Dragon Socks: July 2006 Archives
Not much time for spinning, knitting or blogging tonight so I thought I would share a few more Dragon Sock sightings. I think I am going to have to start a gallery of finished Dragon socks. So if you finish a pair, please send me a photo (you can use the "email me" link in my side bar) and let me know what yarn you used. And if you made any special modifications to the pattern, let me know about that, too!
This week, the theme is veering towards green dragons. First stop is to Lily of the Cat Mandala blog (at least that's how Google translated her blog name for me). Her socks are made in Fleece Artist Superwash Merino and she refers to them as her "Green Iguana" socks. Be sure to click on the link and check out her socks. I really wish I could read Japanese, but her pictures tell a nice story.
Mary (if you have a blog, let me know) sent me this lovely picture of her Koigu Dragon Socks. This pattern introduced her to the twisted German Cast On -- I'm always glad to bring others into the fold where this fabulous cast on is concerned. I use it for almost every sock because it gives the edge a nice elastic quality.
Kelli, of Knitter Bunny made her socks out of the very appropriate Sleeping Dragon yarn. She used a slightly larger needle to get a sock with a bigger diameter and also knitted some extra repeats to give her a longer sock. You can see more of her finished pictures and a great closeup that really shows off the how well the yarn goes with the pattern (I wish you could see it better in the picture above, I had to shrink it for my blog, unfortunately reducing some o the detail.) Kelli knit these socks up to be entered in her local State Fair. Good luck Kelli! I'll be rooting for you!
And just a quick reminder. If you're interested in a Dragon Sock knitting kit of your own, please don't forget to send me your "happy dance" (i.e. things you like to do when you celebrate) to me at happydance@keyboardbiologist.net. Oh, and if you send me a happy dance, you have to send it to me in English so that I can make sure that you're sending me something real and not spam.
And thank you everyone for your nice nice comments about my Sloopy yarn. Knitting will commence soon... I just have to figure out how to translate the idea in my head into yarn.
This post is a little late today because I have a new laptop. The first thing John did after we got back from lunch was sit down and do the brain (i.e. hard drive -- yes, I know the CPU would technically be the brain, but in this case, but the hard drive has all my stuff on it, and old drivers that have to be updated, etc., and it's actually probably the more technically difficult part of the upgrade process) transplant between my old laptop and the new one he found for me (it is so wonderful to have a "computer whisperer" in the house... John found a great laptop, a Dell Latitute d810, then upgraded both the CPU and the graphics card so that I would have a very nice system indeed!). Is he not wonderful? But at work yesterday (my laptop is a very multipurpose machine) I started to have some strange problems. So yesterday evening it spent most of the night doing memory tests to see if we could track down some of those pesky problems.
Enough geek stuff, onto the knitting!
I think the best part and most scary part of selling a pattern is seeing the results that other people get from it. It's the scariest part, because you worry a great deal that someone is going to find some terrible "bug" in the pattern, something that you didn't notice even though you knit from it yourself, something that will cause people to have to rip and re-work or just waste a lot of time. Or just something that was difficult to understand, and made people frustrated with the pattern. It's the best part, because there is nothing better than watching something you designed come to life in someone else's hands and finding out that they are happy with the resutls. Seeing new color options, yarn selections and variations on the design excite me no end. I hope all of you who have bought the pattern will consider this an open invitation to send me links to your completed socks or to send me pictures. I'd really like to put together a gallery of Dragon feet!
I'm going to kick it off with a pair that Adrianna sent me pictures of: the "Upscaled" socks knit in Koigu while on vacation in Seattle.
I really like this Koigu colorway. I think it is complementary to the scale pattern and both yarn and pattern show up well in the sock. Adrianna also did something that I think is a neat little detail if you want your socks to have a lacier quality. It will also give the socks a bit more stretch if you'd like them to have a little more ease.
Adrianna replaced the "make 1" instruction with a "yarn over" . I never thought to try this myself, but I think it's really lovely and almost makes the dragon scales look like dragon wings to me instead.
Want to see more dragon socks?
Maud at the Yarn Nest has finished the socks she made for her son -- another pair in some lovely blue tones made from Novita Nalle Colori.
And Claudia, she of all things orange, took her first dragon sock with her up a mountain! She's knitting with Artyarns Ultramerino 4 in an orange colorway that shows off the scale pattern incredibly well -- and you can also see what the toe looks like if you would prefer to do a short row toe instead of the toe that I describe in the pattern.
One thing I also wanted to mention: in yarns that don't have much cotton in them (i.e. don't have much stiff structure -- the original yarn for the "upscaled sock" was a cotton yarn) you may find that the sock tops want to roll a bit. If you don't like that, then use the instructions for the top of the cuff for the "downscaled" socks and do a few rows of garter stitch at the top (you do this by alternating a row of knitting with a row of purling). You'll get a solid band at the top that will still undulate with the scale pattern but won't be so inclined to roll.
