Sky at work.
Apricot, with hints of dark chocolate.
Sky at home.
Smoked black tea with cherry chili scones.
Sky & Home
Preparing to say goodbye.
Nov 13 2009
FO: Plain Jane Pond Scum Socks
Pattern: None, AKA my Plain Jane style sock
Yarn: Patons Stretch Sock, color “Olive”
Needles: US Size 0, 32″ Knit Picks circular
Started: March 21st, 2009
Finished: November 12th, 2009
Recipient: Me
Techniques: Magic Loop
Pretty tall, but not as tall as they look in that photo.
I am tempted to call these my Pond Scum socks, and perhaps I shall from here on out. I liked the colors much more in the ball than I did worked up, but as I have no spring colored socks, they’re a good addition to my sock drawer. When I started knitting the socks, at the New England Comic Artists Convention, I brought along Knitting Socks With Hand Painted Yarn. Would you believe that I couldn’t knit the pattern I chose because the yarn was too busy? Seriously! The white strands in the yarn made for a weird case of optical confusion… I literally had trouble seeing the pattern. What a bummer! Trust me to have found the one of the few yarns that book can’t tame.
Kinda the Ugly Duckling of socks.
This was my first time knitting with this yarn, a stretchy sock yarn with a complicated list of contents. The ball band says that it’s “41% Cotton, 39% Wool, 13% Nylon, 7% Elastic”, and the construction is typical for stretchy sock yarns, namely a four ply yarn wrapped around two loosely spun strands of stretch elastic. I didn’t love working with this yarn, but I didn’t hate it either. One thing I will caution, if you’re going to work with a yarn of this type, you have to very cautious about tension and gauge. Because I knit the first sock in March and didn’t start the second until 10 days ago, my gauge was all over the place trying to match the one I’d knit first. I’d forgotten that, for the first sock, I’d been ratcheting my stitches to make for a more dense fabric in an attempt to counter the stretch in the yarn.
I’ve been wearing them all day and I really like the way they hug my feet. They’re warm, despite the cotton content, and certainly feel durable. By that I mean, they have that solid feel that durable sock yarns have. I have a feeling these will last a good long time.
Tomorrow: A long overdue Secret Pal post!
