Pooling

Even though it's hot, this post is not about cool bodies of water. It's about color, and the strange things that it does. I'm a sucker for beautifully dyed yarn, but generally keep my purchases of this magnificent, incredibly expensive stuff to socks, because my wallet can't take it in anything but small doses. It works out okay, because I get my color fix for a price that doesn't cause heart palpitations, and socks give you a lot of bang for your knitting buck.

Last year at Rhinebeck I purchased some beautiful Silky Socks from The Adirondack Yarn Company. The colors were those of a peacock, and I couldn't resist. The yarn is beautiful, and I had visions of a beautiful, variegated sock. What I got was this:


The cuff is exactly what I was looking for, with the colors sort of intermingling. Unfortunately, the stockinette section becomes large pools of color; sometimes I like this effect, but with these particular colors it doesn't work for me. I kept gamely on, even turning the heel and getting halfway down the foot, but I finally decided that if I wasn't going to love the finished product, it was sort of like throwing good knitting after bad. So I ripped back (The Professor is always visibly distressed when I do this) to the cuff, and am trying it with a ribbing pattern. I think that will stretch colors out a little more. We shall see.