Tuesday, March 18, 2008

New Socks and a Bit of Writing

In my desire to keep challenging myself with my knitting, I've decided to tackle the "toe-up sock." There are several patterns out there and I decided on the Diamond Waffle pattern, which I found on Knitty.com. This is probably because it was designed by a man and also because the cast on and increases don't have anything to do with "wrapping and turning." The increases are all about "M1" or make one. It's something Elizabeth Zimmerman loved and something that caused me a lot of grief when I was making the Baby Surprise Jacket. I keep getting holes, but not always. Whatever. These are for me and I'll wear them no matter what. I'll have to ask someone to show me if what I'm doing is right. It'll take two minutes.

The whole idea of the toe-up sock is sort of perfect for me. Socks for me usually take more than the standard ball of yarn. So I tend to make the toe and the heel out of a different yarn - and I like the look. However, after all the adding, when I get to the end, I have yarn left over. With the toe-up sock, I will hopefully be able to use all of the yarn and add on at the cuff or something. A guy can dream, can't he?

I bought this yarn back at the Stitch 'n Bitch near Rotterdam. It was one of my last purchases. I had a bag or two of yarn and it was a euro per ball. Who can pass that up? There was no picture on the ball band and no display model, and I can sort of see why now. It's quite busy. (Last night at the SnB in Amsterdam, I actually called it lelijk, or ugly. It's not really ugly. It's just that my Dutch vocabulary doesn't always have all of the subtlety that my English vocabulary has.) And the repeat is forever. I had to wind up about a third of one of the balls until I found it. I'll add it on at the end and no one will be the wiser.

I'm not doing the Diamond Waffle pattern exactly. I'm just doing a garter rib thing that I found in Sensational Knitted Socks by Charlene Schurch. It's dependable and there's a lot of plain knitting as opposed to a big pattern. This sock is busy enough without all of the other stuff interfering. They're moving along.

By the way, the baby hat that I made for Fred's niece's new son went over like gangbusters. His head is still a little egg shaped, but it's a good size and they were appreciative. I'll have to write about Antwerp again. I was sort of enchanted this last trip. It's a nice city. I think I'll suggest it to our friend, Butch, when he visits in September. He'd enjoy it. Lots of antiques and Old World charm. Plus, Belgian beer in a Belgian pub is really good.

In other news, I have been talking to a few people about writing. I'm itching to be published again. So keep an eye out here. It's all very Amsterdam specific at this point, but there are opportunities out there for those who want to write and see their stuff in print. If you're a writer in Amsterdam or the Netherlands and want some leads, just ask. There's a link to my email under my profile.

For now, the few things that I've written - mostly blog-posty-type things geared for tourists - are up on a website called Hostels-Amsterdam under Articles. I wrote four and they all went up at the same time. Now I've got to write more. This is just the first of it. The man who owns the website directed me to a different publication that he has, which sounds more like what I'm looking for.

It's still quite chill with a bit of precipitation here. Makes for some fun biking. You always ride against the wind, which is the rule here.

3 comments:

Littlelou said...

Love the sock yarn..looks a lot like Opal. I love knitting my self socks but have yet to get beyond the basic pattern.

Anonymous said...

Andy! I keep missing you at the SnB nights! Nice socks. I'll have to try toe-up next.

Anonymous said...

I used to get holes in my m1's too but I learned that if you pick up the shoulder of the next stitch instead of the bar inbetween the two stitches you will get no holes. I wish someone would have told me that so long ago.

Great looking socks! :) Can't wait to see them done!