Wednesday, December 05, 2007

same but different

a few days ago bells ran a poll on her blog about how she should use contrasting yarn on some socks she is making. i made a comment at the time, and i have been thinking about it since, and i have to say i am a little annoyed with the fine people at patons. i know this is possibly some kind of heresy, and i know that someone out there has a mum who used to be a test knitter i think it was, for patons, but still, i am annoyed with them.

i won some patonyle at the yarn harlot event last year and i set about making trent some socks from it from the patonyle book. i chose the contrast sock pattern because i only had two balls of the patonyle, i had moved back to The Gong and couldnt find any more of it, and the pattern said that the socks i wanted to make (the plain mens calf socks) would take THREE balls of yarn.

so i opted for a contrast cuff, heel and toe, as per the pattern, but using bendi 4ply.

i was a little surprised by how much i had left over and i thought, hmmm, i suspect i could have gotten away without the contrasts after all. but i carried on regardless and started the second sock with the same contrast.

the other day i was knitting the second sock while out and i reached the heel. i didnt have any bendi with me, and i didnt want to stop, and i remembered how much yarn i had left from the first sock and decided to dive in and do the heel in patonyle. in fact, i decided to do as much of the sock in patonyle as i could and only go back to the plain black when i ran out.

as you can see, i am not likely to run out anytime soon:


so. a little annoyed. why do they tell me 3 balls when im clearly going to only need two? two balls is 100g. 100g is pretty standard for socks. i thought this at the time, but then i thought, no, its their pattern, they must know what they're talking about. but i dont think they do.

so now, i have at the very least a pair of mismatched socks with either a lot (if i do a contrast toe on the second one) or a bit (if i knit right through and use up the remains from sock one) of patonyle left over.

why do they do that? to make me buy more?

one good thing, i will probably have enough left over to make him a little matching mobile phone cover, like those ipod sock things.

anyway....
k xx

6 comments:

Taphophile said...

I'm guessing you'd be more pissed off if you they'd said this needs 2 balls and you really did need that extra metre of the third ball. Some will say this experience is a vindication of the toe-up method. I guess it is.

Annoying, though.

DrK said...

hmm this is a good point, you are of course, correct. it will be interesting to see how much i finally end up with it. and toe up schmoe up, id rather wing it :)

Dave said...

The contrast looks good.

amy said...

This is why I love my scale. I've learned I use much less yarn than I thought I did--in standard sock yarn, a sock for me weighs about 35g. Good to know!

But your sock looks good both ways! I try to make kid socks with my leftovers, assuming the colorway is suitable for my son.

Georgie said...

Would you have enough over to call these two one each of two pairs? Do a contrast toe on the second, and then would you have enough to make a second cuff-heel-toe, and a second heel-toe?

Or, you could use the leftovers for the contrast on a plain body sock?

(of course you know you can always frog the plain heel and put in the contrast, or that it really doesnt matter because you cant see the heel - matching is over-rated anyway!)

You clearly need some nice electronic scales....hmm, xmas is coming...

Bells said...

George, you mean 'crack scales' don't you? he he

I know Kylie, it's annoying huh? With the exception of Koigu, I am yet to get even close to the end of available yarn. You'd have been just fine with 2xpatonyle for Trent's socks. Just fine. But only experience tells me that.