Fall Colors Socks

This was the yarn that I petted every time I visited my stash. It had so much potential. When it is fall, I thought, you will become socks. So, when I saw this in our backyard, I knew it was time.

I wound the yarn into a cake and put it in my purse. Things started out well. I decided to learn a few new tricks, so I started with Judy's Magic cast-on. I was hoping for more random color placement, but, the spiraling was ok. I was even starting to 'get' Koigu. Knit on size 1s, these socks had an entirely different feel than my first foray, the Embossed Leaves socks.

I turned the heel (using Wendy's toe-up gusset) and then, suddenly, pooling. I thought Koigu wasn't supposed to do that! I suppose "random color placement" must include both spiraling and pooling. Kind of like how your iPod will chose the same songs over and over when you set it to random. 50/50 odds doesn't mean that half the time you get heads and half the time you get tails; you can flip heads every time. Or, in this case, tails.

I used to wonder (before I learned that there are not only people who don't mind pooling, but also people who like it) what on Earth would cause someone to finish knitting a sock that looked like that, let alone knit a mate for it. And now I know: the same thing that causes traffic jams at accident sites, morbid curiosity. Is it going to get better? Is it going to get worse? When will it end? Until I ran out of yarn. And also, if it's your purse sock, you knit it even when it gets ugly or you have no knitting.

So, for the second sock, I figured I'd continue the theme of trying something new. At this point, what did I have to lose? This time, short row toes. Of course, I cast on 30 instead of 32 and didn't realize it until I was almost done with the toe (major disadvantage of short-row toes!), but, I figured, whatevs, these socks are fugly, I'll just increase to 64 on the first row. The Koigu answered with some more "random color placement." Despite my mistake, I think I prefer the short row toes. I just tied a slip knot with a decently-long tail, and used the tail for my provisional cast-on; no waste yarn required.

I used the same heel, but I reversed the direction of the shaping, using k2tog and ssp instead of ssk and p2tog. Sula's right, that does look better. You can see the difference below, the second sock is on the right.

What could possibly happen next? More spiraling. And then more pooling.

I topped them both with my garter stitch cuff, holding my breath that there would be enough yarn to finish.

And there you have it: a tragedy in handpainted yarn. Unless you like that sort of thing. And, adding insult to injury, they're baggy.

At least I have a trusty toe-up recipe now. But I may be off socks for a bit!