Swirling and Twirling and Fading Out

Allow me to talk about my Agate Socks before they are finished, paraded, and then dismissed from this blog forever. Last time I mentioned them, it was to say that I had to completely rip them back. I did so with much bravery and forbearance. And we are both much better for having done so.

I changed the way I do my short row toes, and I get a much rounder toe, which I like a lot:

The pointier toes fit well enough because knitting is stretchy and forgiving for the most part. But off the foot, they look rather anti-anatomical.

The other thing to note on the picture above is the delightful swirly pattern I was getting on the sock. The first version just had random thin stripes and was rather boring. When I started over, I increased the number of stitches and apparently hit just the right number for a candy cane effect. Until it wasn't:

This is the next section of the sock, right above the swirls, with the same number of stitches. Boring thin stripes again. This confused me for a while because if a certain number of stitches produces a pattern with a set dye pattern, then it should continue. Until it struck me that the dye pattern was changing.

You may recall that this yarn came wrapped on a spool, two strands together, and it was dyed that way so the two strands would be identical. Well wrapping out from a central core makes each pass around longer. And if you dyed a quarter of the circle red and a quarter orange, etc, each part of the "quarter" was shorter in the center and longer on the outside. And this all meant that even if you found a perfect pattern for some part of the skein, it wouldn't work later in the skein. And then I stopped worrying about it. (But it was nice to know why.)

Continuing up the sock, when I started to do the gusset increases, the pattern changed again:

and this is where it most resembles the agate pattern promised by the picture on the label.

Through the heel it was all stripey again, and above the heel, I got some aggressive flashing:

From there the sock went into some stripes again, and then a little more flashing before muddying up in the ribbing:

At the top layer of flashing and into the ribbing, you can really see that the dye had exhausted itself before getting into that part of the skein. The rest of the colours are so great, it really is a shame that they fade into this drabbiness. ... I just spent some time looking for the previous post where I talked about this so I could link to it, and it looks like I haven't talked about this yet. Well, let me get started! ...

My original plan--a set up to knit directly from the spool,
knitting the socks two at time. I could use both strands
at once and not have to re-skein the yarn.

When I frogged these socks because they didn't fit, I had to give up on my plan to knit from the spool, knitting up both strands at the same time. I had way too much raveled yarn to be able to deal with that.

So I wound them into two balls, like you were supposed to do. This meant I got to the inside of the spool for the first time, and I discovered that the dye did not get that far--the center of the ball was barely dyed at all. It's a yucky grey non-colour. Very disappointing.

You can see here the different between the "outside" and the "inside" of the ball:

 I know it looks like there's a big bright light on the right, but that's just the yarn fading out.

Here's a shot of the two skeins, wrapped in opposite directions so that one has the dye on the outside, and one on the inside:

What a difference, eh?

Although I made a point to comment about the yarn on its Ravelry page (I've heard nothing back from its makers), I've put on my perspectacles and am aware of and content with the fact that this is not really a big deal. With the colour fading out as it makes it way to the cuff, there's a really, really small chance that anyone will ever notice.

Of course, if I only did things so that people would notice, I wouldn't be making socks, now would I?

You can tell from the last sock picture, that I am very close to being done. When I got my Mock Monkey socks done, these ones graduated to the car and became my main "travel knitting." They've had a lot of attention on the way to church, at small group, etc, and are just about finished. They fit perfectly now, by the way, so I am really looking forward to wearing them.

And then Troy's Anniversary socks can move into their place. I feel bad that I haven't worked on them since our trip. (!!) Part of the problem was that he had to try them on, and to do that I had to take the stitches off the needles and put them onto a piece of yarn. But we've taken care of that, they fit great and now I am set to continue knitting them (once I get this pair done).

Clickety-clack!

Obsessed Much?

Oh yes, I've been bitten again. This time with a pooling scarf.

Ok, that might need a little explanation. Here goes: When yarn is dyed, it's in a loop, and is usually laid out as a very flat oval. Then the dye is applied in stripes. You can see what I mean here:
This is some lovely (very lovely) baby kid mohair from Fleece Artist. You can see purple was applied to the one end (where the loop turns a corner), and green to the other end, and yellow and white in the middle.

Yarns dyed like this look very pretty in the skein (as above); and sometimes can even look pretty--albeit very mixed together--wound into a yarn cake (as below):Troy thinks this ball could hang on the wall as is and be counted as art,

but I'd rather knit with it.

But what often happens when you just knit with it is that it turns into something that is very technically termed, clown barf. I have no picture, but I'm sure you can imagine what I mean. A knitted item with colours just mixed indiscriminately everywhere looking a lot like barf in clown colours.

This doesn't always happen; sometimes you get a repeating pattern--most often a sort of argyle a little like:but it's very much out of your control.

Until now.

I have jumped onto the "pooling scarf" trend, I believe started by one or both of the Yarn Floozies, wenat and Dotty. There was a class [that I didn't take] at Red Purl that first brought it to my attention, but when I was ready to learn, I just read a few of their posts and went from there. (Try these posts, if you want to see for yourself--minus the first one.)

So in yarn pooling, you work with the yarn to determine where the colours are going to go, and then work to keep them there as you knit. You knit across a row with either half a loop or a full loop of the skein and then turn around and go back the other way repeating the same colour pattern.

I am using the full loop because that worked out closest to the width I needed for the pattern. And this gives me green-yellow/white-purple-white/yellow-green:*Isn't that freaking amazing! It's a wonder. And yes, I am obsessed. (For example, I only have to work in the ends on my Odds & Sods socks to cross it off my Spring to Finish list, and I haven't because I'm working on this scarf!)

*A half loop would have given green-yellow/white-purple.

The picture is actually showing a large swatch and practice piece. It could have been the beginning of my shawl, but I didn't get the tension even enough and if you look close enough you'll see the left side is bigger and longer than the right. That was me trying to keep the colours lined up. If the dying isn't perfectly uniform then you have to work some stitches a little looser or tighter to keep things lined up. But I think I took it a little too far. And now my shawl is a large swatch. I'll be starting over shortly.

Anyway, it's a really fun project. The stitch pattern itself is easy and repetitive, but I do have to think about the colours constantly. There's been a lot of tinking too so I can adjust the tension. It all just feeds the obsession... (Stripes are a good way to keep me interested, but this has really consumed my attention, making me have to knit just "one more row" to see how it's going to come out!)

And what's this going to turn into? I'm planning to make the Belinda shawl from Mason-Dixon Knitting Outside the Lines. (Top left pic here.) Another simply brilliant idea. Two layers of mohair lace in different colours that, when combined, give an illusion like plaid. It's great!

Time to go, I've got a pooling scarf to knit!