Wednesday, June 13, 2007

Bad Sarahs

I had a little accident at the yarn shop last night. Just a tiny one.
Let me preface this by saying that I don't spend real money there. I help out there part time and they pay me in store credit. Hence, I can buy all sorts of luxurious yarns and things I normally could not afford. (Even if I could afford it, I probably wouldn't be able to justify it anyway. ) So it's not real money that I'm spending.
That said, I sure spent a lot of that fake money last night.
I tried to be good. I'm knitting a bag for felting with some truly lovely yarn that I paid real money for elsewhere. I'm trying to finish it, because I really do want the finished product. It's going to be a lot of fun to use. Unfortunately, it's not so fun to knit. I'm at the point where I just knit in the round until the second coming of Christ or your chosen deity. I couldn't do it.
And I was sitting across from the sock yarns. They were calling to me, and I could not resist their siren song. So I decided, I could just get one little skein and start from there.
I wound up with a Fortissima blend of wool and bamboo. Dear Christ or chosen deity, it was lovely. It had all the warmth and fuzzy softness of wool with all the sheen and silky softness of bamboo. It's beautiful stuff, and I highly recommend it.
But then I needed needles.
And I decided I was tired of doing socks on double points. Also, I had socks on double points at home. The only way I could justify making other socks right then and there was to make them in a different manner. So I bought two Addi turbos in size 0. Oops.
Then, I needed a pattern. I wanted something I could do without carrying a pattern along with me, but I was tired of doing just plain vanilla socks (as they call them in the sock world). (In other worlds, doing something in the plain vanilla manner means something completely different, but I shall not go there for now.) I started browsing sock books, which was a bad idea of epic proportions. I had thought I might get one. But which one? How many sock books could I really need? Last night, apparently, two.
I had heard marvelous independent reviews of both Charlene Schurch's Sensational Knitted Socks and also of Nancy Bush's Knitting Vintage Socks. I was paralyzed by indecision. SKS (as it's known in the sock world) had marvelous suggestions for all kinds of patterns I could use at the cuff. Knitting Vintage Socks (no standard abbreviation, as far I know) had marvelous instructions for many different kinds of heels, and the sort of historical content you could read in the bath (as I may have done last night). So, when plagued by indecision of this sort, I did what I normally do. I bought both. Let me tell you, I am going to be making some marvelous socks in the future. Also, I will be doing a lot of reading in the bath.
As if that weren't enough, though, I couldn't leave the sock yarn alone. It was looking at me with sad puppy dog eyes (metaphorically) begging to come home with me. So I may have wound up with another super secret ball of sock yarn. I promise you, it's for a very good reason.
Even with all that, all I managed on that sock last night was to swatch a bit. But you can't put a price tag on inspiration.

2 comments:

Carrie Penny said...

There is no shame... I can't let myself go into stores b/c I come out with more than I should and I have to use what I have... I have too much as it is already! I can't even go into Wal-Mart w/o getting tempted by fabrics and yarns there...

Amanda said...

Glad I'm not the only one who had a moment of weakness in the past week. I can't wait to see pictures of this bamboo yarn knitted up.