Angie's socks are done. But something curious happened on the way to completing them. The yarn was dyed by hand dipping it into the dye bath. Three colors were used: yellow, green and a sort of salmon-like color. Since the skein was dipped into the three colors in equal parts, I figured that the pooling of colors would be approximately the same for both socks. (The underlying yarn was Knit Picks undyed yarn.) with the amount of stitches I used, the pooling on the first sock was almost in stripes although the stripes were in a diagonal direction. While the second sock also had the diagonal striping, the strips of the various colors were much narrower than in the first sock which really makes a difference. The difference is much more noticeable because of the bright colors. As I sat there puzzling over this effect, my daughter, the spinner and dyer in the family, explained it to me. This was a 100 gram skein and thus, the outside strands of the skein are somewhat longer than the inside strands and thus, the difference in the length of the stripes. There apparently is a way to compensate for this phenomenon when dying, but the dyer of this yarn did not do so. Oh well, she always wears jeans, so it will not show. According to the designer, Kirsten Kapur of

www.throughtheloops.typepad.com

the pattern is particularly suitable for hand dyed or variegated yarn. The nice thing is the pattern repeats have only two rows to them. Kapur named the pattern "Ampersand." I think I will rename it "Daffodils" as the colors in the yarn do remind me of them. "Snow, snow go away little Billie wants to play."

See the difference in the width of the striping? After the first half of the leg, it gets wider again.

I am also not too happy with the heel. Since the previous short-row heel I knit was just fine, it can't be me; it has to be the yarn. Right? Look at the difference between the two socks:

This heel is not nearly as neat as the one in the lower picture.

So what happened? The bottom sock is knit from 100% Blue Faced Leicester yarn, the top one is knit from "Heinz 57" variety yarn.

By the way, I still need to knit one sock before I out that pair.

"Knit On!"