mustering mojo

I was faced with actual subway riding time over the weekend (how rare!) and was still not feeling the love for the still-yet-unfinished Anastasia socks, but in the mood to try a new pair of socks, to attempt to regain a little bit of sock knitting mojo.

I think the problem with the Anastasia socks...well, there are two problems. One is that I can't seem to concentrate on the pattern and keep making mistakes. It's a very simple yarn-over pattern, and I'm on the second sock already, so the fact that I keep messing up is ego-bruising. And I have one way of dealing with ego bruisings. I run away. The second problem is that, much as I am still in love with the colorway, it strikes me now as too dark and gloomy for the early months of spring. The blues are still blue, in other words, when I'm ready for leafy green and sunshine yellow and lilac and rose.

And I just so happen to have a leafy green/yellow/lilac/rose kind of sock yarn, from the Koigu family. No surprise there. But what kind of pattern?

Once again, I turned to Ravelry and once again, spent the better part of a day searching for possible patterns. My Rav friends may have noticed an uptick in number of sock patterns queued that day, because in a fit of indecisiveness, I simply queued anything that looked like it might work with Koigu.

Like Cookie A's BFF socks, for example. Gorgeous ... but more a wintry sock pattern, I think. For Mojo-Generatin' socks, I wanted something light and breezy, even if the socks themselves would be warm and toasty.

There have been a couple excellent looking slip-stitch patterns that would work well with Koigu, like Anne Campbell's Show-off Stranded Socks (Ravelry link--it's a free download either way) and Knitfreak's Aquaphobia socks (fear of pooling. Clever!). But again, for springtime socks, I felt something frilly and lacy would be in order (despite my ambivalence about lace on my feet). Something to wear with a really cute skirt. (I have some STR that I plan to use for Aquaphobia, later).

What I love most about Ravelry (well, one of the things I love most) is that I can look at all the different incarnations of a particular pattern. What I've noticed about the knitting community is that there are a lot of people out there who have, at some point in time, knit a particular sock pattern originally intended for a solid color yarn in variegated or self-striping yarn, with varying degrees of success (and these degrees are entirely subjective). (The converse is also true, but with slightly more predictable results.) So when I came across the pattern for Flint Knit's Marigold Socks, I knew that by checking on the 67 people who have started and/or finished them, I could see how the pattern works with variegated yarn (completely forgetting that I've already drooled over the modified version Veronique attempted with Vesper yarn).

I was sold. It's a lace pattern that stays relatively closed up, so there's no danger of getting lost in the color changes, and the single purl round lends definition and the appearance of stripes even if the yarn itself isn't striping. But mine seems to be. Imagine that.

I started with a Turkish cast on for the toe, which has become my preference in working toe up socks. It's easy and fast and there's no fiddling about with provisional cast ons or short rows. And I think I've found my magic number for how many wraps to make around the needles (which is the first step in the cast on): 12. And now that's been recorded for posterity, should I forget the number but remember which blog post it's in. (ha.)

I may go in for a picot bind off to boot.

So yeah, sock knitting mojo risin'.

 

Comments

[stephanie]

delurking to say i have the SAME issue with anastasia...i'm making them knee-highs in lovely, lovely yarn, but goddamn if i keep messing up the freaking second sock. ugh, they've been in time out for months now and i can't bring myself to finish them.

[alison]

Nice Belle & Sebastian reference up there. :)

[chris]

I had the same thing going on with Anastasia, too! For some reason I lost the ability to count, maybe, or had a hard time "seeing" where to put those yarnovers in the pattern, or something.

[Veronique]

I think this is a great choice of sock pattern (obviously!). Even if I kept screwing it up... *sigh* I eventually wrote up the chart on a post it and kept it in my sock knitting bag. And checked it compulsively.