weezie the Dragonslayer

Chhhaaaarrrrgggeeee! (Uh, pretend it's a sword.)

The albatross has fallen! The cursed Dragonslayers are done, dunked, and dried. Now that this dragonmonkey's off my back, I have somewhat mixed feelings about them.

Also, please note that I'm so tired right now that my headache has a headache, so if my thoughts are all over the place, I hope you'll forgive me!

I am not a Frankenstein. I'm a Fronkensteen.

Frankenknit
I Frankenknitted this one together from spare parts. Would you like to see how it was done? Follow me to the weezalab, where we will begin our tour. Please keep hands and feet inside the car at all times, and remember, flash photography is not allowed.

• Toes - Knitty's Magic Cast-on.
• Foot - Dragon Skin stitch pattern from the second BW Treasury. I modded the original 26-stitch, 12-row pattern up to 30 stitches and 14 rows.
• Heel/Flap/Gusset - from Knitty's Widdershins, math-modded up for the higher stitch count and using the YO method instead of the wrap and turn.
• Leg - Dragon Skin on the front and back with P/K/P on each side for added stretch.
• Cuff - 1x1 rib after decreasing 2 stitches to match up with the P/K/Ps on the legs.
• Bind-off - kitchener bindoff in ribbing.

weeza + Widdershins, sittin' in a tree...

Battle beyond the slayers
In my battle with the dragon, there were some highs and lows. First, the highs: The foot sailed along fabulously. And I must give a HUGE thumbs up to the Widdershins toe-up heel flap! All the gusseting is in the round, you don't work back and forth until the turn, and after the flap, it's back in the round again. No picking up stitches, yay! Really brilliant design and the fit is great.

The middle ground: The kitchener bind-off was interesting. My tension was all over the place, so it doesn't look all that great. But on the legs, it disappears and blends in nicely with the ribbing. It's very stretchy, too, which makes it a good bind-off for toe-ups. But it almost feels *too* stretchy. Hmmm, not sure how I feel about this yet.

Aaaaand the lows: If you remember, I got all the way to the cuffs and the damn things wouldn't go over my ankles. As it turns out, that dragon skin? Not so stretchy. So I frogged all the way back to the flap, tried a thing or two, cursed like a sailor, stuffed them back in the bag, and put them away for a week to think about what they'd done. When they emerged from time-out, I frogged them back further, added two more rows to the gusset, and left 3 stitches on each side, adding a P1, K1, P1 to give it some give. That, thankfully, did the trick. Also, the cuffs are looser than I'd like, so I'm not thrilled with that part. But there's no way in hell I'm tinking it back to redo it. So they're a little floppy. I'll live.

Some things deserve a second chance.

Poke me, Poke me
Despite my previous misgivings about the KP needles, I was desperate for metals in 2.25mm, which Addi doesn't make. So, when KnitPicks debuted their fixed circs in this size, I decided to give them a second chance. I'm glad I did! In the smaller size, the fatigue factor I had with the larger needles was almost nil. Plus, the cable is perfect for magic loop and the tips worked great for all those M1s!

A shot from the ass cam.

Yaaarn
This is the much-sought-after Sweet Georgia Superwash in a colorway called Slayer. I had some issues with this from the wind-up, having found a knot in a 185-yard skein. I find that irksome. The knotted skein also had a couple of spots where a ply was unraveling, but I knitted them in anyway. (Sometimes I'm like an ostrich. I stick my head in the sand, my ass in the air, and hope it'll all work out.) Since the other one was fine, I'm sure this was just a bum skein.

Part way up the feet, I realized the two skeins were slightly different shades. Not unusual with hand-dyes and totally my error for not noticing sooner, but I still grumbled at having to frog them back. I split the second skein - which you know put a burr in my butt - and started them over so at least the toes and legs would match up colorwise (I know, I know, I could have alternated between the skeins, but that's waaay to fussy for socks for me). As a result, I now had eight ends to weave in instead of four. Great. Why don't I just knit a sweater. (Sorry, extra ends make me grumpy.)

On the plus side, there was minimal bleeding in the wash (especially for red!) and the color held true when dried. It developed that lovely, even, stitch-softening halo and it certainly holds up well to frogging (!), so it'll probably wear well. And I really love the color. It's not easy to make a solid look interesting, but this one has gorgeous, subtle variations of tones, dropped in here and there like a lovely little surprise.

As beautiful as they are, though, the feel didn't *quite* live up to the hype for me. It's soft, but not footgasm soft. And it doesn't have the lusty sproing of say, STR. I certainly wouldn't throw it out of bed for eating crackers, but I've had better. But then again, I have picky feet. Not to be confused with stinky feet.

That's a wrap
When they first came off the needles, I didn't really care for them. After a couple of days apart, I like them better, and they do look pretty darn cool! But the primary feeling is one of relief, that the dragons are slayed and I can start my next pair.

Dragonslayer Socks
Pattern: Frankenknitted together in the weezalabs
Yarn: Sweet Georgia Superwash in Slayer
Needles: KnitPicks size 1, 32"