Pooling Sock Yarn

Remember my little exercise in pooling sock yarn with the Into the Whirled Pikakku Sock  yarn?  I think I’ve created the perfect pooling!  If there were an award for the most beautiful sock, this sock just might get that award!

Pooling Sock Yarn

This happened when I cast on 64 stitches using 2.25 mm needles.

In the previous socks, which didn’t result in nearly as much pooling, I had cast on 60 stitches using 2.25 mm needles.  Carol had used the same yarn and cast on 60 stitches using 2.75 mm needles and her socks looked almost exactly like my socks with 60 stitches cast on.  I haven’t really thought about it in depth (and probably won’t) but it seems that casting on 64 stitches with 2.25 mm needles, shouldn’t be a whole lot different from casting on 60 stitches using 2.75 mm needles.  Am I wrong . . or backwards in how I’m thinking about this?  Or, it it all just too much to even think about?  🙂

Pooling Sock Yarn

See that little band of tight stripes right at the heel?  That’s purely from the yarn pattern with the number of stitches on the needles at that point. Isn’t it perfect?

On the first pair of socks, I was using the Quicksilver round dpns that I use almost all the time.  On the above socks, I was using new Knitter’s Pride cubics so I thought maybe my gauge was a bit looser than normal.  Just above that first pink strip on the foot, I reduced down to 60 stitches to see if, with the cubics, I got the same striping pattern as with the Quicksilver round needles and yes, with 60 stitches, the striping pattern went right back to what it had been on my first Into the Whirled socks.

Pooling Sock Yarn

So far, the second sock is pooling/striping almost exactly like the first one did.

These are going to be my absolute favorite socks of all time.  Do you think I’ll ever wear them or will I just save them and look at them?  I don’t know what I’ll do but I surely do love this yarn.