I spotted a gap, then I filled it.

Before I begin today's blather, I'd like to show you something I bought a few weeks ago and am not sure if I displayed here:

Yarn Love fingering weight in colorway Turtle Cheesecake. Mmmm. Cheesecake. Actually, to me it either looks like a seal point Siamese cat's coloring, or Dog. Just...Dog doesn't have quite that much peach in his fur colorway. Not that he's opposed, just it's not really a naturally occurring color in dogs. I could always do some of his white up in a nice peach, I suppose.

Anyway. I've been beaten down. Lured to the Dark Side of Knitting. Yes, them as wot reads this Blog, I am planning to knit my first pair of socks.

Prior to this point, I never saw any reason to knit socks. DPNs are fiddly and prickly, Magic Loop escapes me (mostly because I can't get my circular needle wires to straighten out enough, boiling water not withstanding) and I can't handle two circs at once. But then a member of my knitting coven showed me the error of my DPN ways--I had been using metal DPNs, exclusively. I don't (typically) use metal needles for anything other than lace (and then only the circs) because it's too inflexible and slippery. I'm not big on yarn slipping off my needles and I keep a death grip on them anyway, so I switched to bamboo needles for most applications. It's got enough flex to keep my hands from cramping and grabs the yarn (and I don't, as you would think, grip them hard enough to snap--I think the flex encourages me to loosen my grip.)

So I picked up several sets of bamboo DPNs in the popular sock-knitting gauges, and then headed off to review patterns. Have y'all seen how many pages of free sock patterns there are on Ravelry, much less the rest of the internets? Holy carp. How does one choose?

So I hemmed and hawed and eliminated them one by one (I don't want lace for a first sock project, since I'm still getting my grip in with the DPNs, no cables as I've not done cables in a bigger project yet and I want to have a firm grasp on the principles before I do it on a small project, etc.,) and have decided I want to do the Fred & George Socks, from over at The Leaky Cauldron. It's a simple enough pattern that I won't get bogged down in the stitch details, plus the color alternations will make them interesting enough to actually finish. Not to mention, Fred and George are my favorite of the Weasleys (like just about everyone else in the online knitting world, I read and loved the Harry Potter series. It's inevitable, really, all the knitting that goes on in the books.) It should have been Percy! Ahem.

So, my completely biased sock pattern choice made, I went in search of sock yarn. Imagine my surprise when I checked my cedar chest of yarn and discovered that I have no sock yarn! Well, I do, but the colorways are hardly complimentary, and the four skeins (yes, of all my yarn, only four skeins are sock yarn) are earmarked for lace projects. Oh, I have Knitpicks Palette, which would do in a pinch, but I wanted sock yarn with nylon in it. It wears longer, and if I'm going to be bothered, they will last for a long time. As socks go.

Spotting this gap in my collection policy, I immediately rectified it. A quick trip to Joann's, and now I am the proud owner of this group of yarns:

The wise among you will realize this is way more than necessary for one pair of socks. There's two pairs' worth of yarn there. In two sets of colorways.

The first potential pairing will involve this pink variegation and the charcoal.

The second would involve this purple stripe and the solid purple.

I can't choose the colors I want to use first! Purples or pinks, purples or pinks...which is weird, anyway, because prior to today I would have said I completely despise purples and pinks! I'd rather wear sacking! No, not only have I been called over to the Dark Side with Socks, I've chosen girly colors.

Oh, the shame.