Last week Cookie A. of Monkey Sock fame* was in town and I caught a class on designing socks at the Village Yarn & Tea shop. Man, that girl is technical. It was such a pleasure to hear how she engineers a sock. Imagine what she could do for world peace. Maybe she already is!
Her new book, Sock Innovation (now on sale at Knitpicks), is great if you want to design socks. She is a big advocate of top-down and has some great arguments for the top-down method - you will still have to swatch. You know I'm the opposite, a big fan of toe up, but I'm willing to try her method. It's brilliant if you want to design every detail.
I am still working on my Worryfree Cardi (nearly done!) So, I'll be gearing up to knit some freshly-designed socks. To prep: hand dyed this sock yarn. It is blue and light blue and should self stripe.
And, recently off the wheel, some blue/brown 30% Angora/70% Merino roving from Allspunup. I handspun the fiber and created a 2-ply. Next to the handspun (left) is purchased 50/50 Angora/Merino 2 ply yarn that I dyed to work with the handspun. I'm thinking a lacy scarf? I have about 600 yards between the two skeins.
*Look at all these monkey socks on flickr!
Cookie's so cool! Glad it was a helpful workshop. Did she happen to mention what shawl pattern she is wearing? Not sure how I think it works with her top, but the shawl is cute and the color is great on her.
ReplyDeleteI love that shawl too, and I love, love, love it with her black and white tunic. She looked great! She did not mention the pattern, but it does look like a shawl she did for the knit olympics in her Ravelry queue from the second book of lace knitting (an old book now available from Dover books, I think.)
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