tokolosh

a propos of nothing at all, except that if i go to bed and go to sleep the next thing i know it'll be another zarking work day.

so there's this brand of pure virgin sheared-in-canada six-stranded unspun wool known as buffalo wool. so canadian, it's sold by the half-pound 'puck' instead of the usual 'ball' or 'skein'. used for making those amazing cowichan sweaters that let you experience life as a labrador retriever, for those who've been around the west coast for a while. just before christmas, i happened into a store that was selling off all their stock of it because it's been discontinued (again). great honking piles of pure virgin genuine nostalgia wool for - well, it would cost less per pound to buy soup bones. so i bought a truly immoderate amount of it, hauled up my cosy catholic-girl childhood memories and started knitting socks for myself.

this is bike related. pure wool socks, right? for those cold winter rides, right? self sufficiency, yeah? it's kind of fun to own such things if you make them yourself, especially for about a dollar a pair. and i do know how to knit.

i looked up intentional-shrinking and 'fulling' instructions on one of those craft-type websites so i could get a realistic idea how much this stuff shrinks and what sort of compensations to make before i started. made a bunch of sample swatches and followed the intentional-shrinking instructions of a master seaman, no less, who makes his own socks and likes them just right. HE LIED, that's all i'm saying. he lied. my samples didn't shrink at all, so i made my socks, wore them for a while to see what they're like (drool), and tonight i washed them in an actual washing machine.

shrank down like [rude word]s, that's what. they came out looking kind of like full-body armour for seahorses - extraordinarily skinny and kind of bulbous in certain places. what i discovered though is that if you get them while they're still wet and you're mad enough, you can stretch them back out again to a more reasonable shape. so i did that, and then i put them on just to make sure they realise what kind of shape they're supposed to be. i think i like them even better like this.

the only problem is i'm not sure what will happen as they finish drying. don't want to take them off in case they shrink back again. don't want to sit up all night waiting for them to dry properly. sure as heck don't want to fall asleep in them, wake up not feeling my feet and spend the rest of my life explaining to people how double amputation came into my life. this whole bike commuting thing is a whole lot more complicated than people tell you.

Jarery

LOL

Let us know what happened after you wake up

late

Hi,
if you stetch wool back out while it's still wet and warm; it is supposed to stay stretched. Haven't done it myself. Let us know how it worked.

Marylandnewbie

Tokolosh, simply the funniest post of the year and its only day one. Good luck with your socks and let us know what happens.

ItsJustMe

My wife knitted a wool hat a few weeks ago. I thought she was auditioning for the part of Weird Harold; the hat was huge, and completely came down to past my chin.

Once she shrunk it, it was fine. I was kind of amazed how much it shrunk. 1/2 its original size in all dimensions I'd say, so 1/8 its original volume.

tokolosh

they look good. i took them off once they were mostly dry, and they're still like that now. didn't want to waste them on such warm weather today, so i haven't worn them yet. late: it's not spun into solid strands, so i think you're right. i just separated the fibres a bit when i stretched them back out so they're not going to shrink any more.

since the wool wasn't spun into strands it turned into a kind of felt in the wash - so now i have very light, very warm, super-cuddly and probably damn-near waterproof socks, form-fitted to my very own personal feet. and i can wash them as hot as i like without worrying. and i still have the wherewithal to make another 25 pairs if i want. mwahahahahahahaaa. sometimes it really rocks to be me

Roody

Hilarious!
I admire your pioneer spirit, and your sense of humor.

If they stay shrunk maybe you can use them as bar grips or birth control devices or something.

ItsJustMe

My wife sez they will shrink more or less depending on how much you agitate them.

nicomachus

i don't know anything about wool or how to shrink it properly, but having just come back from frozen Canada, I found your monologue hilarious. thanks for taking the time to write it and share some humor with us.

and do tell us how the socks turn out.

Steev

My wife agrees with your wife. Wool undergoes a process called felting when agitated which basically involves the individual fibres knotting together. Stretching will not undo this. Wool should be handwashed with minimal movement and hung to dry unless you have deliberately made it oversize in anticipation of shrinkage.

atbman

How do socks know where your big toe is? If I take a sock with a hole over the big toe on my right foot and put it on the left foot, the hole mysteriously migrates to the other side of the sock so that it is still over the big toe.

And where does the wool/cotton/artificial material go to? It's never in the shoe.

Could this be the answer to that age-old mystery of where navel fluff/lint/whatever comes from? If so, socks must possess telekinetic ability.

Which, in turn, explains why odd socks turn up in the washing m/c. And why, when you shout from the bedroom, "Where are my lucky racing socks - the ones with the fluorescent green and pink checks?", she always says, "Look in the top of the rh drawer". Which is where you were looking and they weren't there, until she tells you they are.

Perhaps Schroedinger's Cat has something to do with it. ~The sock is both there and not there at the same time, until you open the drawer. Your wife's comment is the equivalent of the Schroedinger's Cat thingie (technical term)

I'm going to lie down now.

pinkrobe

It may be related to the Heisenberg Sock Colour Uncertainty Principle - you look in your sock drawer and pull out what you believe to be black socks. When you put them on, they're blue. By observing your socks, you have changed their colour. If you only look at one sock, you are very likely to end up with a mis-matched pair, despite the fact that they matched the minute/day/week/hour before. Physics at work.

tokolosh

your toes want to escape. they have an unerring instinct for freedom. it's like antelope and water or whatever that national geographic guy was going on about the last time i turned on the tv.

turn UP in the washing machine?? no, no, you've got it all dangerously wrong. they VANISH in the washing machine. what did they teach you in school? unless . . . . could you be living in a parallel universe, by any chance? if so, we'd like jimmy hoffa back now.

i know what happens to socks in this house. my kid borrows them. the real mystery is why socks disintegrate after 8 hours on the foot of a 15-year-old.

SteveFox

I have a freind who used to own alpacas and she made socks out of thier wool...those socks have got to be the greatest socks ive ever worn...i would walk around in puddles with just those socks on and they would just soak up the puddles, and no water would toch my feet....and they are uber warm. im wearing a pair right now in fact haha.

steve

marqueemoon

Awesome post. My girlfriend is a knitting fiend. She's tried spinning with the little bobbin thing, but I'm sure it's just a matter of time before there's an odd number of wheels in our back room.

Congrats on the new socks.

Eggplant Jeff

Hey how much to knit someone else a pair? Those sound awesome !

jyossarian

atbman lives in a mirror world where people appear to drive on the other side of the road and socks turn up in the washing machine because they've teleported from our world's washing machines to theirs. if you ever lose a sock in the wash, please call atbman and ask him to send it back.


Can you knit the HHCMF logo on them too?

Jarery

I went by MEC and the Taiga stores on brodaway over the weekend. I was hoping to see a Tokolosh stand selling hand made wool socks custom fitted by using a buckets of water and a cycle powered hair dryer. But alas, threre was no stand...

tokolosh

i think i'll just keep the day job.

oh my. that would involve making promises. commitments. things like that. but i'll get bored with making my own eventually and i still owe you for all the alert-shirt aggravation. so if you tell me what size your feet are (in ruler-type measurements, not shoe sizes), and you promise not to laugh if they ever do show up in your mailbox . . .

stockholm

I'm laughing so hard my coworkers are popping their heads up (think open landscape/cubicles)
- sorry, guys!

Do you take International orders? I have tiny feet: 21 cm.

jyossarian

I wanna get in on this sock action here too. Can you make it the Gryffindor House colors, burgundy and gold?