Thursday, January 17, 2008

Coriolis

After a slight internal struggle I decided to frog the Tantalizing sock. It really wasn't progressing as I would like and I didn't want to forge ahead only to be severely disappointed.
After ripping it out, I promptly cast-on the master Coriolis pattern from the same book. Here is the first sock.

Ok, it's a little wonky looking when not on the foot. But when worn...

Much nicer. Here is a better view of the top...
I didn't do any of the suggested variations. Instead I just knit the master pattern with a plain heel. After the heel was completed I knit for another 1 1/2" and then did 4 rnds of 1x1 ribbing. I knit one round of purl, and then 8 more rounds of knit and cast-off. This gave it a nice rolled edge, but with ribbing to keep it in place.

I'm very happy with the way this one turned out and will be casting-on the second sock tonight.

That being said, I have a huge complaint with the New Pathways book. The patterns are revolutionary and, once you muck through everything, fairly easy to knit. However the layout of this book SUCKS! You are constantly having to flip pages just to knit one pattern. For this "master" pattern I had to have 3 pages bookmarked for reference. If I had chosen a variation it would have been more. On Ravelry there have been a lot of people who have taken their copy to Kinkos to have the perfect binding chopped off and a spiral binding installed. I'm seriously considering doing this.

On top of the layout issue, because the patterns are generalized for all the variations (and presumably unwritten variations) they are not specific enough. There were several times where I had to stop and try to figure out what they heck I'm supposed to do, and I'm an experienced knitter and very well versed in sock construction. It's so bad that I think if I knit another project from this book I will have to go through and write everything out beforehand so I'm not constantly searching for the correct page, and possibly missing a step because I didn't pay close enough attention. :(

So, overall I would give the book a B. It really is innovative, but the layout went for style over ease of use and coherency. I would only recommend this book to experienced knitters. Definitely not for the beginner or novice.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oooo, pretty sock! I like it.

PenCraft said...

Wow! These are lovely. Nice pattern, yarn combo. Will keep the book review in mind--I thought about buying this one.

Got your message about the book list--if I had time to read I would sign up :) One of these days, work will stop getting in the way of my life! Thanks for thinking of me!