The Great Unwashed

Still knitting. Busy, but still knitting.

My only projects on the needles right now are the Bomb Pop Socks (see right), but I haven't been able to devote much time to them. Life has been take over by keeping the weeds out of my lovely new landscaping. So far, I've been able to keep up, but it takes time. Luckily, the weather has been cooperating and the yard is looking quite lovely. More weeds in the lawn than I would like -- but it's green, right?

I've noticed something interesting while knitting these. Readers may remember that these socks have been on the needles in some form or fashion for over a year. Some have been knitted twice. Thus, I started on this latest incarnation with quite a bit of previously knitted yarn. Non-knitters may not know this, but unraveled yarn tries to keep the loopy shape it was knitted into, which results in very kinky wool. Some of this telephone-cord action can be seen in the far right of the first picture, to the right of the ball of yarn.

I only had very little of the Bomb Pop yarn that had never been knitted -- maybe 20% of the total skein. I started with this virgin wool at the toe of the second sock. You can see it here on the right. Nice, smooth stitches for the most part -- if periodically a bit wonky in the tension department. It was really nice working with this smooth, un-kinky yarn in the early stages. Especially since this is a toe up sock, and with double wraps. I was having to K3t and P3t quite a bit. That's no fun with unruly, previously knit yarn.

Which is what we have here. This picture is from an inch or two further up the sole of the sock, after I had spliced in the kinky stuff. Can you see how the whole fabric seems to tug back and forth, to and fro, this way and that? The rows don't line up as neatly and the little "v" shapes of the stitches pucker in and out.

To be honest,this difference is only really noticeable by looking at it quite closely with the digital macro feature of my camera. It's also hardly noticeable in the 2x2 ribbing portions across the instep. And the great news is that once these socks are washed, the yarn should unlearn it's old shape and conform to it's new configuration. Ain't wool grand?

Janelle -- do you remember if this skein of wool was superwash or not? Shame on me for not remembering.