A Nice Connection

When I stopped by Ravelry last night, I found a message from a new Raveler, saying she was a friend of my sister, who had encouraged her to say "hi". How nice to get the greeting. Then I looked at her Ravatar a little more closely. Hmmm, looks like wire knitting. Light bulb on. I realized that Marla is Marla Rudnick, the artist who made the beautiful earrings A. Pazoo sent me for Christmas. The work on her website is breathtakingly lovely. Then something about the name of the gallery she shows at sounded familiar. Hmmm, Potomac Craftsman Fiber Gallery. Yep, same one my friend Gayle shows at. Small world. I like that.

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Once past the gussets, the socks are moving along quite quickly. I thought I would be wise to try one on and see if the sizing guesstimate was correct. Fortunately, it was.

Since Leslie's comment on my last post I have been thinking of these as the "Ackwards" socks (as in "Bass" - but in a good way). It is, ahem, true that many people do put patterning on the leg and knit the foot plain. I have done so myself. I noted one reason for, shall we say, departing from standard practice in my response. But I have others.

1) In winter, my legs have sock tops, then long johns (seen peeking out on the left), then often leg warmers, then jeans. That's three to four layers of coziness. But my poor tootsies have only socks. Putting the stranded section at the bottom makes the foot the warmest part.

2) It combats the boredom factor. For some reason I can work stretches of plain knitting, or plain old rib, all the way down the leg without getting bored. Maybe it's because I have the excitement of the heel turn to look forward to. (Don't laugh. I really do like turning heels.) But once past the gusset shaping, that long stretch of foot (size 10 long) sometimes gets to be a drag. I'm past the gusset. I should be almost done. But I'm not almost done. Drat! Are these things ever going to be finished? With the Ackwards, the fun is just starting at the ankle and will continue all the way to the toe. Woot!