Saturday, July 21, 2007

Victorian Lace and Victoria

I think I might actually get these done in time to submit them to the Six Sox before the end of the month. This is my second pair with this group, the first being the Horcrux socks. These socks were written with a top-down pattern but I knew I was going to be cutting it close to the deadline so I decided to go with toe-up. It's just easier for me that way and I like to try them on as I go. I usually use a short-row heel with my toe-up socks but I found this pattern on Wendy's blog that uses a gusset and slip-stitch heel flap. She also has one with a gusset and plain heel flap. She said, "For a short row heel, I knit until the foot is 7.25 inches long. For my plain gusset heel sock, I knit until 7 inches long. For my slip-stitch gusset heel sock, until 6.75 inches long. So it’s one-quarter of an inch difference in each of them for me." I decided to use the slip-stitch heel flap so it would more closely match the original pattern. I had to change the numbers up a little bit so I kind of took a leap of faith that I could change it without messing it up. It worked! Thanks Wendy!

Speaking of leaps of faith, I've been thinking about spinning for a couple of weeks now. I decided to learn how and this last Thursday took a spinning lesson. I got a little drop spindle and a bag of top.I started practicing with it and decided that it is something I definitely want to do. I would love to be able to spin yarn for whatever I want and be able to make any kind I want. So I decided to get a spinning wheel. I've been kind of eyeballing them ever since I decided to learn to spin. I wanted to know what I was getting myself into. This is the one that caught my eye:It's from Louet and she's called Victoria. It's a portable wheel that weighs in at around 6 lbs. It folds up flat and comes with almost everything I'm going to need to get started. I thought about all the reasons I should and shouldn't get this wheel but nothing could sway me away from getting it.

And this beautiful skein of hand-dyed yarn was at the yarn store down the street from my spinning lesson and is destined to become my Pomatomus socks.
That's it, what a day!

1 comment:

phoenix_anew said...

Out of curiousity ... did you already buy this wheel? Because just after I read your blog ... I got an e-mail from one of my groups ... and they have one of these wheels for sale ... Don't know what the original price is ... but they're asking $535.