Stranded Knitting

Round 2 of Sock Madness is completed for me. The Fair Isle socks, Tokena, are knit and I love them. I love stranded knitting. This is a complete surprise to me, having resisted it for ages, mostly because, well, it sounds silly at my age, but, that's what my mother knit. So there, I've said it and proven that pushing 60 does not necessarily make me a wise woman. Of course, the main thing I didn't like about my mom's Fair Isle, or stranded knitting, socks, was that they never fit. They were beautiful socks, but she was much more concerned about the color than the fit. So, I had this idea that Fair Isle socks were tourniquet socks, with strands of yarns constantly threatening my circulation. That is, if I could even get them on. But, I have discovered that "Oh, don't worry about it, Linda. Just give them a tug and twist them around, you'll get used to it" is NOT a norm with these socks. Although, I do have to give a tug over my heel, once on they fit perfectly and are so comfy and warm. Can't wait until next winter when I can wear them and appreciate their double layer insulation.

Tokena by Zemi on Ravelry
Wildfoote Luxury Sock Yarn by Brown Sheep Company, Inc
1 skein each: Bark Cloth, Carmel
75% Washable Wool/2% Nylon
US #1 DPNs

That's Doug's foot behind me and the socks. It's his hint that he, too, wants a pair of Tokena socks. I'm thinking charcoal and gray.

You'll notice that I vacillate between calling the Tokenas "Fair Isle" and "stranded knitting." I'm new to this game, but it seems that Fair Isle is actually a specific type of colourwork indigenous to the Fair Isles. My understanding is that no more than two colors are used in any one row and, of course, there are traditional patterns. Stranded knitting is a more generic term, referring to the strands of yarn that travel across the back of the knitting as the colors change in the pattern. While I prefer saying "stranded knitting," since it is a more generic term, I slip into "Fair Isle," because that seems to be the more common term. But "Fair Isle" denies The Fair Isles their uniqueness and ignores that other cultures and places have also used this technique. I think it's the conundrum of a global consciousness: How to acknowledge individuality while being inclusive?

And, along those lines of stranded knitting, location and local traditions, Doug and I discovered this shoe tree out by Amboy, a small town in the Mojave desert in Southern California. No, not a shoe tree like those things you can put in your shoes to keep their shape or stretch them a bit. No, this is a desert tradition, although I'm sure they appear in other places as well. A shoe tree is where, for some reason I'm not sure that I even want to know, people toss their shoes up into a tree, where they get snagged on a branch and hang there seemingly forever. Here's the one in Amboy:



A little closer look, so you can see the shoes, laces tied together and flung up into the tree, like some ancient offering to the tree gods, nature, the Fates?



Why these shoes? What was given up when these shoes were thrown to the desert gods? A biker guy, walking away from the tree as we approached it, told Doug, "I gave it a pair of dog-chewed boots." That's a memory, not just a pair of boots, now hanging on a tree in the desert.



And what about stranded knitting, stranded in the desert?

Fair Isle is where you find it.