You'd think I'd feel worse about this.

Which I have now walked through. The dark purple ones are completely worn through at the heels and unravelling, and the light purple ones are hanging on by a ply. The whiny little voice that lives at the back of my brain piped up: “the rest of the wool is still good: just patch the heels!” Because, while she pretends to be on the side of frugality and careful planning, she’s actually all about just guilting me into having a really sucky time. These socks were wonderful, lush and warm and comfortable, and totally the right things for chilly feets for two winters. I wore them solidly and wore them to death, and yarn cannot hope for a nobler end.

Or can it? After all, wool is an organic substance, and although these kinds of proteins take a while to break down, break down they do! So these socks are going to a better place: the compost bin. Take that Merino Supreme. I win.

Disproportionately excited.

The best part about this — and let’s face it, when we’re talking about the personal satisfaction I feel in conquering a mythical battle by composting well-worn handknit socks at the end of their natural life, “the best part” is a bit of a technicality — is that it creates a vacancy in the sock drawer. Given the number of sock yarns competitively shoving each other in the yarn cupboard, this is a very awesome development.

Stats first:
Yarn: Araucania Ranco Solid, in a dark teal colour whose particular colourway title eludes me but doesn’t really matter anyway, because ‘dark teal’ more or less covers it.
Pattern: None, made it up as I went along. I wrote it down on some paper but I think it got used as a shopping list and now I’ve lost it. But it’s socks! You can figure socks out.

Maybe FO “report” is a little grandiose.

a fleeting glimpse of flouncy footwear

The thing about photographing socks is that you really need a model who isn’t you.

I had one fat, lush skein of Arucania Ranco in dark teal. It’s good stuff: sturdy and soft. Most of it went into a slouchy baggy hat; and there was enough left over for socklets. I had to be a bit clever here, which puts me way out of my usual derrrp zone. I don’t like rogue bits of yarn kicking about, no good for any project and clogging up the Roomba, so I wanted to use up every last skerrick of the ball. Ahh, toe-up socks, how I love thee. These were a blast to make. Quick, small (read: portable) and slightly challenging.

Toe-up socks: fit them as you go, make them as long as your yarn allows, win all the way to the museum. The only drama, my little llama farmers, is making sure you have the same amount for both socks. You can do this by weighing the ball, calculating half and then winding it into two balls of equal weight; or you can (if, say, you’re heading away with friends for a week in the Victorian alps and don’t want to lug a set of scales around, having already comprehensively overpacked with regard to dried fruit and novels) knit the first sock past the heel, put it on some scrap yarn/spare needles/stitch holders and cast on the mate with the other end of the ball. I love doing this: there’s something funny about carting about the first sock still plugged in to the working yarn, like some sort of patient twin waiting for its clone to show up to play.

Once the mate sock has reached the same level of progress as the first, you start working both of them, alternating one round of each, until eat up all the remaining yarn. The biggest challenge for me was only having one set of needles to do this with: each sock sat on two needles, and then a fifth needle for working the stitches. A bit awkward, but not impossible.

The legs (i.e. everything above the heel) and the top half of the feet is worked in mistake rib. It looks fantastic, is light and springy, and, well, that about covers it. What more do you want? Rubber biscuit?

Efforts to persuade others to model have been unsuccessful, because I refuse to give them the socks.

Love love love mistake rib. Basically it’s 2×2 rib worked over an uneven multiple of stitches (multiple of 2, + 1 extra). Tons has already been said about making beauty out of a mistake, deliberate mistakes leading to a complex and pretty pattern, etc. etc. I’m not going to bother: get zen on your own time, Im busy. Got bread to make, emmereffers!

