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Wednesday, July 11, 2007

MG: need more socks

i'm mumble pairs behind on our 52 sock pact. ok, six. i should have nine by now, but i have only three--two actual pairs and two singletons. still, the project has as much luster as ever (though i did go through a frustrated why-am-i-doing-this period a few weeks back). it's edifying and thrilling for this usually slow and deliberate knitter.


i'll catch you up starting with the one on the needles. it's a jaywalker with Sundara's cherry blossom sock yarn. i have a theory that variegated sock yarns work best in simple bias stitch patterns like clapotis or jaywalker. the diagonal lines create structure for the colors to co-mingle, drawing eyes up and across the color combinations. otherwise, our brains pick out one color in the bunch and try to discern the shape created by that color.

that is my current theory. what i do know is this stitch pattern is brilliant for multicolor yarns (as hundreds of you out there already know). if the above pooling were in stocking stitch, it would drive me crazy.

3 comments:

  1. Of course! I had always wondered why I am quite happy with the pooling in my Clapotis and nowhere else. Sadly, I don't particularly like the Jaywalker pattern, although yours is very pretty.

    I am currently banging my head against some Sundara variegated yarn, trying to overcome the pooling by knitting from two balls at once, but I'm not sure I even like the colours. I've thought about trying a slip-stitch pattern to make the colours shudder and break, but I think the two skeins are so different in shade (although from the same dye-lot) that I might end up with fraternal socks anyway. I might have to give up on this many-times-knitted sock and try something solid. Or maybe I will try dyeing it. Although that does seem a bit of a travesty.

    I think I had better get on with some plain stocking stitch and stop going round in circles. (Hee!)

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  2. Yummy! I agree with you about the diagonal bias for varigated yarns. And I love pooling, streaking, and all the other unexpected things that happen when you knit with non-solid stuff.

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  3. You are not behind. All of us need to take breaks. Just think that P and I have not finished a sock in weeks. It is the heat is all. I like you Jaywalker. Maybe that is what I can do with my skien of that color. Just keep knitting. There might be a prize for whoever finishes the least number of socks.....

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