Chat Back for October 3

Answering questions from comments and email.

Shirley asked . . .

Do I really want to knit another intricate pattern after just finishing Marlene??

Of course you do!

Just today I got the perfect yarn for Clandestine in the mail. It's Stalwart Sock from Slackford Studio in Stormy Night.

My skein is darker than the picture on Etsy, so I didn't think of this yarn as a Clandestine candidate until I unwrapped it. Then it yelled CLANDESTINE! at me.

Even the two names go together - Clandestine meeting on a stormy night. That works.

As of this moment there is one skein of Stormy Night left in Susan's Etsy shop as well as many other beautiful colorways.

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Dorothy asked a compound question . . .

Oh man! He really is old, isn't he?? I'm not sure even I remember 5 cent coffee, although I do remember free refills. Well, actually most places still give free refills, don't they?

DH Bob is only 15 months older than I am, but we're both years older than Dorothy. (My Medicare card arrived in the mail several weeks ago. Good grief, how did that happen?)

Back to nickel coffee. I didn't start drinking coffee until I was over 50, but I do seem to remember restaurant nickel coffee when I was a kid.

Can anybody help with this? How long ago was nickel coffee in a restaurant? I'm guessing in the 50s?

And yes, Fletcher's Pub where Mom and I like to eat lunch and many other SW Michigan restaurants still give free refills. Although after paying ~ $2 for the first cup, how free is that?

I never take advantage of the refill. More than one cup of coffee gives me the hyper jitters so I have to measure my coffee intake carefully.

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Marie asked . . .

How do you do such a great job of choosing colors that work together when using a strand of fingering and dk/worsted together? Also, about how much fingering weight do you need when doing this?

I plop the fingering down next to the worsted and if I like the way they look together and I think I have enough of the fingering to get to the toe area, I use it. Usually if a fingering weight yarn has a color in the same family as the dark worsted they will go together.

Sometimes my little left over sock balls are enough, sometimes they're not. I knit both combo socks cuff down at the same time and am always ready to finish up the toes with a neutral or coordinating or not coordinating fingering yarn if the first selection doesn't get me to Kitchener.

I'm more careful with Bob's birthday socks and sometimes even buy the fingering weight so I'll have a whole skein and he has nice looking gift socks.

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Kathy B asked . . .

Is that Tigers EYE? I LOVE IT

It's not the same as the Barbara Walker Tiger Eye, but it may be the same as what some other knitter calls Tiger Eye.

So many of the traditional patterns have multiple and overlapping names. Maybe we need a Linnaeus system of Latin nomenclature for our stitch patterns?