I suspect for some time I must had some sort of psychological howl that could only be silenced by the soft, udon-noodle-like, springy loveliness that is Merino Supreme. When that howl was corrected — was it the massive amounts of compost I inhaled while trying to fix the bin? was it the moderate electric shock I received trying to lick the food processor beaters post-pesto-producing (I wasn’t zapped by the beaters: M tasered me for being so dumb)? could it have been that tango with salmonella I enjoyed in late 2008? who can say? — I came to my senses and realised I had let my Merino-Supreme-lust overwhelm the stash. I’ve been working my way through it, mostly through socks and thick woolly hats, scarves, etc., and I’m down to one manageable bag:

SWARM

You’d think this would be the final sprint. But I think the delay is that they’re just so damn pretty together. Something about this particular bundle of olive, purples, navy and black: they’re just beautifully matched. So I have to use them all together. I thought — oh, how I thought — about a blanket of bias-knit garter squares. I imagined it so simple, springy, soft and light, and so, so warm. Oh. Beautiful. But then I got thinking about how Merino Supreme has hurt me in the past: the cruellest thorn is the tiny yardage. Seriously tiny: like 60 metres per ball. I know you need less yarn when it’s thick and springy, compared to, say, laceweight, but 60 metres? Cleckheaton, please. So I regretfully pushed the blanket idea to one side (well, I tried: I am still finding scraps of it in my head, all the bits that say “well, yeah, but if we did it on huge needles, it’d work…” and “it doesn’t need to be a huge blanket…” and writing the above brought me dangerously close to reconsidering my position) and thought about stripes. I love Merino Supreme for socks; it makes thick, cushy boot-socks that I live in all winter. I have several pairs already, but none with stripes…and now, I think, is the time. Thick, toe-up, knee-high socks, with stripes and solid heels/toes. Yes. I can feel it in my bones. And then, finally, the ghost of Merino Supreme will be laid to rest. I grow weary of its taunting; its smug “hah, you’ll never find a project worthy of me” airs — hey, it’s a gorgeous yarn, but I don’t need ‘tood from the stash.

My bag of Merino Supreme is coming on holiday with me, as part of the Finish-the-WIPs campaign I’m on, and when we come back, it will be on the needles.

Woolly superfluity!

Of course, it all depends how you slice the pie: the white bag on the far left is full of yarns that are promised to specific projects, but I haven’t got around to starting. The mitten at the top right? A finished project that just needs a thumb mended. The long green tube, top-left? That’s my sockhead hat, but I had an idea to give it more tendrilly tails, so it’s kinda in finished-but-still-being-worked-on-limbo-land.

But even if I take those babies out of the equation, there’s…three projects in this picture that are actively on the needles. (And Green Sprite. Hi Green Sprite! Hope you’re reading this! Love you!) So let’s put on our big-girl pants and look this WIPs in the face. (You ever been WIPped in the face? It’s kinda hot.)

These mermaid gloves have easily got the sternest claim on me:

Accusing gloves!

Cast on in 2009, I finished the first and loitered on the second. I’ve been hawing and humming and generally making annoying throaty sounds about these babies ever since. I can’t think why. I did a fantastic job on the first one, and they look great.  Wait — wait, it’s coming — I remember! (I think.) I put them aside because I wasn’t completely sure about the fit! The first one looks awesome, but it’s pretty snug and I was a little worried I needed to go back and restart them with an extra pattern repeat for comfort. But whether I’ve beefed up, lengthened out, shortened up or tapered down, I tried them on this afternoon and they feel pretty good, sir. Feel pretty damn good.

The next project making a “What Have You Got To Say For Yourself, Missy?” face at me: Wintergrey Socks Round 2.

Accusing socks!

I usually get two pairs of socks from one ball of Opal self-patterning; this is the first of the second pair. Its heel is turned and I’m on the home stretch: just up the leg to the cuff, cast off, start the next one. BAM. Socks. So, why has it been wallowing in the knit bag, alone and palely loitering?  Well, there is a reason, but it’s kind of a poxy one…I want to make the next one the same length, and I want them to use up the yarn completely — so how do I know when to finish the first one? With maths! Maths that I haven’t gotten around to doing. If I was totally committed, I’d weigh the lot, weigh a spare set of needles, subtract the weight of the needles from the total, divide that figure by two and work out how much yarn, in grams, I could give to each sock. Then I’d weigh the sock in progress, subtract the weight of the needles, and work out how much I had left to finish with. Then I could work to the finish and cast off, secure in the maths-based certainty that I had enough yarn remaining to complete its partner. As it is, I think I’ll work this one until it’s about the length I want, then put it on a holder and pick up the other end of this ball and cast on its partner. When they’re about the same, I’ll put them on a pair of circs and work them side-by-side until they’re ready to cast off. I think that will work, although I’m not totally sure it’s actually a less involved challenge than the maths-based one. Still, let’s see how we go: now I’ve got a plan in place, I feel like I’ve already faced the biggest challenge.

