Pooling
'How do you combat pooling?' asks Kathie and Eyeleen. Beth suggests a slip stitch pattern, and Siow Chin alternates with 2 skeins. Others like the pooling and just leave it. I personally do a combination of this, but for socks, I tend to rip and try different patterns until it works. As Rowanette Jill said, the likelihood of me doing a brightly coloured varigated sweater for myself is pretty slim, so I haven't crossed that bridge yet. I find it a bit cumbersome to work 2 strands of yarns together. For these socks, I did precisely that, alternating a strand of vareigated with a strand a nearly solid. It was a messy technique for me, the yarns got horribly tangled. I think that to work with variegated yarns, you need to have a bit of patience and be willing to rip until you find what makes it work or be happy with the results even with it pools. If you don't have the patiences to rip and you're too anal to deal with the pooling, knitting with varigated yarns will probably take a few years off your lifespan.
The mossy sock
Maybe I was too hasty, ripping the cuff and reknitting after only an inch or so, but experience has it that if it doesn't seem right, just carrying on, isn't going to fix it, so I tend to rip early to avoid further tears. With 66 stitches, I still have some pooling on the cuff but I left it, as I can see the pooling 'moving', so that in effect I get a striping effect.
Looking back, at other Lorna's Laces, it has a similar effect to these.
Of course, knitting isn't fun without excitement. In my infinite wisdom, I'd decided that 1 skein of variegated + 1 skein of solid would give me 1 pair of ladies socks adequate for a medium sized foot. Figuring that all I need to do is eke out the variegated yarn by making contrasting toes and heels. Suddenly, I have doubts. The legs is 6 inches long and the remaining yarn on the ball feels light. The excitement is too much to bear, do you think I'm going to make it?
Posted by atu at December 11, 2005 12:34 PMThanks for all the info. Beautiful socks.
Posted by: eyeleen at December 14, 2005 04:04 AMI love your socks, the way the colours spiral round is lovely. I once started a pair of LL socks where the colours were pooling in vertical stripes, I changed the stitch count and turned it into spiralling stripes instead, great.
Posted by: Louise at December 13, 2005 10:42 PMI , also love the blue booties in the corner...
and always look forward to whatever your doing!!.. Happy holidays...
hello:)
i tried to email you this question but it was removed, so i will try here :)
tell me about the blue booties on the front page upper left?
they look adorable
thanx
peace&blessings
mary~
If you knit faster, you'll find out! I'd do what Mary suggested, weight the yarn. If you find you'll be running out, it's not a problem to rip out sock #1's toe, and use the plain yarn, earlier.
Your socks look great, it's encouraging me to finish a few off!
Dawn:)
Posted by: dawn at December 11, 2005 11:21 PMI have no experience with Lornas lace-sock yarn, but regarding pooling, I once knitted a pair of socks with the most hideous pooling - and only on one of the socks. However, the recipient didnt mind - and my brother said he would take them if nobody else would ... so.. as long as you are knitting for men, I wouldnt bother too much.
I too bow humbly in gratitude for Kiri ... if I could just make the cast off edge work ;-)
IDA
I think you'll be fine. In my experience a little Lorna's Laces goes a very, very long way. Have you weighed what you have left? I find that often gives one reassurance that you will make it.
Posted by: Mary at December 11, 2005 03:52 PMWhen there's pooling and I don't like it, I tend to monkey around with both the number of stitches I cast on, and the needle size. Sometimes a slightly different gauge can make an incredible difference, and I don't have the patience for alternating between two skeins.
Posted by: Colleen at December 11, 2005 01:54 PM