Sheep On My Stuff

Sometimes self-striping yarn gives you a perfect, awesome, amazing pattern.

Yarn used: Essential Multi in Shale print. Needles used: ...

Look! Zigzags! Awesome zigzags!

Sometimes, self-striping yarn totally breaks your heart. In this case, I couldn't replicate that pattern, even though I had another ball of yarn in the same dye lot. I tried six different needles in two different materials -- no dice. I tried swapping needles as I went -- no dice. At least I have a sheep to comfort me.

So this sock stands as a testament to the finicky nature of self-striping sock yarn -- which I have pretty much Gotten Over, to be honest -- and also a lovely practice sock. As it turns out, I did an afterthought heel for the first time on this sock, and I really like the way it turned out. Now I can refer to this sock when trying to figure out how much leg/foot I need for an afterthought heel, which is a bit more than I might have expected. And I really did like the afterthought heel -- it seems to fit me much better than the standard slip-stitch heel does. Yay!