Fiber Dreams

• Pattern: Merced, my own devising. Pattern to be released soon.
• Yarn: Super Socks and Baby from Tess’ Designer Yarns, 1 hank.
• Needles: Size 1 (2.25 mm), Crystal Palace bamboo DPNs, set of 5.
• Gauge: 7½ stitches/inch
• Elapsed time: May 30 to June 10, 2008.
• Notes: This must be the fastest pair of socks I ever knit. But then, I spent a lot of time on them every day, minimizing the overall length of time I’d go around in the world with blue fingers—and a blue tip to the nail on the middle finger of my left hand. The yarn was delicious to knit with, other than that blue dye thing. Soft. Nice fabric. Good stitch definition. Pleasing gauge. Love the way the colors moved and shifted as I knit. They got washed immediately after weaving in that final yarn end. They’re still a tiny bit damp. A lot of blue came out in the water. No surprise there. The yarn’s even softer now. Definitely looking forward to getting these on my feet. My skin wasn’t the only thing that got dyed by this yarn. Check out my needles! The light colored ones are my size 0 Crystal Palace bamboo DPNs, used about the same amount as these size 1s, the color the 1s were when I started these ten days ago. Anyone know how to get blue dye off of bamboo? Please let me know! I’m in the market for suggestions.

If you want me to contact you when the pattern is ready, add yourself to my announcement list.

When I wasn’t sleeping in the middle of the night, naturally right after I turned out the light after falling asleep while trying to read, I was thinking about this pattern and this yarn. I have short feet, so I always have plenty of sock yarn left over to make something else. I thought about making some mitts, maybe. Then I thought, ooh, mitts from this same stitch pattern would be cool. And you know what? No making mitts differently for the right and left hand for this one, since the patterning is on the sides… You’d make two identical mitts. I like that idea. Much simpler.

So I jumped out of bed, and started in on the pattern. I only have the bare bones of it done, but it’s enough to get myself started with.

After I wash the left over yarn so that it doesn’t bleed on everything.

I even thought about what to name the new pattern. Calling it Merced Mitts just didn’t appeal. I did a little searching online, and found a list of Merced River tributaries. One of them is called Tenaya Creek, which runs through Tenaya Canyon in Yosemite. While the mitts won’t be “dramatic and dangerous” like path where the creek runs, if what I have in mind is works out I think it’ll be sort of pretty.

On a completely different note, check out this concept car.

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