Wednesday, August 16, 2006

kenya inspired sock

behold the sock:


this is the sock that has emerged from my first attempt at kool-aid dying.
I was flipping through my vogue knitting book a week before kenya and saw the bow-knot stitch at the back and fell in love with it. not sure why.
I thought it looked like little sunbursts and I thought it might be a nice addition to a sock.
the colours of the sock looked all sun-shiney (is that a word?) to me and I thought it might be a nice kenya project.

didnt' get too far in the actual knitting of it as we were so busy.
I have worked on it a bit since I've been home and this sock just seems to be flying off the needle.....
I am loving this little sock and it's my first design!

okay, so I didn't invent the bow-knot, but I put it all together in a sock pattern.

okay, so it's just a simple 60 stitch, 2 x 2 ribbing on the cuff, 58 stitch for the 10+9 pattern repeat on the leg, short row heels and toes---but it's all mine.

I tried wrapping my brain around the 10+9 stitch pattern repeat after having travelled for 19 hours straight: through the night, through 2 time changes--while wearing the same clothes, eating airport/airplane food and not having any caffeine.
my brain hurt and I seriously messed the pattern up.
I ripped the whole thing out back to the ribbing and started again a week ago.

the coolest thing that doesn't cease to amaze me is the self striping quality of the yarn, especially in the heels:


I didn't set out to have any pattern to the dying.
having just wrapped the yarn around the back of a chair, divided it into "sort of" thirds and used the only colours of kool-aid I had in the house, I think it turned out well.

I am happy with the socks, they make me think of kenya, so I am naming them:
the "I dreamed of Africa" socks.
I think I saw that movie once, I don't remember liking it.

I need to make a list of all the kenya movies I need to see.
we watched the constant Gardner again the other night.
we totally recognized places in the movie and it made me so excited. for any who have seen it:
in the beginning when they first arrive in kenya and tessa is all pregnant walking around in the slum--that's the kibera slum where we did a childrens' carnival.
I think I even saw the church we visited, in the movie.
I can't see the pictures or video of the slum without remembering the smell.

also, where tessa and arnold were "found" was lake turkana--we were there and saw thousands and thousands of flamingo's there.

my movie list will include: out of Africa, born free (don't laugh I've never seen it), the ghost and the darkness (saw it once, fell asleep, want to see it again) and maybe the constant Gardner again (I'm hooked).
we saw areas where all of those movies were filmed.
we saw a private island were the animals for out of Africa were taken to film the movie. the producers then left all the animals on the island (except for the lions) and that is where we started our safari. later in our trip we saw where the lions were set free--which is also where the ghost and the darkness was filmed.

the "I dreamed of Africa sock" in natural light:


blogger gave me lots of trouble with this post. this is the second time i have done this post, the pictures were all sideways and upside down last night...has anyone else had this problem???


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