Bandwagon socks

The Bandwagon sock pattern is done and I have the go ahead from various contributors to post it here. Remember that NONE of my pattern is original except the selection of colors and techniques used.

Which brings up the idea of 'What is Original'? I see a ton of patterns out there that just grab a Barbara Walker pattern and stuff it in a sock format and call it their own. Is that original? Designing a new toe shaping or heel shaping, to me that is original new stuff. But matching from column a and column b is not so original. Am I wrong in thinking that? I have the Treasury patterns too and can combine them myself.

For that matter, does recharting the Treasury patterns to be used circularly make them original? Apparently I am not the only one thinking about this as we start seeing them everywhere. Barbara Walker tells us herself that she collected them from various sources. Yet they are her collections, not ours to change.

My opinion is that everyone should own, or at least get from the library, Barbara Walker Treasury books and any other stitch collections that they can get their hands on. We are knitters, these are our tools. If we were painters, our colors would be our tools. We get color + dimension or stitches. Get them, own them, read them, use them.

But in every pattern published in a magazine that uses the Walker patterns, they make charts for your use. If they are gracious, they site the reference; most do not. Just so, I present this file. It is the lace pattern used in my sock, formatted to use with my Palm PDA and Documents to Go. It is in excel format, so you can use it on the computer too. I use the first column to either track repeats or just to let myself know which row I am on by changing 0's to 1's and back again. It is the matching file to the Bandwagon Socks Pattern.

Alden & Stephenie, Shetland and MS3

Have you ever used one of these?

Knitting Belt and needles, also called whisk, whisker and other names I have forgotten.

I like mine but could use it more. The long needles are harder to find than the belt. I see from other sites that there is a controversy about how many needles to use. I like 4, three to hold the sweater and one to knit around. The comments on other sites are heated, so I will leave that search to you all. But I do invite comments – how many needles do you use? In a dream world, I would find those nice, slightly bendy 18” steel needles that are not rusted. But Inox is also nice.

And as long as we are in Shetland knitting land, I have to mention this amazing photo tour of Purlwise’s trip to the land of wool. Her blog is splendid and this photo tour just can’t be beat.

Oh, and one last visit on today's Shetland tour.

It is the damn MS3 that has me blogging slowly these days. I just started a week ago and am so far behind. I blasted through clues one and two and am on three now, but quite shy about admitting to being two clues behind – well three today. Liking it though. Most of my spinning is lace weight when I am not paying attention or spinning for pure joy. Perhaps this is just the push I needed to return to lace. I really would hate to show a photo of the bins (yes, multiple bins) of laceweight. I swear that I could knit a shawl that could cover the house easily. It is a small house, but still…

I am using the steel sheet from my local lumber supply chain, along with super magnets and flat magnet strips as row holders. That way, not cat tail or clumsy human can disrupt pattern continuity. The yarn returns to a cage (dvd spindle) when not in use and stays nice and clean.


Meanwhile, for those who have expressed interest, I am putting the final touches on the socks with all the popular techniques built in. Henceforth called Bandwagon socks, for joining all those bandwagons on my favorite sites. They should be up very soon – just waiting for a sunny day to take the final photos.

Still recovering after last weekend’s workshop. Alden Amos and Stephenie Gaustad doing fiber prep. Extensive, wonderful, exhaustive and exhausting. Just wanted to sit at the feet of the masters and soak it all in. Ooh and we got to play with all those fancy tools. [Ropemaking, combing, wheels, ooh what fun!]