Last Friday the UPS-guy brought me this:The Unexpected Knitting by Debbie New.

It's not so much a pattern book, but more of an art book. Knitted art. A wondreful resource that opens your mind to new ways of doing things. Debbie New proves that you don't always have to knit everything straight from top to bottom or bottom to top. You can go in swirls, circles and labyrinths. The fashion is a little dated, but it's not the style of the garments that matters, it's the techniques. You can always adapt the technique to your own style.

After reading this book, I feel... liberated! I've had several ideas for socks that can't be done very well using any traditional technique, but now I know what to do! I think using the ideas from this book, I can not only draw the ideas I have, but also knit them. This will be so much fun! I can't wait to start experimenting! Here's a picture from the book of swirl socks:

I wanted to get started right away, but planning for socks made out of swirls is a little tricky. It's hard to wrap your mind around it -what shape should the swirls be that it actually makes a sock? And a sock that would fit somebody! So I started by cutting up an old sock into swirly strips of fabric. Then I drew my pattern:

Yup, that's a sock pattern! And here is one of my pieces:

The pieces of red yarn are just markers to mark the different sections of increases, decreases and straight knitting. I'm not quite sure yet how I will piece them together. This is definitely an experimental and a "learn as you go" kind of project. I've wanted to do something like this with yarns such as Trecking XXL that have slow and gradual color changes, and now I have the perfect technique to do that. So expect to see some very odd looking socks in the near future. ;)

Talking about Trecking, I'd seen some colors that I couldn't find anywhere, at least not more than one or two of them in the same place. But then I found this German yarn shop that had tons of colors! Maybe even all of them... I think I have almost all of the darker, more saturated colors from the row with numbers 71-77. And ordering from there with overseas shipping was actually cheaper than buying from here at a local yarn store. And once I had the kinks worked out with Paypal, my shipment came very fast! I was most happy with the service, and will definitely order from there again.