Mudslingers, Mudslides, STR, and RPM

My hairdresser, Barbara, is an interesting person. She is a classy kinda gal, lives in a nice house not too far from the water on the South Shore of Long Island. She loves to have a good time and she loves to go dancing. I was thinking of making her a scarf but she had mentioned how she was out one night and called "Mudslides" "Mudslingers". We had a nice chuckle over that. She has seen some of my sock creations and would love a pair of her own. She wanted plain black, which I talked her out of. Mudslingers would be more her speed!

I love the STR yarn but I'm becoming more and more partial to the nearly solid of Rose Quartz as opposed to the stripey-ness of some of the others. I really, really love Ruby Slippers and I'm holding onto it for just the right pattern. Mudslide has been in my stash for awhile. It reminds me of drinking Bailey's Irish Cream with a Vanilla Ice cream Floating in it. Ah....the days when I was thinner and younger. The richness, the smoothness of the speckled Breyer's vanilla floating in a pillow of Bailey's Irish Cream, giving it that appropriate tang. That's what Elizzabetty and I used to do for fun back in the day. To think, all of those memories, wrapped up in a yarn. What more could one want for a snowy February night's worth of knitting?

The stripes weren't working for me. What pattern, what to do? Then, during an e-mail conversation with my partner in crime yarn consultant, Elizzabetty, she suggested, "Why not knit RPM?" EUREKA!!

After finishing up Eleanors for Eleanor, (quick, soundtrack of Eleanor Rigby should be playing in your head..."Eleanor Rigby, picks up the rice in a church where a wedding has been") I decided to whip out Mudslide and take it for a spin. I got out my scale and weighed out two balls of equal weight, 60 grams each. I clipped, I rewound the ball in the opposite direction so they'd be coming out of the skein the same way and casted on two at once, magic loop. Now, some of you may not think of this, yarn has a twist to it. It goes in one direction. Think of the little spinsters at the spinning wheel, they're pushing all of the fiber in one direction. If you look at it under a microscope, I betcha you can see the difference. If you knit two socks, with opposite directions, you just might be able to detect a difference. It would be, well, the nap of the fabric that you create. (Analytical scientist in me comes out once in awhile.) So, best to rewind the second ball in the opposite direction so that the yarn is going in the same direction for both socks. Also, if your yarn is striped, you'll be knitting the stripes in reverse order if you don't do this.

Anyway, I proceeded to cast on for RPM with the intention of knitting two at once using the magic loop method. To do this, you cast on 1/2 the stitches for the first sock and then all of the stitches for the second sock. Then, you fumble with the needle a bit and cast on the remaining stitches for the second sock and voila, ready to go. I have really given up on 'joining' and just work the tail into the beginning when the sock is done. It's just too difficult for me to get it nice and neat. I knitted the funky ribbing pattern, two at once, quite successfully. When I got into the pattern; however, I had to separate the socks. This isn't a pattern worked over a multiple of stitches with a nice repeat. It just doesn't work out that way. It would be difficult to work two at once, setting myself up for disaster. So, I'm going to do one to the heel and then the other to the heel and; heavens to Betsy, consider doing a forethought heel. I wouldn't want to distort the pattern of the striping pooling that I have going on. Note in the photo below, I've already separated the socks and worked a few rounds of the pattern.

Pattern: RPM available on knitty.com

Yarn: Socks that Rock, Lightweight, Mudslide

Needle: Knitpicks size 1 2.25

Casted on: 63 sts and the size is perfect!

Tablecloth: Linens & Things

It's Friday, it's snowing and I have a nice picture to show you for Eye Candy Friday:

Gotta work on my photography! Maybe we'll do a walk in the woods later this afternoon and I'll have a prettier one for you.

Ok, ok, here's another shot, at least give me credit for taking away the "Christmas Pumpkins" from my stoop!

Stay tuned for more RPM!