Wednesday, April 02, 2008

On The Sunny Side Of My Feet

You know those projects that are completely annoying to knit, but you still love how they turn out? Well, this is a story about one of them.

My Snicket Socks started their life well over a year ago as a toe-up version, done is some handspun Merino yarn. While it sounds great in principle, I was—and still am—only a novice spinner. About halfway through the foot I realized that my spinning was too inconsistent and the yarn too soft to stand up to the abuse my socks usually take. While the yarn and the design at first appeared quite compatible, I knew that this relationship was never meant to be.


So the months passed and I let new projects into my life and even got married (to a man, not a sweater… well, that’s another story actually). But the Snicket pattern never left the back of my mind. So when my adviser’s wife (also a knitter) gave us a gift certificate to a LYS as a wedding gift, I knew right away that I wanted to make the Snickets. And I knew that they needed to be a happy, sunshine yellow. Luckily my LYS stocks Koigu.


The Koigu worked up much better than my handspun ever could, though I quickly realized that the pattern would be the most trying part of this project. The cables demanded a bit more attention than a normal sock design, so movies and card games no longer provided the opportunity for me to work on a pair of socks. And the cable needle kept sparing with the dpns when I did work on them. But like my mother always promised, the hard work would be worth it in the end. And it was.


I will never knit this pattern again, but I still love these socks. They are like sunny little honeycombs for my feet. So sweet!