One Last Chance

Last fall (or maybe the fall before that, or even the one before that) I bought some Brooks Farm yarn that looked brilliant on the skein. I liked it so much I would just look at it from time to time and never even thought of what to knit with it. The colors looked so subtle twisted up in the skein, some blue here, some green there, and oh! would you describe that green as "leaf" or "olive"? And isn't that blue the same color as the ocean in Maine?

A few weeks ago I decided to wind it up on the winder. It looked a little less brilliant. It looked stripey, and dull. I thought it would give it a try on the Swallowtail shawl: not good. I ripped it out and thought I'd give it a try on the Checkerboard scarf: worse. I thought about sending it back to Brooks Farm, with a note that they didn't need to send my money back, because you can put no price on a broken heart. I put it in the back of the yarn closet for a bit.

At the library yesterday, I checked out Socks from the Toe Up by Wendy D. Johnson. Not only did it change my (knitting) life in one afternoon, it saved that Brooks Farm yarn from the swap bin. I've always been a top down, but after trying out a few of the toe cast on techniques in this book, I don't think I can ever go back. Look at that nice, square toe with no pesty Kitchener stitch:



Yes, I am doing them using magic loop, and I am a demon. This is what they looked like at the start of our knitting group tonite; by the time Heidi and Spencer said "I do" this evening, I had turned the heel.

And the Brooks Farm just needed a different gauge. I'm using size 3 needles for these socks and I am getting the nice fabric I had imagined when I was just fondling that skein. The striping in that yarn is also more appropriate for a sock with no unsightly pooling. And the fit! Often I have to block a sock a lot because they are too big, too small, too short; this fits just right.

Once I give my heart to yarn it's usually forever, and I felt bad that after lovin' that Brooks Farm, I couldn't love it any more. All the things I loved about it in the skein are still there (the green! the blue! that little bit of midnight!) but finally I found the right setting for all it's charms.