Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Falling (back) in love with red

  Autumn is a particularly good season to appreciate red. I used to adore the color red. When I was a student, it was my signature color—I had a favorite red shirt and a terrific red felt hat that I wore a lot.
More recently, I have had a problem with red because of its increased pervasiveness in Madison. On any given day a significant percentage of Madisonians dress in Badger red, the UW's official team color. It's a very specific red (PMS 200) and there are official guidelines on how to use it. On football game days, there can be over 80,000 people in the stadium dressed in red—if the opposing team is Ohio State, which also has red as their color. That's just way too many people to be wearing the same color, especially the identical shade of one color.
   And yet...red is a lovely color that can light up the scene.
 Let's not forget that red comes in many varieties.
I can't stay mad at a color forever, so I just knit some red socks. They remind me of raspberry jam, not just because of the color but also the nubbly texture of the lace when not on the foot.
 I'm not ready to buy a bunch of Badger gear, but I do love my new red socks.

Knitty-gritty: I knit my socks with Cadmium Red Inspire yarn by Blissful Knits and Dyeworks of Portland, Oregon. The socks were knit on size 0/2mm needles in my standard toe up pattern, using a 4 row/6 stitch lace pattern sometimes called Stem Stitch. You can find instructions in
More Sensational Knitted Socks by Charlene Schurch.

2 comments:

Evelien said...

Love your red socks. I know what you mean. I like orange, but it's the colour in Holland, associated with sporting events. I once had an orange umbrella with me at an open air rock concert. It was shortly after a world championship and Holland had lost in the finals. The singer of the band pointed out that he was really fed up with orange and that anyone still wearing it should be banned. The whole crowd turned and looked at me standing there in the middle trying to hide under my orange umbrella. It was very funny.
The whole range of reds has always been my favourite too. Lovely acer in the picture and what's the red berry bush? never seen anything like it.

Carolina said...

A friend who knows about such things says the plant with red berries is a high bush cranberry (Viburnum trilobum). It's not actually a cranberry but looks like it and is similar in flavor. It's native to North America but there is a closely related European plant, Viburnum opulus.
That's a funny story about the orange umbrella!