Today I subbed at the individual tutoring school. It's not really a school, but a tutoring company where kids can take 1 - all their classes for credit. I had 3 students. The first student was taking English Lit, and reading Siddhartha by Herman Hesse. He is almost finished with the book. We had a wonderful discussion about immortality and enlightenment.
I prompted the boy to think of ways someone could become immortal today. As we talked about having children, founding new "religions" as paths to immortality, I started thinking about knitwear/crochet design. Create a beautiful pattern that becomes a classic. Immortality.
Enlightenment is another thing.
When I get to the gusset area of a pair of socks, I can never remember if I'm suppose to ssk first or k2tog. I often open up patterns of socks I have already knit to read the directions and see what that designer did. This doesn't always work though, because I knit my socks 2-at-a-time and many designers write the directions for 3 double point needles.
Why should that matter? Well, when you are using 3 double points, after you finish turning the heel, the "new round" usually begins in the middle of the heel. So you knit: left side of the heel, left gusset, instep, right gusset, right heel. When you are knitting socks on circular needles, either 1 or 2 at a time, you can begin that new round in the middle of one of the heels, but it makes more sense to knit the half of the heel and gusset, and begin your new round at the beginning of the instep (front) of the sock. This means that I always have to check which method the designer used, and possibly translate to MY method of sock knitting.
Anyway, I always waffle at those gusset decreases. Which looks better? ssk sole k2tog or k2tog sole ssk???
On my Tonight socks, I decided to do one sock with ssk first, and the second sock with k2tog first. I learned so much about doing this. One thing is that neither is RIGHT, but honestly they are both a design choice. It's way too late for photos, but I'll try to get some good ones so I can show you the difference. Mostly, I think I understand why each looks different. This is the enlightenment part. I don't need to memorize which to use first, I can now choose based on how I want the fabric to look.
Pretty cool.
Om,
f1bercat
shaping the planet with enlightening socks, and a cat.
Enlightenment is always a good thing - and when it is accompanied by such a beautiful lion-cat, how can you go wrong?!? ;)
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