I found the camera, so here is a photo of the second acquisition to my collection of Turkish socks:



Compare with the first pair:



My brother-in-law, Altug, said the new pair is more authentic, but not being a knitter, he wasn't sure why. I've been trying to figure it out based on the photos and information in Anna Zilboorg's Fancy Feet, which does not include any pattern resembling this one, but does have this:

"I have been writing as though knitting patterns and styles were essentially the same throughout Turkey. This is by no means the case. In areas where mohair is the dominant yarn, socks are mostly white, with fine lace patterns. They are made fluffy by being placed inside a freshly baked loaf of bread. In the eastern, Kurdish parts of the country, the socks are loosely knit from undyed, unspun yarn, somewhat similar to Icelandic lopi. ... The collection shown in this book contains one authentic Kurdish sock but is otherwise composed of multicolored stranded patterns of the type found throughout central Anatolia."

I'm not about to pick apart one of the socks to get a better look at the yarn, but in its knitted state, it appears to my untrained eye that the natural colored yarn could be a mohair blend. The contrast yarn -- a black and a dark green -- appears to be commercial two-ply, but the natural is undyed and almost certainly handspun as some vegetable matter is still present.

The multi-colored socks, the original pair in my growing collection, are knitted from commercial yarns, and some of the yarn may even be synthetic. But the patterns are similar to those in Fancy Feet.

I look forward to Altug's next visit to Turkey!

I haven't been knitting much lately. I'm almost to the armhole steeks on Donegal, and I would be finished with the back and front of Fjalar if it were not for a mistake. It appears I cast on five too many stitches for the right front (or was it left front?), although I followed the pattern. So I've been trying to decide whether to frog it or just make a few decreases; obviously, frogging is probably the way to go, but I'm such a lazy knitter. Because the pattern is already somewhat assymetrical, I think the decreases would not be obvious at all. But while I think about it, it sits in the basket.

So the only WIP I've made much progress on lately is The Rebozo, which is my mindless take-away knitting. It went with me on spring break and is 2/3 finished. I have a PTO meeting tonight, so it will increase a few more rows. Here it is: