Last summer, I picked out 2 small skeins of Crystal Palace Panda Cotton yarn in the colorway "Circus".
Panda Cotton is a 4-ply fingering weight yarn composed of cotton, bamboo & nylon.
I scoured Ravelry to find the perfect pattern and decided on Spring Forward, a top down lacy sock pattern from Linda Welch.
The pattern was originally from Knitty, Summer 2008.
I cast on last July and knit to the heel turn, only to realize that my gauge was off and when I tried the sock on, it wouldn't go over my heel.
Then, I did something I never, ever do. I frogged (to unravel) the sock and cast on with a different set of double pointed needles.
Usually, I get discouraged and leave the project to languish on my needles until I need them for another project. Only then will I frog and rewind the ball.
I knitted away on this sock, it went everywhere with me. It even went camping, and was vigorously inspected by some brazen raccoons when I forgot to put it away one night.
Thankfully, the raccoons determined that the sock was not food and had only torn into the ziplock bag that contained it.
I finished the sock in September 2009, and for reasons unknown, I never closed the toe stitches. They just sat in my stash with 2 double points holding the live stitches.
At that time, I was using the Knit Picks metal double pointed needles which are all silver, regardless of the size, and realized that I had knit this sock using 2 different sized needles. Well, the sock fit just fine and I was cool with it.
When I decided to cast on the second sock, I couldn't remember which assortment of needles I had used on the first sock.
So, I just cast on using size 2 DPNS.
I have since purchased several sets of Boye double point knitting needles which are colored differently - which is good, because I can easily tell if a stray, incorrectly sized needle has worked its way into my project.
As I knitted away on the second sock, it was looking like I had used (3) size 2 DPNs and (2) size 3 DPNs on the original, so there wasn't that big of a difference in the gauge.
There was, however, a HUGE difference in the patterning of the second sock.
The original sock had striped pretty evenly, the second sock was pooling (blobs of the color, instead of the uniform striping or patterning from the variegated colorway)
It was interesting to watch how the pooling of colors kind of mimicked the ziggy zaggy nature of the pattern.
You can view the original pattern here
(I will edit this post to add a picture of my version of these socks later)
In conclusion, I loved the pattern and was "meh" about the yarn.
The finished product is baggy around my ankles, which is annoying, but might change after they're washed.
The yarn was very, very splitty and I found myself splitting the yarn with my needles, a lot.
I love the colorway, though. Even though I hate, hate, hate circuses.
Panda Cotton is a 4-ply fingering weight yarn composed of cotton, bamboo & nylon.
I scoured Ravelry to find the perfect pattern and decided on Spring Forward, a top down lacy sock pattern from Linda Welch.
The pattern was originally from Knitty, Summer 2008.
I cast on last July and knit to the heel turn, only to realize that my gauge was off and when I tried the sock on, it wouldn't go over my heel.
Then, I did something I never, ever do. I frogged (to unravel) the sock and cast on with a different set of double pointed needles.
Usually, I get discouraged and leave the project to languish on my needles until I need them for another project. Only then will I frog and rewind the ball.
I knitted away on this sock, it went everywhere with me. It even went camping, and was vigorously inspected by some brazen raccoons when I forgot to put it away one night.
Thankfully, the raccoons determined that the sock was not food and had only torn into the ziplock bag that contained it.
I finished the sock in September 2009, and for reasons unknown, I never closed the toe stitches. They just sat in my stash with 2 double points holding the live stitches.
At that time, I was using the Knit Picks metal double pointed needles which are all silver, regardless of the size, and realized that I had knit this sock using 2 different sized needles. Well, the sock fit just fine and I was cool with it.
When I decided to cast on the second sock, I couldn't remember which assortment of needles I had used on the first sock.
So, I just cast on using size 2 DPNS.
I have since purchased several sets of Boye double point knitting needles which are colored differently - which is good, because I can easily tell if a stray, incorrectly sized needle has worked its way into my project.
As I knitted away on the second sock, it was looking like I had used (3) size 2 DPNs and (2) size 3 DPNs on the original, so there wasn't that big of a difference in the gauge.
There was, however, a HUGE difference in the patterning of the second sock.
The original sock had striped pretty evenly, the second sock was pooling (blobs of the color, instead of the uniform striping or patterning from the variegated colorway)
It was interesting to watch how the pooling of colors kind of mimicked the ziggy zaggy nature of the pattern.
You can view the original pattern here
(I will edit this post to add a picture of my version of these socks later)
In conclusion, I loved the pattern and was "meh" about the yarn.
The finished product is baggy around my ankles, which is annoying, but might change after they're washed.
The yarn was very, very splitty and I found myself splitting the yarn with my needles, a lot.
I love the colorway, though. Even though I hate, hate, hate circuses.
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