The Great Sock Massacre
(with apologies to Robert Darnton!)
This is not a good time for knitting here chez Desiknitter. Sweaters are on life support, with no prospects of immediate recovery. In addition, here’s what I have to show for hours of sock knitting in the last week:
The Jaywalker sock, above, coughed and spluttered its way past the heel, but the prognosis, after several early froggings and expensive treatments, aka efforts to learn a new heel flap method, was never good. Somewhere up the cuff I realised that I couldn’t stand the pattern. Actually it was when I knit my Chevron eyeshade that the boredom of the zig zag pattern hit me. Yes I know, it’s supposed to enliven the yarn and do wonders for stripes, but whatever. I frogged it down to the toe. The blue one next to it is Claudia, leftover from my Spiral scarf which I tried to start into a striped sock after Eunny’s but everything I striped it with was either thicker or thinner, resulting in an unhealthy, mottled look. That is now languishing at the toe as well. The other maroon Claudia looks like it might survive, although this was after several attempts to start these which went nowhere. So now all I have is a bunch of sock heads that look like they got decapitated rather messily.
I think the magic medicine is simple: stockinette. With this simple diet, my socks might yet survive the summer. But when I am ready to tackle a pattern again, it’s going to be Pamela’s Marigold Socks. I missed seeing her today as she’s on a busy tour of the Bay area, but will hopefully see her sometime soon.
A second opinion, however, suggests alternative treatment: lace. And seeing no harm in combining these, one of the two is currently under consideration from the book I recently bought: Stahman’s Shawls and Scarves.
This book has some fairly straightforward patterns in the Faroese construction, and each motif is also adapted to a rectangular scarf, which I really like. I will likely use the book quite a lot, even though some bits are odd: no yarn estimates or finished dimensions are given. You are in a Zimmermanesque universe, figuring it all out yourself! Aside: do buy this book from Schoolhouse Press if you want to; there are some absurdly high prices on Amazon for used copies, but I got it for a standard price new within a week from them. I was afraid it was dreadfully back-ordered because I saw the Amazon prices after ordering it, but seeing it in my mail was a pleasant surprise yesterday.
