i won some sock yarn on ebay. it is nylon and acrylic, and i hope it doesn't make my feet sweaty and stinky. i like wool. but i don't like the self-patterning stuff all that much and god, that is almost all that is out there on ebay. where are the solid colors? all i wanted to do was practice the techniques in the queen kahuna book.
i purchased through a secondary market, thereby limiting (in theory) the numbing choices available at many stores. it made me feel more focused. i was asking myself:
did i want socks in self-striping army camo colors BEFORE knowing the yarn existed?
did i want socks in self-striping army camo colors BECAUSE the yarn existed?
did i want socks IN SPITE OF the possibility of making them in self-striping army camo colors?
my feelings came in somewhere between the first two choices, even though i was not pleased with the actual fiber makeup. the auction ended around five pm -- i like to lurk in those auctions that end during nine-to-five "drive time". i figure at least some of my competition is on the roads. i won my sock yarn, for slightly less than it cost to have it shipped priority mail. that was cool.
i really like the queen's book. yes, it has very DIY production values. but it is FULL of information. it's not just that you aren't getting pretty margins -- you aren't getting margins at ALL. the book is wall to wall writing. sometimes it rambles towards the familiar, even the disjointed -- kind of like the mother of michael jackson's accuser. it reminds me, more than anything, this book, of the label on a bottle of dr. bronner's castile soap.
it is, though, full of information. sometimes difficult-to-follow information. it is a good thing to have a mate or two using the book as well, to screech your confusion at. i know that doesn't sound like much of an endorsement for the book, but i do recommend it. it may not look like the still photographers for martha stewart living put it together, nor will it be on the shelves of barnes and noble along with carefree roadtrip girlfriends' hip-to-knit bitchbible or whatever great new knitting book is killing forests this week, and yes, it has a lot of typos and some confounding language. (yes, i AM giving it a thumbs-up. this is what a thumbs-up looks like in this case.)
after quite a few false starts i succeeded with an invisible cast-on for toes that i really, really liked. somewhere in the instructions, though, i had used a formula to get the number of stitches to make for this particular cast-on that was equal to the number of stitches i'd need on the foot, total. so no increases, and a strange, square toe. i realize this is not what queen kahuna was suggesting, but i started to think it'd be okay. i decided i would add in a "peasant" or "replacable" heel, since i was going with a sort of unrounded theme. i am calling these my "army robot socks". the heels are probably going to be a different color -- possibly a yarn with completely different washing needs than the camo yarn -- but since they already have robot toes i'm throwing caution to the wind.
once i got the cast-on -- reading and re-reading and conferring with a buddy -- i had to agree it was the best one ever. better than the anna zilboorg "figure 8" cast-on, even, which i have always liked. there are so MANY cast-ons in this book -- as well as different ways to increase toes, different ways to make heels, up, down, backwards and forwards -- it's engrossing reading.
speaking of reading -- y'all, walden is hard. it's not hot-knife-through-butter reading. i know the guy was trying to simplify his life but it's a kind of rambling, cluttery book. i myself am familiar with feeling resentful towards those who hinder my solitude at times, but thoreau felt that way about yeast. he's a strange read. so is queen kahuna.