Notices by Mre. Dartigen [maker mode] (dartigen@aus.social)

#knitting

Trying to figure out how I could make some parts of a sock thicker than others... I know I'd have to change stitch, but I'm not sure what to. I'm using wool yarn, so I know it'll compress a bit and potentially felt a little over time as well. (I want to make a few key points in the next pair of socks a bit thicker the very end of the toe section, under the ball of the foot, and the bottom and back of the heel tend to be where my socks take the most damage.)

I also feel like I read somewhere that there's a way to do a double knit by hand? As in, you're knitting two layers at once but joined together. I feel like that would product a fairly thick fabric.

@violetmadder @coolandnormal And back in the day you didn't have to take days or weeks just to figure out who makes the 'will last for a reasonably long time' version of something you need, potentially also finding out 'and once you add in the shipping it's out of your budget', 'and they don't ship to you', 'and it's only sold by this one wholesaler who doesn't sell to the public', 'and they don't make it in the right electrical plug for your country', or 'and they stopped making it a few years ago' (or even worse 'and they changed it last year and now it sucks'). Or sometimes 'and it sells out within hours whenever this seller restocks and they don't take preorders'.

Might sound ridiculous, but I went through that trying to find a frypan with a detachable handle that wasn't coated (or had a decent enough coating to hold up to heavy use), something that I thought would be easy to get at a camping store. I got lucky after three weeks and found one that was also cast iron and a reasonable price, but again, only after a lot of searching. I even tried a professional kitchen equipment supplier and couldn't find anything (but did find a place to source other decent kitchenware at least, if I ever need it again).

I'm pretty sure my grandparents didn't have to spend three weeks digging through catalogues or going to various stores to find out who made decent pans and where to buy them at. They might've taken that much time for, say, figuring out what car would be best for them, or some other such large purchase, but not something like this. They probably never had to pay for postage either because they could get what they needed from a stockist in their city, not have to order it from interstate or even overseas just to get something halfway decent. (Maybe people in rural areas had to do that, but not people living barely an hour out of the CBD of a major city.) And they didn't have to wonder if they'd still be able to get the same brand next year, or if the quality would have changed for the worse by then.