A Tale of Two Toes

Warning -- If you do not want to see a completed STR January Sock Club sock, stop reading.


I finished both of my sock club socks, finally. The original pattern calls for a star toe, which looks quite nice with the flame pattern of the main sock. However, it bunches up a little on me, which would be uncomfortable in most of my shoes. So I knit the second sock with a regular toe, and you can see the difference (if you look closely), here:


The sock on the right has the star toe, and you can see the bunching toward the outside of my foot, especially compared to the sock on the left. I will be ripping and reknitting the star toe, however aesthetically pleasing it may be. If I had to do these socks over again, I'd also knit the heel on fewer stitches and make it a little shallower. I feel like there's an extra little point of fabric at my heel that could annoy me later. Otherwise, this was a nice pattern to knit -- easy enough to be fairly mindless, but with enough interest not to be boring. I think it would translate really nicely to a plainer yarn, where the undulations of the pattern would be more visible.

I've also been swatching for the Flutter Sleeve cardigan, for which I may cast on tonight, if I don't get pulled in by the Bleeding Hearts Stole. I did not get much knitting done this weekend, unfortunately, so I don't have a good progress picture of the stole.

Today the kids are home for the President's Day holiday, so, of course, not much knitting is getting done. Fortunately, after all the ice and slush of last week, it was 70 degrees here at lunchtime today. The boys were out in tee shirts and shorts, playing football and basketball with a rotating bunch of neighborhood boys. It's starting to rain now, and a cold front is coming through, so I guess we're back to winter :(

A Knitter's Magazine Question - An Opinionated Rant


Knitter's Magazine under the current editorial team is, in my opinion, drek. Most of the designs are hideous, knit with violently colored yarns, with a misguided attempt to be "fashion-forward" without regard to what normal people would actually wear. Out of curiousity, I sometimes go to the "vote on the cover" section of their annoying website. I've noticed that, in most cases, the editors pick a cover that does not win a majority of the votes. Does this mean that they don't pay attention to what people like? The contents of the magazine often bear that out. They have three sweaters up for vote for the Spring cover -- two headache-inducing variegated knits, and "Wasabi and Ginger," a pretty little cardigan with lace detailing using two colors. I'm betting that Wasabi and Ginger will win the voting, but not end up on the cover.