Socks vs. Sweaters

Spending the last few days at Madrona has got me thinking about sweaters.

I saw so many beautiful sweaters and shawls, and though I did bring one sweater, most of the handknits that I wore were socks. This shouldn't be surprising to anyone. ;) So I see everyone with their sweaters getting admired and I feel a bit jealous. My socks are certainly less visible (and possibly less impressive) than sweaters. And to be fair, my socks did get a bit of love, and my sweater got plenty.

It just made me wish that I had more sweaters or other obvious knitwear to show off.

I love to knit socks. I love to wear socks. And it's not that I can't knit a sweater or shawl, it's just that I don't really want to. I have knit sweaters, and they're great. I like them. But when I sit down to knit, I want to knit socks. Even when I start sweaters they usually linger for ages. They're not even that much more work! I'd say a sweater is roughly equivalent to two pairs of patterned socks - depending on the socks and the sweater, of course.

I met the beautiful Faery Ring which didn't help the case for socks. Not that I don't have a bunch of other sweaters to knit already... including a couple on the needles. But I've tried to reform my sock-knitting ways before, and it has never worked.

Speaking of socks, here's a pair I finished while I was there:



Yarn: Mini Mochi in #108
Started: 12/29/09
Finished: 2/12/10

This yarn was a bit difficult to work with - it's quite splitty and it took me a while to get the feel of how to knit it without splitting stitches. But once I got the hang of it, it wasn't too bad. The one thing that did bother me a bit is the difference in the stripe length. This isn't just a case of me being picky about stuff matching though, the sock with the longer stripes had sections of much thinner yarn than the other sock. Not only did this change the length of the stripes, it also made the width of the sock smaller and larger in some places. The yarn is also quite fuzzy. I'm curious to see how comfortable these socks are and how well they wear. I do have more in one of the rainbow colors, so if I don't like the socks I might have to find another plan for those skeins.