WIP Wednesday – My Boat Socks

There’s been a ball of Noro Silk Garden burning a hole in my stash for a number of months now.  Add to that the Edwardian Boat Socks pattern that I bookmarked years ago before I knew how to knit socks, before I learned to use double pointed needles, before I had ever knitted anything in the round.  Mix it all up and you have my WIP for this week!

The whole thing started last Friday as a bit of an accident.  I knew my next project would be socks, but I thought I’d stick to a simple ribbed pattern.  After looking through my Ravelry favourites however, I found this little gem that I’d stashed away after reading about it in the Yarn Harlot blog.  I’ve tried finding the actual post but haven’t had much luck (after trying for about 3 seconds).  All I can say is I saw these socks and wondered if I would ever be good enough to knit something this fabulous.

Jump forward 2 years and after reading through the pattern now I was pretty confident.  I’m up to the point of turning the heel things are going really well as far as following the pattern.  I have made a lot of mistakes but I’m not to worried about them.

The reason I’m not too worried about them is because the biggest problem with this project is the choice of yarn.  But before we go too much into why this is the wrong yarn for the project, let’s look at the photos.

Here’s where I’m up to.  Photos taken on my train trip this morning to try to get some natural light!

Here’s a close up, apologies my phone doesn’t take the best photos.Now let’s talk about why I will never use Noro Silk Garden for this (or perhaps any other) pattern again.  The yarn itself is single ply. There is no consistency in the width, it goes thinner and thicker, thinner and thicker.  This means the beautiful stitch in this pattern is not properly visible.  At one point the yarn even split on me as I was knitting, which I’m sure everyone agrees is such a wonderful thing to happen when you’re half way through a row!!

The colours in this yarn are absolutely beautiful, there’s no doubt about it.  But I have to say after my first experience knitting with Noro, I’m really starting to wonder what all of the fuss is about. There are lots of great quality yarns out there in magnificent colours.

Can anyone out there explain to me why Noro is supposed to be so highly regarded?  Or is it just that I’ve been listening to too much marketing material 🙂

Check out other WIPs at Tami’s blog!