That top picture also reveals a second sock on the go: on the far right, you will see some lush green wool on light grey needles. These socks are rocking my world. Simple and beautiful: there will be no problem finishing them. In fact, they’re coming on the trip as reward socks when I’ve worked my way through the Wintergrey socks and the Mermaid gloves.

Ooohhhhh, the potential...

This sack is exciting me. (Oh come on, sacks are exciting…Hi Google!) It’s full of various balls of Merino Supreme, my knitterly weakness. It’s so soft, so springy…so machine washable…but you need a bazillion balls to do anything with it, because you only get about four metres of yarn in a ball (this is an exaggeration). But there’s a little knitter in the back of my brain whispering “striped socks…Grumperina’s jogless stripes…striped socks ARE YOU PAYING ATTENTION TO ME?…stripes…” and that little voice is getting more insistent. Every day my cold legs remind me that my thick, aran-weight boot socks only go boot-high; the vision of lush, knee-high stripey socks gets a little brighter. There’s also several balls of plain black Merino Supreme, which I am hoping to turn into sturdy fingerless mitts for a certain paternal figure in my life. (Dude’s been waiting a while.)

While rummaging in the knitting waiting room I came across some other paraphernalia.  First, a long-lost friend:

Aha!

This, dearly beloved, is my “better” tape measure. Since I’m working Green Sprite from scratch, I have been in need of a friend like this: one that actually goes all the way around me. My other tape measure, from my “First Sewing Kit”, given by a kindly grandmother, is both ambiguous in its measurements and very very short. Having said that, I’ve come this far with it…maybe I’m not giving it all the credit it deserves…

…I think I’ll stop that train of thought. I’m contemplating the competing merits of my tape measures, and frankly that doesn’t really gel with the kind of person I want to think of myself as.

Secondly, I found the origins of Green Sprite!



Archaeologists can only speculate...

This is the scribbly note page that led me to start writing up the pattern. Also, there’s a cryptic recipe for jam drops, noted so I didn’t have to take my laptop into the kitchen to read it.

So now I’m totally stocked with a load of to-be-completed projects. I’m trying not to murmur things like “the time has come!” and “this ends here!” as I march around the house, trying to figure out how to get all my knitting, novels and notebooks into my wee backpack without taking out my toothpaste or thermals.  I feel productive, progressive, forward-moving; rounding up all these lingering jobs and Taking Care of Business (Is it stuck in your head now? Mine too. Didn’t want to be alone.). I suspect the sincerity of this sentiment is somewhat compromised by an unconscious knowledge that, armed with all these good intentions, I will work only on Green Sprite for the whole week.

Since I knit, I’ve got a lot of things I made and working out what’s worth keeping from that group has a whole extra set of questions. I have a sweater that I made well and that I quite like, but it’s not perfect and the arms are too tight — am I just wearing it out of obligation? I have another with drapey bell sleeves that get in my lunch. It’s perfect if I’m just reading or typing or walking through a cold field of flowers (provided said flowers don’t have any kind of burr, seed, dandelion puff or grabby branches), but sometimes I have to do the washing up. I like it but I don’t love it: I suspect I only keep it because I made it and I can’t imagine anybody else loving it the way I think it should be loved. Should I unravel and rework them? Is it worth it? Oy.

First-world problems, yo. When you’re daily pissed off by all the rummaging it takes to find something for work, it’s time for a cull. Starting with socks: lots of handknit socks, retained out of sentimental attachment. Knitter’s landmarks. Then I realised I was moping about socks and had to pull my head out of my arse. Firstly, they’re great, but they’re hardly sex-and-candy awesome. Secondly, all that sock yarn in the stash? Getting antsy in there. Thirdly, these socks? They actually sucked.

The fallen: watermelon socks

Background: bought the hand-dyed yarn on eBay, complete bargain. These socks were awesome: watermelon stripes with little black pips! Loved it. Totally made up for the way they sagged, stretched, and generally lacked all the properties of wool that socks need. And then, hoo boy! They faded, and how.

