Late to the Party, and Yarn Pr0n

So, I started Jaywalkers. Yes, those Jaywalkers. The ones everyone and their uncle Fred have been knitting for years now. I've wanted to knit a pair but I could never decide upon the yarn. It seemed to me that the yarn had to not only be self-striping (because variegation would hide the chevron pattern), but have thick stripes. Fat striped yarn is not as ubiquitous as variegated or thin striped yarn. Longer color runs take more work I guess. I could have started them on a number of different more mass-market yarns (sassy stripes, Regia nation colors, etc.), but I wanted them to be special. I was a Jaywalker virgin and I kept myself pure for just the right yarn.

Enter yarntini in the pureknits colorway. Gorgeous, gorgeous stuff. I started a pair of mermaid socks with it but frogged halfway down the first cuff. The pattern wasn't doing quite right by the yarn, I thought. Not quite right. Lovely pattern. But just not for this yarn.

So these are the Jaywalkers. You'll notice the little part on the gusset I had to pull back and reknit. I tend to be a perfectionist about socks, which is really not logical because imperfections in socks are the least likely to be noticed by anyone. Logical or not, I often spend an inordinate amount of time fixing tiny little mistakes that no one would notice but me.

Thanks to the Yarn Harlot's excellent tutorial on fixing cables, I was able to apply these same principles to knitting socks in the round, and have done so many times. I'm still not sure whether or not this is a good thing or a bad thing.

Okay, so that's the sock with some stitches ripped. Here is the sock in progress now.

I realize now that I shouldn't have bothered, because I messed things up trying to fix them.

The fuzzy, white-stitches-in-the-brown-stripe part is not much better than the bumply part that reknitting supposedly fixed. Well, I try to tell myself that I'm a process knitter and that there's something to be learned from every "fixed" mistake. Meh.

In other news: YARN PR0N!

I love looking at the newly acquired yarn of others. This is some of what I've gotten in the past few weeks.

First up: Koigu! From the Patternworks sale. I was lucky enough to get some before it all went away.
And now: INDIE YARN BLOWOUT!

L 2 R: Cherry Blossom Fibers in Raspberry Truffle, White Oak Studio in I Love Lucy, Seacoast in Autumn, Miss Babs in Rock Wall, and Lavender Sheep in Bad Girl. All these were acquired from the Lovely Jen at Woolgirl (see left for link).

Below is the beginnings of another sock. The yarn is, I think, Cherry Blossom Fibers in Tartan. I'm pretty sure of that. Can't find the tag now. This is sooooo soft. I'm loving the color combo too. Almost masculine. Almost.

Very nice!!!

I must admit that I also just bought out the store at Full thread ahead's eight hour sale yesterday. CTH stuff. Lots of solids, a couple of colorways. CTH is one sock yarn I've actually never used. Just haven't gotten to it, I guess. I'm planning on doing my first colorwork mittens with the stuff I bought. I also got some tiny toes, tofutsies (the reaction is so mixed on this yarn and I'm eager to try it out and decide for myself), and madil kid seta.

I will post on that when I get the packages. Yes, packages. I put in two orders! (Femiknitzi hangs head in gluttonous shame).