The Knitting Fiend

Like every other knitter in Chicagoland, I went to Stitches last weekend. Unlike most others, I have not yet described the event at my blog.

If I may have a drum-roll, I will now reveal this shocking fact about my visit: I bought yarn.

Sock yarn. =>

Believe it or not, this was a bit difficult to find. The vendors boots were chock full of ultra soft pet-able cashmere, silk, alpaca and merino. Countless skeins of beautiful hand-spun, hand dyed yarns hung from hooks. Some booths (though not many) displayed novelty yarns. As KnittyKat, Heather, Betty and I circulated around the market we saw self illuminating knitting needles, swifts, spinning wheels and silver shawl pins. Cute stitch markers, and interesting bracelet type things to help hold up your skein while knitting.

At every booth, vendors approached asking, “May I help you?”

I answered, “I’m looking for sock yarn.” Those who had sock yarn swiftly escorted me to the bin with self patterning yarn, proudly displaying the very beautiful, very popular self patterning yarns. I would add, “Erhmmm… solid color yarn. For Argyles. For a man.”

Truly, as Franklin Habit recently observed:

Unfortunately, in your shops all I find are self-patterning sock yarns and sock yarns in “fun” variegated colorways.

Lucky for me, I stumbled into “Sutter’s Gold’n Fleece” where I chatted with the lady in the booth (probably Liz Sutter). I described my current project: test knitting seamless argyles. =>

I explained I needed solid color sock yarn; I preferred colors my husband, Jim, would wear. My husband wears socks under his dress slacks which tend to be blue, olive, khaki, black or grey. She told me that — being from Wisconsin — she understood completely ; she then pointed me toward a table covered with sock yarn.

I said: “Wow!” Wearing a knowing look on her face and nodding her head, she responded, “Hunters like hand knit socks.”

I spent the next half hour placing various colors next to one another and finally decided Jim would like a pair of beige-brown-white Argyles to wear with his Dockers. I bought plenty; Jim may want two pair.

(Later after the 3 pm drawing, I spotted Franklin surrounded by eager fans. Not wanting to join the throng, I failed to dash up to him and alert him to the availability of sock yarn in manly colors. No doubt he found the yarn anyway. )

Tonight, I will cast on. But before I do that, I need to buy the contrast color yarn so I can duplicate stitch the criss-crosses on my black and white not quite finished Argyles. I am trying to decide if I prefer bright blue or red. Decisions, decisions!

After note: Remember to vote in my knitting blog competition. ( My apologies to those who may have been blocked from voting last night, Chicago time. There was a glitch in the function that checks whether you’d voted recently; I fixed it. Thank you to the two voters who let me know about the problem. )