For the purposes of comparison:

Pale and wan

Yep. That yarn is the same ball from which these pale babies sprang. Not cool.

And then there’s these:

The first fallen

Aw, cute little beaded hearts! I was experimenting with making socks flat. God knows why: knitting on DPNs is as easy as complaining about taxes. You might have thought I’d catch on to the fact that people have been making socks that way for a bajillion years: that maybe, just maybe, other options have actually been explored and rejected for some reason — like, oh, I don’t know, that having a whacking great seam on the middle of your sole is totally uncomfortable and stupid. Plus, 100% cotton is not a good sock yarn. Double plus: they wore through at the heel damn quick.

Finally: oooh, this one hurt. Stung, even. Alert readers may recognise my Skew socks. Then again, maybe you won’t, because THEY FELTED. ARGH.

Serious heartbreak here

Oh, Araucania Ranco Multi, why did you say “gentle machine wash” if you didn’t mean it? Didn’t you know I would take you at your word? There is no saving these babies. At least, being 100% wool, I can theoretically compost them. No nobler burial. RIP.

The sock drawer — and its compatriots — open and close easily now, and despite my misgivings, a swag of clothes will be making their way to the second-hand store. Feels good to have less.

I liked this Opal colourway because it reminded me of a winter landscape, all shades of grey and white, with flecks of black here and there. I finished this sucker in about a week, which astonished everyone (FAST SOCK STUNS CRITICS), including me. It is everything a plain and simple sock should be.



Single, self-contained, content

But there’s a catch with self-striping sock yarn: the business of matching. I spent most of an evening casting on the toe of the second sock, working a few rounds, then ripping back — over and over, trying to get it started on just the same spot in the colourway, trying to get matching socks. When I was sure I had finally struck the bullseye, I charged ahead, knitting gaily up the foot. I may have even given a trilling little laugh and reflected on how clever I was, although I don’t think I went so far as to say “caloo callay” or break into a bit of the old “hey nonny nonny”. That’d just be asking for trouble. Then I got out the first sock to see how they compared:

Sibling rivalry

Bugger.

Serious mismatch there.  Huge. Did I mention I’d tried to be especially clever and ended the first sock at a point in the colourway that I thought would minimise how much yarn was wasted between ending the first sock and starting the second? That’s how anal forward-thinking I was. Serves me right for trying to be clever. So, big decision: do I rip back and restart, aiming to get the second sock matching the first one? Or not?

And frankly, how important is it that socks match? I’m not a matchy-match person: I don’t coordinate or accessorise, I just wear stuff. I love my knitted socks because they’re funky and comfy, not because they’re precision productions. (See if you can guess which option I’m leaning towards before the next blog post.)

sexy legs, right there.

It is wintertime and my chronically cold feet were protesting.  I love how warm my Doc Marten boots are, especially when coupled with handknit socks, but this winter the handknits didn’t seem to quite cut the mustard.  Enter the thick, chewy bootsock.

Mmmm, chewy.

I love them. They’re the footwear equivalent of udon noodle soup. Thick and soft and warm and chewy. Aran weight yarn makes super fast bootsocks, too: my record is currently a pair in two days. I’m up to my fourth pair, and these ones I’m thinking of doing something a bit fancier up the leg, like a wee cable or fisherman’s rib or something.

Our table gets chilly ankles.

I can’t believe how warm these babies are.  They’re soft, snug, fit perfectly into my boots, and did I mention fast to knit? The yarn is thick and comfy to handle; the pattern straightforward (it’s from ma haid!); and they’re scratching some probably-stress-related psychological itch, so they’re arguably medicinal. I’m totally hot for bootsocks right now. You should be, too.

Enigmatic, shy: the elusive bootsock.

So innocent; it doesn't know the ball winder awaits.

