Neither Mr. W. nor I care to pay full retail for most anything. Having the wonderful wide web at our disposal USUALLY allows us to find a discount on pretty much anything we want/need, especially if we're patient.

Hmmm.... this post SO didn't go in the direction I expected when I opened up this here Blogger window. Might as well end with a flourish:

Asterisk coloration coding is <FONT COLOR="F6358A">**</FONT>" courtesy of htmlgoodies.com
Asterisk color codes courtesy of ComputerHope.com

Accented "e" (No Diré) is coded as No Diré courtesy of Keyboard Help

Escape characters so that I can actually show the codes instead of implementing them courtesy of html-reference.com

Labels: knitting