Saturday, April 28, 2007

Freedom at last to work on Stash-Buster Socks

The splint is off and I can now drive. I celebrated my return to the world by going to Bartley Ranch Park's Planting Day where some of the Guild were busy demonstrating spinning and dyeing. It was fabulous to get out after a couple of weeks confined to the house. No spinning yet for me. The doctor said to push my limits and keep the elbow moving, so I have tried a little knitting. I can only manage a few sock rows at a time, but it is gradually improving. It is ever so satisfying seeing progress on my stash-buster socks.

What are stash-buster socks? They are a great way to use up those little balls of early uneven handspun that are cluttering up your fiber stash. There is not enough of any color for a project on their own, and they are neither terribly attractive nor terribly evenly spun, yet you can't bring yourself to throw them away. So they sit forever in a corner of your stash. With stashbuster socks, you pair them up to have enough for a pair of socks, then knit them in stripes to make it look like you didn't just run out of the first color. If the dye job is, well, not too attractive, or if the colors don't really go together, you can either wear them with jeans, or drop the finished socks in a dyebath that will pull the varying colors together. I am debating whether to overdye these with yellow or blue.

4 comments:

Birdsong said...

Good progress! Glad that the visit to the dr. led to greater freedoms... you sounded just a bit tired of the whole 'incapacitated' thing. The guild library has a book titled The Yarn Stash Workbook that explores a similar concept to your stash buster socks; take a look at it sometime.

Beryl Moody said...

Welcome back to the land of fiber. Hope that elbow keeps on getting better.

Sharon said...

I rather like the colors as they are. I know - you can wear them for a while and then after a period of time, drop them in a dyebath and then you'll have a whole new pair of socks.

Anonymous said...

Overdye with blue - you'd have to use way too much yellow to make a dent, and the gray would turn a bilious green.