My Dragons
My Feelings on Socks
Over on my most recent Knitty review, the author of the sock pattern An American in China left a comment about "at least you like my name and yarn", thus implying that I don't like the pattern. This is not, in fact, true, at least not in the way I think the comment was meant.
It's not that AAiC is a bad pattern; I'm sure it's perfectly fine and produces socks that fit quite well. My problem is not with that sock pattern in particular; it's with sock patterns in general in knitting publications. I think they take up more space than they're worth, basically, because they're just socks. I realize there are people who love knitting socks, but really, the Net is overflowing with cool, free sock patterns--and also, I love knitting mitered squares but that doesn't mean I think every issue of every knitting mag should include a mitered square pattern.
Plain ol' sock patterns, which AAiC really was (despite the Bordhi influence), are a waste of the magazine's resources in space and in money to pay designers. A neat lace cuff is not enough, nor are interesting cables or a cool fiber; to be worth it, sock patterns have to be truly extraordinary. Very few sock patterns are cool enough for my tastes, and I get (very mildly, I admit) annoyed to note that there's yet another generic sock, or even generic sock with neat cuff, in any knitting magazine.
Perhaps this is elitist of me; I am assuming that any given knitter can think, "Hmmm, I'd like to do a pair of socks that's a little more elaborate than usual; what can I do with the cuff to make it cool?" Because, well, I can do that doesn't mean everyone can. I don't know. I just wanted to make it clear that it wasn't any particular emnity for An American in China that caused me to characterized it as "eh, socks".