I think it’s important to learn how to tell when your gifts are less awesome than you think they are: the amount of work you put into a knitted something for someone can distort your perception of how good a gift it is. Pragmatist that some part of my brain is, I’m deeply grateful that I’ve got the kind of relationship with Mumini that I can say “yo, that sweater: fly or die?” and she can be like “lol, no. Try again.” We tight.  For me, one of the big warning signs is (or should be, if I wasn’t too dumb to shut my ears to it) when I’m working backwards: I see a pattern and think “daayyyum, that would be a sweet knit! I wouldn’t wear it, though…who can I knit that for?” and the next thing I know, I’m watching eagerly as a nervous family member unwraps a bobbled monstrosity with cat-toys dangling from the sleeves.  ”You see? You just dance around and the cats can play with them! Isn’t it awesome? Check out the detail on the ferret!”  Suddenly, your family has a behind-the-back nickname for you, and nobody wants that. Self-criticism sounds bad, but when done properly, it is a treasured skill.

Anyway, I’ve begun the process of unravelling and restarting this sweater. But you remember how I said I made it well? One of the things I did really, really well was weave in the ends.  I’m having a bit of trouble finding the end of the yarn I used to seam the second sleeve. I’ll be an aardvark’s butthole if I’m about to cut anything, since one of the points of this whole exercise is to harvest and reuse yarn that is otherwise wasted and I’m going to squeeze every noodly inch out of this thing.  After an hour or two of finangling and cursing, I decided to take a break and have begun unwinding another sweater, one I started after this blogsite was born: Purple Olive. Time to kick myself in the pants and say “You haven’t got enough purple Merino Supreme for a top, ya dizzy broad!” I bought a ten-ball bag of Merino Supreme in eggplant some eight years ago and have tried to turn it into a sweater/top/cardigan on four separate projects. It. Is Not. Enough. Yarn. And I am sick of trying.  I started unravelling it, with a perhaps disproportionate sense of glee.

I think there must be some sort of psychological attachment to that quantity of yarn; I feel like I have an obligation to turn it into a sweater, or a vest, anything as long as it’s a unified garment. Sheesh, obligation to yarn? No sir. It is with surprisingly deep pleasure I announce the thick woolly sock project:



Aran weight socks. Yes please. I’m still unravelling the olive sweater, with the intention of making it into a vest, possibly something scoop-necked, possibly something shawl-collared.  Unsure at present time.



Photographing-feet-asana

…which is pleasantly relaxing to boot.  This one below gives a better indication of colours, but not of fit — makes ‘em look all baggy.  These babies actually fit like a dream.

Skewed skews

At first, I thought they were going to be too long and bunch around the toes, but the pattern produces quite a narrow-fitting sock, so once I was up and walking around in them and not just laying around with my knees bent at weird angles trying to photograph them, they stretched in the right places and became perfectly-fitted socks.

Under Mozart's watchful gaze

Details:

Pattern: Skew by Lana Holden, who may, from the evidence I’ve gathered, be a complete genius.
Yarn: Araucania Ranco Multi, 1 skein; colourway: not sure, but if it makes you think of autumn leaves after rain, you’re probably close.
Opinion on them: Absolutely wonderful. Really loved these: can’t wait to dig my self-patterning yarns out of storage and see what the pattern makes of them. Meanwhile, I’ve got a few other projects on the Big Pre-Move Challenge (knitting) list to get through.

On the other hand, maybe it’s not just me. This pattern does something to you…I took this photo shortly after completely the insanely clever and zesty origami movement that you use to make the heel (there’s mid-row grafting). I thought I could show you what had happened and be all encouraging and stuff. Role model that shit all over this here blog. Nup. No clue. (I kinda like the picture, though.)

I’m still not entirely sure how I did it, but it works beautifully. I just followed the pattern really carefully, didn’t ask questions, didn’t try to understand what was going on — just followed ‘structions.  Here’s the heel, while I’m wearing the sock, and I still haven’t completely figured out what happened.

One minute I was working a kind of bias tube…

…then something happened and I had a heel…

…then a few more somethings happened and I had a sock.

That is some zesty knitting right there: I’m charging on with the second one, and I have to admit I love them to bits.  The fit is great, they’re really comfy — and I feel a bit like a genius for having finished one successfully. I imagine that when I finish the second, a deep and abiding sense of self-assurance and calm will settle over me. This will make me intolerably smug and nobody will want to be around me, but at least I’ll have awesome, awesome socks to keep me happy.