19 October 2006

Socktoberfest: Stash Flash Edition

Last week the suggestion was posted to flash your sock yarn stash for Socktoberfest. And I do have a bit of a sock yarn stash. It's to the left:



During the course of the week, though, I started getting all existential about "what is 'sock' stash? Can we truly differentiate? What criteria should we use?" The whole Dulaan-knitting-prompted these thoughts.

You see, I was merrily knitting along on Dulaan socks with that blue yarn in the front left. Cute little socks. Oh yeah. But the thought crossed my mind: "Would my kids go sledding in these socks?" Sledding is cold, but not as cold as Mongolia. And sledding is about 2 blocks away from here, so you can practically run over to The Hill, take a couple of runs down, and run back home without even putting on a hat. And yet, the blue socks were too wimpy to function as sledding socks. What was I thinking, knitting them up for freezing Mongolian children, who don't have a warm home waiting for them 2 blocks away?

So, those socks (and the accompanying pile of sock yarn) have been ditched. I discovered a skein of red heavy worsted Farm Yarn from Little Turtle Knits. This is the sort of stuff that sneers at cold weather, by golly. It's knitting up into some really righteous winter socks.

And I also discovered a pattern for socks out of Lopi Lite, right there on the suggested-patterns-for-Dulaan-list . I had some here to make a felted bag, but really, do I really need yet another felted bag? Heck, no. Throw that Lopi Lite on the new, improved sock yarn pile!

In the middle of the picture is a display of my sock knitting books: Sensational Socks, Twisted Sisters Sock Workbook, and Folk Socks. I also have sock patterns in several other knitting books, and a slew of back issues of Interweave Knits and Vogue Knitting that contain sock patterns. I've never used a single one of them. I always end up pulling a pattern off the internet for free.

Socktoberfest and Dulaan have me rethinking what I want to accomplish regarding sock knitting, and how I want to accomplish it. It's good to step back and look at these piles, and think "why?"

2 comments:

chipper said...

the socks sound great!!!

If we can (finally) get the living room clean tomorrow, the afternoon will be spent making polar fleece blankets for Dulaan. The kids are so excited about doing it that they even voluteered the use of the scobby doo, strawberry shortcake and sesame street fleece we bought last year and never made into robes (the thought of all that static made me ditch the idea right after Brewer went out and bought the fleece)

chipper said...

I'd be happy to help you get buttons on your blog! but beware. I'm not terribly computer literate ;)

1. find the button you want. Most need you to download it to your computer (I just clicked and dragged it to the desktop) and host it someplace (I got a free photobucket account. uploaded the button to it. then cut and pasted the "tag" info)

2. click on customize on your blog. You should see the "add and arrange page elements" page

3. click on add "a page element" which is on the right hand side for my template but will be on the left for yours.

4. this opens another window ("choose a new page element") click on HTML/JavaScript "add to blog"

5. Paste the "tag" in the big box (I left the title box blank)

6. click "save changes" (I found that it would say saving and never really change after that. I just closed that window and looked back at the "add and arrange page elements" window and clicked "Preview" a new window will open up with your blog. check to see if the button is right and/or is where you want it. go back to "add and arrange page elements" window and you can move (drag) this new button or leave it where it is)

7. just click save when all done (or clear edits if not sure)

gotta run right now, but if this doesn't make sense feel free to ask me any questions :) clh2873yadagmailyada.yada :)