Great Book!

I just got this book out of the library, and I love it! I love knitting socks, but lots of patterns elude me because I don't know how to do a short row toe or a short row heel, for example - many of the patterns I want to make are written for an experienced sock knitter, and while I consider my knitting abilities quite good, I don't know much beyond the basic sock recipe, cast on, do ribbing, knit leg, flap heel, pick up stitches, knit gussets, decrease for toe, bind off. I can do this in a pattern, too.

Lately I've been wanting to get a bit fancier. So far I've started (and frogged due to a small gauge issue - if the person I was making these for had thicker legs, this would have been perfect. I got all the way to the gusset on the first sock and ripped it out. I realized as well that the two skeins ofI yarn I got, while from the same colourway and dye lot, do not match. One batch is really dull, like the dye didn't take properly. I got the stuff in Chicago at Loopy Yarns, I really wanted to get some Lorna's because I was in their hometown. But I'm pretty unimpressed. The yarn is nice, but not ohmigodineedmoreofthisstuff nice. The squishy sock yarn I got in Minnesota at the Yarnery in Minnesota is more pettable. I'm not linking Yarnery because the sales clerk was really bitchy, I raced in their 30 minutes before closing on Sunday, because we had made a special trip to go to the shop, we actually finished at the museum early so I could go; then we drove around because we got idiotic mapquest (not linking them either, grrr!) directions that required us to go the wrong way down a one way street. So I finally get there, all frazzled. The clerk wanders over after a while and asks halfheartedly if I want help, when I say no she seems relieved. Then I went to check other yarn, and chat with another customer, who on hearing I'm from out of town is super-hospitable and even tries to push some sock reinforcing thread on me.

So then I'm browsing the yarn right by the till and this lady asks when they close, and the clerk says "RIGHT at five" - 'in a don't you dare even think about trying to make a purchase after 5:00' voice. Then one of her friends comes in and she's all friendly and chatting. Then I asked for a winder, and she says "they're right there" (the sign was there but they were obviously sold out). Treated me like I was a total idiot.

So anyway, I'm not going back. I go to too many cities and visit too many excellent yarn shops to put up with that crap. Sorry Yarnery people.