Monday, April 14, 2008

RANT, RANT, RANT!!!

SIGH......

I have just spent an unbelieveable amount of time searching on the web for some solid color sock yarn in the colors that I NEED, and am just so disgusted. This has been a pet peeve of mine for just about as many years as I have been knitting, and that is a LOT of years. Yes, I am YELLING!

Why, oh why, oh why can't some yarn company understand that so many of us knitters would SO much appreciate a reliable source of different yarn colors that stayed the same and are available right away? As it is right now, I have had to look all over the web to find what I want, and finally found SOME of the colors, BUT, I will have to purchase them from 3 different companies/sellers if I want to get them. So that means it will cost me a whole lot more in postage, not to mention all the time I have spent trying to find what I need. It is I think the most frustrating thing I have ever found regarding yarn.

It seems that just about every company falls victim to the "chase the fashion" syndrome. They discontinue the colors they had and add "new" ones, all to keep up with the current fashions. Arrrggghhh!! I suppose that there are knitters out here who do go for the fashion looks, but there are so many of us out here who do like the tried and true and always fashionable things. Classics, if you will. Always there, always available, and always in good taste.

It just seems to me that some smart company could figure this out and offer a good color range of yarns so that those of us, and I believe there are MANY of us, who want and need this type of selection could buy the yarns. I thought I had found such a company in KnitPicks, but they have decided that their Essential line of sock yarn is going to be one of those fashion chasing items. Grrrrrr. They do offer their Palette fingering wt in a good range of colors, but it is not, IMHO, a good sock yarn. Doesn't wear very well. Oh well, such is a knitter's life I guess.

Hugggles,
Vala



Tuesday, April 8, 2008

Puppy Mills

This is something I am so against! Please do all you can to help stop this horrid practice.



Thursday, April 3, 2008

Knitting Lace, Socks and Other Stuff


Weather is a bit nicer today, didn't get back to finish what I started on the 31st, too busy finishing up a sock pattern.

Was starting to write about knitting socks, and my favorite types of knitting, so guess I will just do that here.

I really, really love to knit lace, but my lace knitting came to an abrubt halt a few months ago when I was dealing with a lot of severe sinus/allergy problems and a darn back that kept going out on me. {Wonder where those backs go when they do go out on us? :-)

Made it just plain impossible to concentrate on the intricate patterns, and I kept messing up big time, was spending way too much time wading in the swamp with all the froggies. So just put all the lace aside.

Then I just sat there with nothing to do!! No needles/yarn in my hands, aaarrgggh! Quickest way I can think of to make me crazy. What to do, what to do?

HAD to find something to knit that wouldn't take any concentration, the more brain dead the better. Didn't want to knit hats, didn't want to tackle any large project like a sweater or afghan. Sigh.

Now it had been YEARS since I had knit any socks, and I have to admit that they were my least favorite thing to do. In fact I was sorta adamant about it. BUT, I had been going through my stash, and found this really neat sock yarn I had gotten with something else in mind besides socks.

Hmmmmmmmm, well maybe, just maybe, I would go ahead and do a pair of socks, easy peasy knitting.

Had always used DPNs for socks, but since I had the KnitPicks Options needles with those lovely pliable cables, decided I would try out the 2 circ method. So I did. The result is the photo above.

WOO HOO!!! So, now I am a sock~knitting convert. And am quite busy working out my own patterns, which I am going to publish for sale! How's that for a 180 turnaround? I do love to do colorwork, mosaic and stranded knitting are lots of fun, and so is doing beaded knitting. Already have 3 patterns ready to go, that is ready after I get them all into PDF files, which is a new thing to me too, so that may just take me a while, and am gonna need some help doing it I think. Old dog needs to learn some new tricks here!

Hugggles,
Vala