Sticking with Colour

Thank you, thank you for the comments and congratulations on ten years of blogging.  Thanks especially for being patient while the blog crashed and burned over and over again.  The minute that comments opened the blog failed rapidly, set upon by the foul robot spammers like some berserk scene out of The Birds, if the spammers were birds, and if my database was Tippi Hedren, but you see where I’m going with it.  The attack on the comments actually corrupted the database and well…we won’t be opening that up again.  I’m planning a move to a new platform this week, one a little more modern, and one where I can have tools to fight back with, and comments will be reborn then.   I was going to write a big post about how this means that some things are going to change.  Some things won’t look the same, or work the same way, and I felt like I should break this to you very gently, because change is really hard, and then I remembered that it’s probably mostly me who’s going to be bothered by it.  I get super-attached to things looking the way that they do, and I’m forever planning these big changes I’m going to make to my house – crazy, wild changes, like moving a chair or getting a new set of curtains, and I’ll be almost ready to do that, and then something happens.   I’ll remember some bizarre emotional attachment I have to the chair, or I’ll see the light come in and spill through the curtain the way it always does, and I snap.  All of a sudden I realize that too many things have happened with things this way for me to have them any other way, and then I can’t change any of them, and suddenly I’m that crazy lady who paints her bathroom the same colour every two years and calls it “renovating”.

I’m going to breathe through it. You should too, if you’re like me.  I’ll give you lots of warning when it’s going to happen. Meanwhile, socks?

I pounded out a pair of socks this last weekend, on a quick turnaround to Seattle and back.  The yarn’s a favourite, Lang Jawool Aktion, and its one of those great workhorses of a yarn, 75% wool, 25% merino, lasts forever.  In my head, this yarn is filed with all those other sturdy ones, like Opal, Trekking, Regia, Kroy. I love them.)

(The pattern is my usual top-down sock with my not-so-usual short row heel, and a nice turned hem at the top, and the colour number is 132.0355)

You knowing me the way you do, you must be thrilled for me that these match perfectly.  I love it when that’s possible, and it almost wasn’t with these.  When I was done the first sock, I realized that I had a big problem.  The sock had ended with the sequence it had started with – and that meant that I didn’t have a full sequence to start with.  I rewound the yarn, watching the colours change as I counted stripes to see if there was enough to skip a whole sequence and start there, but there wasn’t.  I was short about five rounds worth at the beginning, and I was stumped (and a little crushed) until I remembered I’d started with a hem.  The first five rounds weren’t going to show!  I began with the end of the ball, knit the five rounds, started the sequence there, and whammo.  Perfectly matching socks on the outside…

but not on the inside.  It’s like a secret.

8 thoughts on “Sticking with Colour

  1. I’m ridiculously excited that I THINK I have that colorway of Lang Jawool Aktion! It was going to be for Christmas gifts but now that I’ve seen it knitted up, I’m keeping them for ME!

  2. I am almost done a pair of socks in that exact colourway! All the knitting is done; just duplicate-stitching the reinforcing thread into the heels and balls of the feet, to stave off holes. 🙂 And now that the Alberta winter has made me knit holes into my finger, it’s a good time to get back to that while I heal.

  3. Wishing you all the best for the next ten years! I hope there was beer and cake; most blogs don’t make a year so celebrate! The new format is easier for me to use but still looks beautifully similar. Gorgeous sock yarn. 🙂

  4. We wish you all the best in the coming 10 years! I’m hoping there was a cake and beer; the majority of blogs don’t last a whole year. So, let’s it’s time to celebrate! The new layout is much easier for me to use , but is still gorgeously similar. Gorgeous sock yarn

  5. I’m incredibly excited to think I’ve got that particular colourway of Lang Jawool! It was supposed to be a Christmas gift but after seeing the yarn being knitted I’m keeping them just for me!

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