Sunday, November 18, 2007

Could this sock be any bigger?

Crafts 013
Crafts 013,
originally uploaded by bookscatsyarn.

Seriously? I mean, seriously...wow. I'm knitting for a man's size 11, and this is the sock that never ends. From what I'm learning on Ravelry, socks need to be knit at a really tight gauge, much tighter than what the label on the yarn suggests. I'm knitting these, made of a fairly thick fingering (KnitPicks Memories), on a size 1.5 DPN set. I'm not sure what my gauge is, but the stitches are very, very tiny, and I've had to beg for a third skein of this colorway on Ravelry. Combine that with a mindless but fiddly garter rib pattern and you have Sock Boredom kicking in pretty quickly. One down, one to go!

I'm having a really good time knitting with friends lately. Last week, Amy held an informal "Take Your Knitting Up a Notch" class and wrote a hat pattern for three friends who knew how to knit and purl but not much else. We went to Bloomin' Yarns, hereafter known as the Sock Crack Den, where I picked up two different colorways of Claudia Handpainted fingering for gifts. Then yesterday I met up with Lisa, Beth, and Michelle and ended up taking an impromptu fieldtrip to the newest LYS, Natural Stitches, where I bought yarn to do Backyard Leaves. The Cascade Wall is really fantastic, and the store has the best Malabrigo Worsted selection I've ever seen, so I will definitely be back with my husband to choose yarn for that sweater I've been promising him for years.

And also? When I worked at PKAB, I never had a stash. I never understood the concept of a stash. Sure, I worked on more than one project at a time, but I bought the yarn for projects as I went along. Today I am merrily entering my purchases into my Ravelry stash and it tells me "You are entering your 78th stashed yarn!" Where did all this yarn come from?

2 comments:

LisaBe said...

agreed on all points. especially the stash: i never used to have a stash. it's insane how much i love to acquire yarn. i fear that, when i finally get that craft room set up and my stash inventoried, i will undergo some kind of meltdown from seeing how much i have. it's not just the sock yarn, of which i have enough to make about 20 pairs of socks, but also the sweater yarn, of which i have enough to make 10 sweaters, i think. and then there are the miscellaneous leftovers, from which i could make a zillion hats or whatever. it's daunting. if only i didn't have anything to do other than knit.

Amy said...

I'm taking my mom to the new store tomorrow - can't wait.

I'm hoping to organize the stash and work on cleaning up my office while my parents are here. I'm sure the stash will scare me, but I also need to choose a yarn for my next sweater!