Tuesday, March 6, 2007

Anguipede

Star-gazers may be familiar with Serpens Caput, the snake's head, and Serpens Cauda, the snake's tail; gamblers know about snake eyes. Thanks to Susan Lawrence, now there are snake feet (??) as well.

HP and the Horcrux Socks

I love these socks, knit from Susan's clever Horcrux Socks pattern. They're a lot of fun for HP fans and lace knitters. I particularly like the S-shaped lightning bolts (Z-shaped bolts just wouldn't do!). The 3x2 ribbing at the ankle and modest gusset give the socks an excellent, no-bag fit, and the square heel looks handsomer with the strongly linear lightning bolts and ribbing than a wedge heel. I used a finer weight yarn than suggested, so added a few extra repeats to give more width and length to the sock.

Socks and pineapple-shaped shortbread

Untenanted, the ribbing on the sock draws in, making the cuff and leg look a bit like pineapple-shaped shortbread. (Surely Prof. Slughorn would approve.) The yarn is Crystal Palace Panda Wool (46% bamboo, 43% wool, 11% nylon), bought at the tiny Whitney Avenue Yarn LLC store in New Haven. The new-fangled stuff knits up somewhat like cotton, with outstanding stitch definition and a bigger gauge than might be expected, yet the resulting fabric is both cushier and much lighter than cotton. This colorway, 4108 Vine Green, has marled green and sage-blue-gray strands that sometimes look solid, sometimes look stippled, and sometimes gleam slightly – an appropriately Slytherine mutability.

Taking pix of one's own feet is quite a task – I fell over more than once, as neatly as if tripped. Which leads me to leave the reader with a question: What do you suppose would happen if one tried Impedimenta on Nagini?

ETA: To view more socks, see the Horcrux Socks Flickr group. Susan is currently adapting the pattern for sockweight yarn.

4 comments:

--Deb said...

The socks look great--as do the Harry Potter books. It's going to take forever for July 21st to get here....

dragon knitter said...

i've saved this pattern. i do have some panda cotton, but i'm using it to make socks for my SIL who is allergic to wool. don't think i can do horcrux for her, lol. i'll find something to make with it, lol

Crystal Palace Yarns said...

Great Looking socks and unlike anything anyone else has posted with our Panda Wool.

I'd love to put a photo of your socks in our Gallery on our web site - May I post the bookends photo and link to your blog here?

Knit On!

Susan from Crystal Palace
http://www.straw.com

knitseashore said...

I like the way you took the photo of your socks with the pattern on the spines of the books!