Monday, March 14, 2011

Some reasons I'm glad I know Helena

Helena gave me what I immediately recognized as good advice last Thursday:

Cast on two toes with some of my remaining Twisted Fiber Art yarn. 

Twisted is wonderful for socks specifically (this is not something I know from experience, but from looking at other people's results, including Helena's stunning ones) and for comfort knitting generally.  Plus, as she quite rightly pointed out, you never know when you might need emergency socks to knit mindlessly, and you can guarantee your other socks will be at some high-maintenance point when disaster strikes.

I had some heavier-weight Duchess already wound into cakes for two socks so on Friday I cast on two toes.

And would you believe, the very next day I had need of mindless emergency knitting!  Bonus: knitting the Duchess was like softly stroking the nose of a horse that doesn't scare the pants off you.  (I have not actually found a horse that does not scare the pants off me in close proximity, but I imagine this dream horse's nose will feel that soft.)


When I got home though, I noticed something.  Are you noticing?  I realize it's hard with no hand or anything to help with scale.

They were about 10 stitches too wide for me (aka Ady's size again.)  I haven't knit socks with yarn this weight before so I didn't know how many I'd need.  GAH.

So I ripped back my toes and set them up again.  And then I went on a bit to be sure they were right this time (they are.)  And then I went on a bit more because it was so exciting to watch the colours unfold.


Knitting them up to the gusset is probably defeating the purpose of having socks not at a critical point should some emergency arise, but I no longer care.  I also am not mad at Helena for starting me down the clearly addictive and all-consuming world of Twisted plus Sock.

And here is mostly why:  do you read Yarn Harlot?  And if so, do the images from the post on mittens knit from unspun silk haunt your every moment?  They do mine, not least because she and I live in the same town and if they're warm enough for her they might be... well, I can't quite believe they'd be warm enough for me because it gets pretty cold here and I've never found a handknit pair that cut it.  Even two pairs of lined gloves inside each other don't cut it.  But I'm open to trying, if I can get my hands on some unpun silk in hankie form.

And Helena is going to custom-dye some in her shop starting today.  I've ordered multicolour, but I'm still not 100% sure I won't chicken out with a nice mindless scarf.

2 comments:

heklica said...

Pity about the wrong size but I'm seriously wondering if maybe your subconscious was at work there? :) I mean, with those colours, I know I'd want to knit and reknit this yarn over and over again :)

Mary Keenan said...

It's so funny you should say that - this last year I've been so free about ripping and reknitting I've been wondering too whether I'm morphing into a process knitter from my old project knitting self!