Thursday, January 15, 2009

A bit of column A, a bit of column B.

Things that I do not love:
Short row heels on socks. They leave this weird little nubbin of loose fabric at the very bottom of the heel that drives me insane.
Short row toes. I actually like the technique, but I don't like the look or fit.
Socks that call for both a short row heel and short row toe that leave a big weird seam to kitchener on the bottom of the foot of the sock. I don't care how good of a kitchener it is. It feels weird and looks bad to me.
Tearing out a sock after hating it quietly for the better part of a year and refusing to knit its mate out of sheer stubbornness.
The fact that I cannot get 2 matching socks made for Daven out of 100g of yarn. Grr.
Finally getting all of the peices in place to start dyeing like a madwoman, and feeling singularly uninspired. Meh.
When a simple plying project goes well 75% of the way through, then turns into a mess.

Things I do love:
My new toy. Last weekend I picked up a Strauch "Finest" drum carder, and it is oodles of fun. I was cheerfully blending random things from my stash, and I'm loving the batts I'm getting. "Well, there isn't enough of this superwash fluff to do anything with, and it's the same colour family as this crappy roving that I bought off of etsy, but when their powers combine, I get fluffy batt of super improvedness!"
My sister-in-law, who is a fabulous crafter buddy and an all-around awesome person.
My husband, who dragged his laptop up into the fluff room so he could sit with me as I used my drum carder and listened as I squee'd about the results a lot. He also attacked the bathtubs with bleach this morning, so that's good, too. (Mostly. Bleach hurts mah brains.)
Pretty much getting over the fear of altering patterns. If I don't like an aspect of a pattern, and I can adjust it without changing the entire nature of the project, I can bloody well change it so that I actually enjoy working it.
These totally simple, yet intensely satisfying and fun, socks that I'm knitting.
The new 1x1 rib/2 row stripe scarf that I'm making to use up the fiery yarn I bought at MD Sheep and Wool a couple of years back. This will match my floompy brioche beret.
Waterbears. Just 'cuz.

2 comments:

RattleFox said...

I always do short row heels & toes since they don't require a pattern! And if a pattern calls for kitchenering on the bottom I just knit half a row extra so it will end up on top. I also do a lot of toe-up short row sockness. Amazing, we are so alike in craftness, and here is our only MAJOR difference I've found so far.

Scrub Mage said...

I am not the fan of the short row toe. If forced to knit a toe up sock I use a provisional cast on, knit the foot, heel and leg, then unzip the provisional cast on and do the toe I prefer. More trouble than it's worth? Maybe, but I prefer the strong lines of the decreased wedge toe even if I have to kitchener at the end.