Socky goodness
I decided to go ahead and go with socks. I’m doing the ribbing pattern from Knitty’s Thuja, but on fewer stitches since this is sized for a woman’s foot instead of a man’s. Also, instead of that heel I’m doing an afterthought heel. This is also sometimes called a grandmother’s heel or peasant heel. The idea is that you knit some, then you put in a row of waste yarn (that’s the red row on my wrist), then you knit all the way down to the toe. Later, you come back and unravel the waste yarn and put in your heel. Supposedly it makes it very easy to replace just the heel when it gets worn out. I haven’t done one before, so I wouldn’t know.
This particular heel appealed to me for this yarn since it means I wouldn’t have to interrupt the striping along the top of the sock, and because it should create a nice pattern of its own. There’s a pair of striped socks with an afterthought heel in Weekend Knitting and it looks really nice.
I think I’m going to rip back to the heel, though. Now that I’ve had a chance to look at it, I think the heel will work better if it’s in the middle of a color change rather than up on one end. More symmetrical. I said it before, but if the vendor has more of this at the alpaca festival, I’ll get a skein (thanks for the birthday money, Dad!). I might write and ask her to bring one if she’s got it.
These are going to be very thick and warm. I can already see that they’re not pilling like the Koigu, which makes me feel better that it was the yarn at fault and not so much me. If I knew then what I know now, I’d have made my mom’s out of something sturdier.
Didn’t get enough sleep last night, but I’m about to make myself some buckwheat pancakes and plop down in front of the TV to do a little Jayne knitting, so that’ll be cozy and nice.