Footsie

I was putting away clean laundry the other day and realized that my collection of dress socks–which I grant you is not uncommonly extensive–is now about fifty percent hand-knit.

That's a respectable total, I think, especially considering my tendency to over-think knitting projects in general, and socks in particular. After a recent speaking gig somebody asked me, "Do you swatch?" and I replied that it sometimes feels like I never do anything else.

Those Looking Glass Socks I wrote about a few entries back, the ones made from Supreme Possum, are a perfect example. I fussed and fussed and cast on and knit and ripped back and cast on again and ripped back again and broke out the colored pencils and doodled on napkins and Googled "Fibonacci" and created charts in Illustrator and stared at the wall and bent the ears of several persons willing and unwilling. I wound up with this.



I'm happy with it. It's fine. It may even be cute. But after all the exertion I keep thinking of a favorite anecdote from one of my culinary idols, Madeleine Kamman. In When French Women Cook, Madeleine tells of slaving for hours in the kitchen over a new dessert intended to impress the chef to whom she's been apprenticed. The chef looks at the finished dish, tastes a spoonful, and says, "Congratulations, chérie. You have just re-invented Nesselrode Pudding."

After all that effort, it does seem one might have come up with something more revolutionary than 2-4-2 stripes, doesn't it?

On the other hand, just at present I need a bit of plain vanilla. When I have an odd moment to knit, I can pick these up and knit. No charts to consult, no maneuvers that can't be accomplished on a speeding bus, no passages that preclude conversation. There's something to be said for that.

Part of the swatching process involved testing five different solutions for avoiding that ugly color jog that you get when working stripes in the round. The first two solutions were

1. pretending I didn't care about the ugly color jog, and
2. pretending the ugly color jog didn't matter if I kept it at the back of the leg.

The other three were various sly tricks figured out by knitters far smarter than I. I ultimately settled on the jog-less jog Meg Swansen sets forth with characteristic brilliance in Handknitting With Meg Swansen. I'm not going to explain it here, because it's Meg's technique and not mine. And for heaven's sake, the book is cheap, amazing, and readily available. If you don't have a copy, you should get one.

I will show you how well it worked. Here's the foot, with the spots where the color jog would be in plain view.



Here's the path of the jogless jogs.



As you can see, Meg's maneuver (which I can perform, but still not comprehend) causes the first stitch of the round to travel one stitch to the left each time it's performed. Here's how it looks on the inside, with the unused yarn being carried up a short distance between stripes.



Maybe, just maybe, if I keep fiddling and dawdling, I'll eventually come up with such a fabulous contribution to the field.

Or maybe I'll be 96 and still knitting freaking stripes. Time will tell.

A Gold Medal

Ironically, while I've been doing this very unremarkable work I've also been preparing a reward for those who have completed extremely remarkable work.



It's the Gold Medal for Yarn Harlot's 2010 Knitting Olympics. If you like it, you can get one of your own here, or snag sidebar- and Ravelry avatar-sized versions from Stephanie's blog.

A big ol' salute to everybody who took part, including Harry, who finished his animal blanket with time to spare and didn't even care when Dolores told him the cow looked like an elk.

It's a Knitter's Prerogative to Change His Mind

Have you ever started a project that absolutely should have worked, and then didn't? It just happened to me with the lacy Elizabeth Zimmermann baby sweater I'd started for Abigail, from the February chapter of Knitter's Almanac.

It wasn't the fault of the pattern. The pattern is delicious, classic Elizabeth. It starts out odd, turns strange and grows positively bizarre before what's coming off the needles finally reveals itself to be cleverly constructed and beguiling.

Neither was it the fault of the yarn: Jo Sharp DK left over from my Seneca Sweater and left over again from Abigail's Dragonfly Kimono. Susan loved the fabric in the latter, so I felt another little bijou in the same yarn would be a surefire hit. It's soft, lightweight, and firmly spun–it ought to show off simple lace to perfection.

In theory, perfect. In practice, more like a blind date where the two parties seem like a perfect match because they both love opera; but then one of them turns out to be a die-hard Wagnerian and the other one has a thing for Rossini and even before the salads arrive the waitstaff have to wrestle the butter knives away from them.*

So I frogged it just after I finished half an arm, rewound the yarn and let it sit. And then one morning, I woke up with an unaccountable urge to knit a sweater with cut steeks. Aside from a brief lesson on a swatch at Knitting Camp two years ago, I haven't climbed that hill.

By the time I got out of bed I'd decided that if Abigail could talk, she'd ask politely for a traditional Norwegian pullover, and by happy chance traditional Norwegian pullovers have steeked armholes. How could I say no?

So I picked up some coordinating yarn (Berroco Ultra Alpaca Light) at Arcadia Knitting and set off, with Elizabeth and Meg Swansen (via the Knitting Around book and video) as my sherpas.

It was extremely pleasant to zoom around the lower body, using both colors to create the tradition "lus" (lice) dotted pattern,



meanwhile daydreaming about what to put on the chest and shoulders. I've finished it now, and for a first attempt I think it will suit. The fabric is very slightly puckery, but I took care to strand the floats loosely across the back of the work and expect that a good wet blocking will smooth everything out.



Next, the sleeves. And then...the cutting. Yeehaw, baby.

This is why I knit, dudes. Adrenaline. Pure adrenaline.

*Based on a true story.