Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Sock yarn agony





I started a sock on Monday night right after I finished the Spring Forward Socks.
I will admit that I do have 2 other socks in progress right now - Keith's second Wollmeise sock and my second Bearfoot sock. Nonetheless, I wanted a sock with some lace or texture to it.
And, I've bought a lot of pink sock yarn here and there over the past year, so I wanted to use some of it.
I had wound the Saucy by numma numma into a ball sometime over the holidays with the thought of making a multidirectional scarf for someone with it. I didn't like the way it looked, which is just as well as I wanted to keep the yarn for me.
However, I've been wondering if the yarn hates me.
On Monday night, who knows what I was thinking, I used the needles that had just come off the Spring Forward socks and cast on the Saucy. I had completed maybe half of the toe when I noticed the stitch gauge was much looser than I liked. I ripped out the work and fetched my handy needle gauge. Huh. I was using US size 2 1/2 needles. No wonder it was so big.
Next, I looked at the yarn and decided to use size 1 needles. (When will I learn to check Ravelry first?) I completed the toe, and now it was too small. OK. If I don't check Ravelry first, maybe I should have just read Goldilocks. I ripped it all out again, and went to see what most people used on this yarn.
Turns out they used 1 1/2 needles, which actually is the needle size I use 90% of the time. I started the socks again, the toe looked just right, and then I looked at the patterns.
I had decided not to do the knit along for Wendy's new book on Ravelry. It seemed every time I looked at the group, the moderator (not Wendy) had tweaked or flat out changed the rules. I don't have much patience for bullshit, and this was, in my not so humble opinion, exceeding my tolerance. Bull poop is great for the garden, but wading through it while she thrashed out her rules for the KAL is another subject. Besides, I know this makes me sound odd, but I don't care if I win prizes or not. Honestly, I'd rather pick out my own yarn. I had wanted to do the KAL for the challenge of it, but screw that. I'll just start knitting the socks from the book.
So I did. I thought the Dead Simple Lace socks would be an easy lace sock that would work well with the colors of the Saucy. At least that's what I thought until last night when I wondered how the Butterfly socks would look. Let me state here and now that while the Butterfly Lace looked very easy to do, it was not a good choice for the season finale of Fringe, complete with alternate realities and Leonard Nimoy. I had messed it up somewhere along the way, so I ripped out the lace, but left the toe.
Apparently, this ball of Saucy wants to be Dead Simple Lace socks, and I will bow to its will.

2 comments:

Kim said...

Isn't it odd how as knitters and cat- well, certainly not "cat owners", more like "those who are owned by cats"- we are subject to the whims of those things which the outside observer would believe to be in our complete control. To the yarn and especially the cats, our needs and wants rarely, if ever, matter. I tell myself it's good practice for letting go of the need for control. And then I grab my kitties and kiss them on the nose, just to remind them that sometimes I get to have my way. :-)

Shari said...

I have to have a dily supply of kitty kisses now...and thnkfully they are accepted, albeit begrudgingly!
As far as socks go, I am in awe of the fat you can produce them so quickly...I'm still working on mine and still have 2" to go before I can get your help with the hell, I mean heel!