Day Two

Camera still busted so I can't show off what I've done today on the sock. Nor can I show off some of my finished stuff before it gets mailed off. Truly upset. May try rigging something with a webcam later but I'm very put out.

Good to have a job where I can knit during the day though. Put a good inch of stockinette onto this sock. The colours.... if black, white, and grey can be called colours, are doing weird things now. Not as randomly spaced as I'd hoped, but now spiralling interestingly. Should be fun to see if it continues on, or if my ever-changing relationship with gauge mushes them all around into weirdness again. The pattern, by the by, is the ever-so-customizable Universal Toe-Up Sock Pattern from those wonderfully creative folks at Knitty. I hope everyone goes there and marvels at the genius that is present on their pages. I do all the time. Have quite the list built up, believe you me.

The most wonderful thing I learned from Knitty, I think, is that pattern difficulties are suggestions. Really. There was an article on there, and I can't remember it for the life of me, may I be flogged with my own yarn for not remembering, but there was an article on there that mentioned that if you only judge what you can do by what the pattern says you should be able to do, then how can you expect to learn? Chances are someone's going to take a look at that universal pattern and freak out at all the math and look at the difficulty level and decide it's not worth it.

That's cool.
I almost did the same thing.

But then I looked at what I was getting from Nerd Girl Yarns (Bounce and Stomp sock in "This is Hallowe'en" colourway, a limited time offer thing) and I looked at the pattern again and said a solid "Sod You" to the difficulty level, got some practice yarn (the Patons I mentioned last time) and cast on my gauge swatch.

I now have the pattern pretty much memorized, because the short-row toe is used as the heel as well and the rest is a blank canvas. Stockinette for me for now, but that's because I have yet to read up on all the ways to cable without cabling needles and all the other fun stuff I can do on a blank canvas of foot and leg (I know there are other technical terms, I had a long day at work and I thought I called in and ordered some Slack before hand, cut to order even. Don't tell me we're out of stock, either I checked before I got home).

At any rate, because I should probably pretend like I have a point here, this is really going out to my fellow Broads at work, and anyone else who might stop by to say 'Hi' and have a gander at the fibrous part of my mind: don't look at the difficulty and give up because you don't see yourself as an "Intermediate" or an "Expert" (or "Extra-spicy" for that matter, <3 Knitty). Try. If you try and it doesn't work, take a wander down to the pond, and try something else.

The words of my first-year university business prof come back to haunt me: "It's not a problem. There's never a problem. There's no such thing as a problem.... It's an opportunity for a solution."

Try finding yours.

(and to think... I meant this to be a short, light-hearted post... order shipped today.... new yarn soon... needles on backorder... must not bite nails... I think I'll knit)