A Change of Plans

Last week was busy, with a lot of time spent in front of the computer. That translated to not a lot of time hand-stitching; my eyes can’t handle that much concentrated work. I was counting on getting a lot of the binding done on my quilt at Quilt Night, but the weather had other plans. Freezing rain moved our get-together to this coming Friday instead.

That change led to another change, and I decided to start a knitting project. For the most part, knitting doesn’t require as much from my eyes as hand-stitching does. And I recently came across some yarn in my stash that's been calling my name ever since.

I love this combination of yarn colors. The yellow is Cascade Yarns Cascade 220 Fingering in 7827 Goldenrod, the pink is Shibui Knits Sock in 1765 Blossom, and the white is Heart & Sole with Aloe by Red Heart in 3115 Ivory. The mutli-colored yarn — the yarn that I couldn’t get out of my head once I rediscovered it — is Anne by Schaefer Yarn Company, although the label is long gone so I don’t know the colorway. I envisioned the colors coming together playfully.

My first thought was to make socks, but the light colors gave me pause. There’s so much potential for socks to get dirty! My next thought was gloves or mittens, but I would end up with the same problem of the light colors showing dirt. I toyed with a few other ideas and ultimately came back to the socks.

I wanted to keep it simple, so I started knitting the socks with a basic horizontal stripe, alternating colors every two rows. The yellow, which I thought would add a bright pop of color, became very mustard-like in the knitting; it was surprising how much the yellow dulled down the whole project and sucked out the playfulness. Once again, I was so intent on moving on that I forgot to take a picture to share; I need to remember to do that more often!

Time for yet another change; I frogged the sock and started over with just two yarns. The pink will be the cuff, heel and toe of the sock, and the multicolored yarn will be the leg and the foot. The pattern is Garter Rib by Charlene Schurch in the book “Sensational Knitted Socks.”

I haven’t gotten very far yet after all of those changes, but I’m happy with this combination. I’m excited to see how the socks turn out!