Socks – Page 8 – Yarn, Books & Roses

Introducing the January 2015 Sock

On New Year’s Eve I made some resolutions for myself. What was I thinking of? Obviously a moment of weakness! One resolution was the promise to select sock patterns from my collection of sock books, and to then knit one sock a month using only the yarn in my stash. Hey that’s a good resolution, right? I end up with at least 12 new socks and make a dent in the stash at the same time. Happy feet!! Sad wool moths. It’s all good!

I had a lot of fun the first week of the year digging through books to select patterns, but decided to finish some of the projects I already had going before I started the resolution socks. Friday I finally went digging in my yarn stash to see if I could find some fun yarn combinations to make a Fair Isle type sock. I had in mind to make the “Riot of Color” sock in Around the World in Knitted Socks by Stephanie van der Linden. I settled on two hand painted sock yarns with the idea that they had enough contrast to show the pattern, but there would be enough overlap in colors that the pattern would fade in and out a little.

Pattern book ad yarns. — Don’t these two yarns look like they will go together well?

Perfect! I wound the yarn into balls while visiting one of my sons Saturday, and today I settled down to knit. This is what I had produced by dinnertime,

Knitted Sock — Here it is tonight. I changed the top of the sock as I was anxious to see how well the colors contrasted in a pattern.

Sweet! It looks warm, doesn’t it? My little feet have been really cold this week, so that is a big bonus right now. Oh yeah, I will be knitting away on this baby pretty steadily for the next couple of weeks. Here’s my project page for this sock if you would like to get more information about the yarn colors and needle size.

Stay tuned everyone. I hope to have these done long before the end of the month. 🙂

FO Friday: Conflicted Mood Socks Are Done!

Yep, you got that right. These socks are knitted in a pattern called Chouwa, which evidently means “Harmony” in Japanese. The colorway of this yarn is “Malice”. Huh. The year is starting out in an interesting way. Anyway, my feet are happy, and that is all that matters since this is another ice-encrusted day in Colorado. I’m looking forward to the big warm-up tomorrow, but I’ll still be wearing these socks. I might even sleep in them.

Happy Friday everyone! If you’re a crazy midnight knitter like me, remember its the second star to the right and knit on till morning.

WIP Wednesday: Socks, Mitts and a Shawl

Yep, it is cold out there. I was thrilled that the driveway finally melted dry yesterday only to discover it covered with an inch of snow on top of a bulletproof layer of ice this morning. The trees had inch long hoar frost! Beautiful, but a little dicey taking the trash cans to the bottom of that driveway.

What a great day to knit. I decided that I absolutely needed to try to make a lace mitt on cable needles, so risking my life on the driveway I headed out to the LYS briefly to get two 2.25 mm red lace ChiaoGoo cable needles. I scored 16″ needles and headed home (with a side trip to IKEA on the way back to score some cinnamon rolls…) to cast on.

Yarn and Needles — It’s a start! I am tired of my mitts falling off the double pointed needles so I am going to try to make a pair using 2 small cable needles. Right now it is really confusing…

OK, it’s only the start, but they make me happy. The yarn is La Jolla by Baah Yarn. I once lived and worked in La Jolla (California), so it makes me really happy to knit this yarn. To make it even better, the colorway, “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” is a special dye job for the owner of Colorful Yarns. Can you tell Tiffany’s favorite color is purple?

Now that I have cast on a mitt and gotten far enough along to see how to do it, I need to get back to the socks that I am working on right now. I’m almost down to the heel flap on the second sock, so I really do need to buckle down and get them done over the next couple of days as there is more snow coming at the end of the week. Woo-hoo! Knitting weather!

Knitting — This yarn is 20% cashmere. It sure would be nice and warm to wear.

There is one more project that is slowly chugging along. It is a small shawl that I started during a trip in the car over the holidays. It’s mostly garter stitch, so it is an easy knit. Now that the new season has started on television perhaps I will get it cranked out in the next two weeks, too. No promises, as I am also itching to get started on my New Year’s resolution January sock. I’m looking at a skein of red yarn in my stash and thinking how nice it would look on my knitting needles… The red would go really nicely with my fabulous Hitchhiker shawl…

Sock pattern: Chouwa by Judy Sumner (in the book Knitted Socks East and West) Sock yarn: Hedgehog Fibres Sock, colorway Malice.

Shawl pattern: 3S Shawl by Amy Meade. Yarn: Zen Yarn Garden Serenity 20

Successful Reboot: Socks are done!

A couple of weeks ago I started a pair of socks, decided that they were a disaster, ripped them out, and then started over in another pattern that I thought would keep the colors from pooling so badly. (The chronicle of that effort is my post “Sock Reboot” in case you want to see what I’m talking about.) Well, I finished the socks last night, and here’s what I got.

Finished socks. — Through some happy accident both socks pooled on the foot in the same manner. Kind of fun, huh.

Wow. I couldn’t be happier with how the colors worked out on the socks. The legs are kind of striped, the colors pooled on the foot in a way that I kind of like, and then the toe ended up with an interesting stripe effect. I think that they are really cute and am glad that I ripped out the first effort with this yarn. The fabric of the upper part of the sock is very stretchy, and it fits my fat little Swedish leg well. The twisted rib on the foot was a little fussy to do, but it brought out the best in the yarn and makes it fit my foot snugly.

Colors on the finished sock. — Here’s another view of the socks that shows off how the color pooling changes on the sock. I really like what happened on the toes.

The pattern on the sock is kind of cool. The criss-cross stitch forms lace columns down the sock that continue along the edge of the heel flap. It is pretty hard to see in the painted yarn, so I cast on another pair of socks last night in a solid red merino sock yarn. The adventure continues…

Sock Pattern: Traversus Socks found in Knockout Knits by Laura Nelkin.

Yarn: Simple Sock Fingering Weight by MJ Yarns in the colorway Midnight Orchid

Sock Reboot

Gosh, I really like Corriedale sheep. The very first fleece that I spun was from a lamb named Bob with long, lustrous locks and a gentle crimp. The owner of the flock and I became friends, and I would go out to visit her sheep and even helped skirt fleeces when she had her flock sheared.

So when I saw this yarn at Shuttles, Spindles and Skeins in Boulder, Colorado, I had to have it. It was Corriedale sock yarn, dyed locally at MJ Yarns in a wonderful colorway called Midnight Orchid. I couldn’t wait to get started on it, and cast on to make simple garter rib socks to show off the fabulous colors.

Orchid Pooled Yarn — Gee, look at all the orchid pools on this side of the sock.

Midnight Side of Sock — But the other side of the sock is all midnight with one lonely orchid strip…

Yikes! The orchid colors all pooled on one side of the sock, and the midnight ended up on the other side. NOT the look that I was hoping for. Be strong, I told myself, and ripped it all out in under a minute flat. Back to the drawing (knitting) board; I started looking at other possible patterns. After going through some pattern books (OK, I have way too many sock books…) I settled on a sock pattern that uses wrapped and twisted stitches.

Criss-Cross stitch — The criss-cross stitch pattern in this sock really changes the fabric of the sock and made the pooling stop.

Problem solved. The colors have settled into stripes and the front looks just like the back. I like the way the twists show off the yarn. As a bonus, this fabric is also very nice and stretchy.

Yeah! Happy knitting again. I hope to have these socks done by the end of the week. 🙂

Sock Pattern: Traversus Socks found in Knockout Knits by Laura Nelkin.

Yarn: Simple Sock Fingering Weight by MJ Yarns