Warning: Gray second socks, especially with cables and size 0 needles may be disaster prone!

Today, at least in Northern Kentucky, where I am at the moment, is a day of weather for ducks. And umbrellas.

(Added: Warning: Long post!)

As I was saying yesterday, before I had to leave the computer, I have started using Blogger in Beta. So the site is a bit updated and I have something to tell you about the FO names. I also am going to try to put up what had been promised previously. But first: What about the title?

Well, here's the story:
(Note: These socks are the Braid Cable and Garter Bead socks from Charlene Schurch's
First, as noted in this post: "Tragedy", the second sock of the Ash Braid and Garter Bead, as I called them when I typed out the pattern for carrying around, had to be frogged when I had just started the cable pattern after the ribbing since the needles came out. Then, yesterday, I was knitting on the socks during lunch period while sitting outside after eating lunch. By the way, yesterday was not rainy. I was bombarded with questions such as "Can you make mittens?" and "What's crocheting?" (Actually, the latter came about due to the fact that the answer to the previous question was "I've never knitted mittens, but I've crocheted one." And please note that the ask-ers were not adults.) I answered these questions as I knitted the first few rows of the heel flap. Important point: I did not look very closely at the pattern before the heel flap rows. I knitted some more on the heel flap last night until I had only 11 more rows to go to get the requisite 33 rows. I knitted those 11 rows during lunch period after eating lunch, while sitting semi-miserably, since I did not have a particularly good morning. I did not notice that anything was even slightly wrong. Then I started turning the heel after a bit of commotion that is irrelevant to the story. I gradually noticed that one side of the heel seemed to have very few stitches compared to the other side. I had to put the sock away for a bit, after hurriedly tinking the so far turned heel. When I could again work on it, I picked it up and counted the stitches. There were 5 fewer stitches than I ought to have-28 instead of 33! What happened? I had done the heel on the wrong side of the sock, meaning I had fewer stitches than I should have. Unfortunately I didn't even bother to check the number of stitches when I did the decreasing for the heel flap yesterday. It took a while for the specifics of my error to dawn on me, though. So the heel flap is destined to be frogged and re-knit in the correct position.

About finished sock names:
(Note: After I had read and re-read one of the stories from one of the KnitLit books about naming projects, I started doing it my self. It's kind of fun! These names are in order of completion from top down. All patterns are from Sensational Knitted Socks by Charlene Schurch. All needles are in U.S. sizes and all patterns were made on sets of 4 dpns.)

"Swing (or Dance) Over the Rainbow"- Name derived from the name of the yarn (KnitPicks Dancing, colorway Swing) and the fact that it has almost all the colors of the rainbow in it.
The pattern: Elongated Corded Rib on 64 sts. Size 2 needles

"Wholly Holey Dieting Daffodils"-Now that's one odd name. Where did it come from? (And why did this part just remind me of part of a riddle?) Well, I thought the "wholly holey" was kind of funny and it's appropriate since the sock is made in Ribbed Lace pattern, which brings me to the "Dieting" part-ribbing draws in, so it's suggestive of dieting socks. (Okay, bad joke and equally odd sentence, where are you going to, Arachnera? Stop it!) The sock yarn is KnitPicks Parade, colorway Daffodil, which again inspired the name.
The pattern: Ribbed Lace on 48 sts. Size 3 needles

"Willy Wonka's Weird Dreams"-Well, the original name considered for these socks was rejected due to possible interpretations. Anyway, although Willy Wonka is known for owning a chocolate factory, the candy SweeTarts is marketed by Nestle as Wonka candy and the sock, which is the Welt Fantastic pattern in Sensational Knitted Socks makes the Sweet Tarts colorway Simple Stripes yarn from KnitPicks look kind of like Willy Wonka was having odd dreams. (You know, the sort where the dream world is about half-real.)
The pattern: Welt Fantastic on 66 sts. (?) Size 1 needles

Yarn Review:
Moda Dea Simple Stripes (Added: Should be Sassy Stripes!)
Purchased on clearance at Meijer. (The yarn mentioned in this post bought at $4.80+ tax.)

Color:
Again, I don't have a picture; I don't have a digital camera and certain circumstances prevent even non-digital photos from getting on this blog unless they are somewhere else on the Internet. I bought the colorway Storm, which is grayish-black, white, and grayish-black & white small spaced stripes. So far the color has turned out rather odd to me. It does not seem to have much of any sense of a regular pattern. I have not, however, knitted but about 3-4-5" on one sock on size 3 dpns. I'm using 48 stitches and a plain vanilla (Why am I calling it plain "vanilla"?) sock pattern except that I'm doing 2x2 rib for the whole leg and haven't decided about the foot. I might be able to update you on this later, once I've done more.

Quality:
It's acrylic, meaning that it is no where near as nice as wool socks. But I could hardly resist buying a bit more sock yarn. And I should have resisted starting socks with it, but I did anyway. There has been one knot-like blip in the yarn, which I knitted in, because for some reason I usually do that. When I was knitting I noticed that it's almost, I repeat, almost squeaky on the needles. (Added: may be inherent due to acrylic.)It seems so far to have a sporadic pattern, but I really can't say since I haven't even finished one whole sock. Check back for possible updates once I get further in the sock.

Overall:
I'd give it 7 on a scale of 10, 1 being "Don't buy this stuff, it's the worst yarn in the world" and 10 being: "You must have this yarn." This is due to the almost squeaky-ness and the so far odd color pattern.

Sorry, but since if I have much more time on the computer, it will go to admiring some yarn and yet more typing on a short paper that is due next week, I have to go. The interesting parts noted in Knitter's Almanac will come in a future post.