Wednesday, April 25, 2007

Pooling

Argh!

I picked up the needles yesterday on the train after a long time of not knitting (I finished DD's socks, which she wears DAILY!, but I haven't picked up the needles since). I cast on to make Nancy Bush's Child's Socks from Knitting Vintage Socks (love the book) using a STR yarn I've had for almost a year and that I absolutely LOVE.

I'm about 3" into the sock, and the yarn is pooling BADLY! As in, there's NO striping whatsoever. It's big oil spill pools of color that are pooling through the fabric.

I HATE pooling!

The question I have is ...

* if I switch to smaller needles, would that really impact the pooling? It's seriously so bad, that I think knitting this pattern even on smaller (or larger) needles won't fix it.

* do I have to make a smaller sock? Really, a larger sock would work for a man. I'm not even sure this sock will fit me right. But a smaller sock might make the striping work. Thing is, I LOVE this yarn. A smaller sock would be for DD, and while I love her and will go to the ends of the earth for her, I'm a selfish, hoarding person. ;) Seriously, I have wanted this yarn for myself for the past year, have knit it several times, only to rip and wait for the right pattern. I'm a bit frustrated with it. Maybe it's the yarn -- maybe it just won't work for my sized socks.

Any thoughts??

PS - HOW DOES YH get such pretty stripes!!!! ARGH!!!

5 comments:

Saren Johnson said...

I'm glad you're feeling better.

Its really hard to say what causes pooling. You can try a different pattern or number of stitches. I've seen some yarn that pools at the start, then turns into stripes. Keep playing with it.

Julie said...

Switching needles won't affect the pooling that much. You might want to try the Jaywalkers pattern, I understand that was designed specifically for STR to avoid the problems you're having.

Cathy said...

STR..I'm soooooooooooo jealous! I've heard of people using 2 skeins at a time, one skein per round the 2nd skein the next round, and trading off each round. Don't know how practical that would be...seems you'd have a running stand up the back where you are carrying the yarn each row.
But, hey..it's str!...maybe that's the skein you knit over and over just for the 'fondling' effects? eheheh..sorry, guess I'm not much help today...but if you're not happy with that skein..toss it my way! eheheheh...I'll promise to take really good care of it!heheheh...
I guess you could rewind it and start from the other end and see if that works better for you.
oh, and the YH is gifted...I missed that line she was in when it was handed out.

Amy Lane said...

hmm... there's a lacy pattern in Not Just More Socks that I"m using right now--it's doing some interesting things to the striping pattern. I just finished my fingerless mitts...LOVE THEM...and the pattern was so NON sock like, I wonder if that would do it for you?

Heidi said...

I'm still on my first pair of socks so I'm not experienced enough to answer your question, but I'm curious to see how it turns out. What is STR anyway?