I bought some handpainted silk top and carded silk from The Silkworker a few days ago, and it finally arrived today…it is GORGEOUS! One of them is rainbow colored, and the other is a lovely purple-magenta-blue carded batt. I’m spinning them up separately and plying them together, and so far am very pleased with the result. I’m going to knit a test swatch tomorrow, and if that works, I’m going to go out and buy some elastic thread to ply into the yarn. That way I get the beautiful silk sheen, but I have something with enough “give” to it that it will make socks.
I have become obsessed with socks. I have quit work on my ring shawl for the moment, basically because it required too much intellectual effort: every spare brain cell I have is currently devoted to the book. Instead of knitting the ring shawl on the way to and from work, I’m now typing away on the book (which is going quite well, if slowly). But I still like handcrafts…so I have been knitting socks! Completely mindless socks–a simple 1×1 ribbing with stockinette stitch on the sole of the foot–the sort of thing I could do in my sleep. But I am knitting.
I knit in short spurts when I get stuck on the book and need to relax my mind for a moment…socks are perfect because they go so quickly, and I certainly don’t have to think about them…except for a little bit of attention at the heel, they require no thought whatsoever. So I have been getting interesting yarns and knitting very plain socks out of them. Right now I’m at work on an orange-and-red pair knitted out of a softly spun wool singles–I know it won’t make durable socks, but since I only ever wear handknitted socks around the house when my feet are cold (which happens a few times a year), I don’t really need durable socks. I just want them to look FABULOUS, dahhhling.
And now, off to bed, perchance to dream of glorious silk socks…tomorrow morning, it’s off to Sausalito for another training ride!
