Stripes of various sorts

  Using self-striping yarn always reminds me of how I adored yarn that changed color when I was about eight. I hope I never totally grow up if it means I have to get too sophisticated for this kind of yarn. One of its advantages is that just plain knitting can be rather interesting but not require much attention. I often knit my socks during Scrabble games when I'm waiting for my turn. (How much knitting I get done depends on who I'm playing with but it does keep me from going nuts during slow games. )

  I recently knit some socks from some vintage yarn I got at a de-stashing event and I don't know what the brand is. I thought the yarn was ugly in the ball, but when I knit it up I really liked the socks. Moral of the story: it's just really hard to tell what self-striping yarn will look like when knit.  Oddly, the stripes stacked up much wider on one of the socks than the other.

I was also pleasantly surprised by this Zino  by Plymouth Yarn in colorway 2. On the ball band the tiny picture can't show the lovely subtlety of the colors. So far it's not looking nearly as stripey as I expected. By the way, the photo shows the sock and yarn in a stainless steel bowl. I like to use a bowl to keep the ball from rolling around on the floor. During the dry season in Monteverde things can get quite dusty.

  Much more elaborate are the stripes in my current Fair Isle project, a cardigan sweater. I wonder if everyone puts markers between their repeats in a Fair Isle project. By making sure the marker is in the same place of each pattern as you go around, you can notice mistakes right away. I just use loops I've made out of string as my markers. On the left you can see a steek; I mark each side of a steek. They might not coincide with a pattern repeat but it's important to know where to start and end them. This is definitely not knitting to be done while playing Scrabble.