I've got several finished projects now that I need to post about, but I thought these were so neat, they needed a post all to themselves
I made these socks for a friend with whom bees figure prominently into our friendship. I got the yarn ages ago, but I hadn't found a pattern that worked well with the yarn. Pooling is the ugly and unwanted phenomenon where big blobs of one color in a variegated yarn plop themselves down in what otherwise is a pleasing random arrangement of the colors. On socks this usually results in a pretty random sock and then one giant zig zag, thin-thick stripe of brown or something. I'm not sure of the scientific support of this theory, but pooling usually happens with the ugliest color in the yarn. Anyway, this yellow and black yarn was pooling badly with every pattern I tried. Then I tried this pattern! I guess the yarn still pools, but it pools evenly, creating the illusion of stripes or just more organic forms.
The socks are worked long ways, from cuff to toe. The pattern is a few years old, and lots of folks on-line have already worked it, but it is new to me, and I'm excited about it. The elegance, the simplicity, I'm going to stop gushing now. I took some photos at different stages of the process and I will leave you with those:
Half a sock. You first work decreases to make the heel shape, and then increases to make the toe shape.
As you increase and decrease on the sides of the toe, the little toe pocket forms by itself.
The whole sock finished. All that's left is to sew up the back with an invisible seam. I'd like to think it looks like a tiny tiger skin at this stage.
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