Wibbly Wobbly Doctor Donna Socks

When someone has many passions, it is always fun to find little ways to overlap them.  A while ago, I found a great little yarn dyer called Nerd Girl Yarns, who dyes skeins of yarn in lovely nerdy themes, like Firefly and Sherlock and one of my newfound passions, Doctor Who.  Even the hard heart of a girl trying not to buy more variegated sock yarn has to be softened by such delightful fare.

One of the Doctor Who themed skeins was called Doctor Donna, the name of which will bring a tear to the eye of many a Whovian.  After putting it in my shopping cart and mulling it over for a week or two, I finally gave in to my baser urges and decided it was best just to buy it (along with another skein which we'll talk about another day.)

Doctor Donna has lovely portions of both a nice brown from Tenth's suit, as well as a beautiful deep Tardis blue and a deep auburn reminiscent of Donna's hair.  I was hoping for the best as I began at the cuff, where the blue and brown seemed destined to make a nice path around and around the sock.

By the time I was done the leg, I knew I was in trouble.  The blue pooled at the back of the leg, and didn't make much of an appearance at the front.  I shrugged it off because I knew things would change up at the heel flap and gusset.

The blue appeared, making several stripey rounds of different sizes as the sock circumference changed.  Then I got to the foot and realized that it was no good, the blue would somehow stay on the sole for the entire foot of the sock.  As you can see in the photo (with a cat paw included not so much for a size comparison but because my cat is determined to become one of those viral internet cats) the blue only reappeared again at the toe.

There is a second sock, though, I thought.  Well, you can see what came of that.  Somehow it turned out almost exactly the same.

At some point I remembered a moment from one of my favourite Doctor Who episodes, The Doctor's Wife, and although it was the Eleventh Doctor in that episode, and not Donna's Doctor, it certainly applies here:

The Doctor: You didn’t always take me where I wanted to go.

The Tardis: No, but I always took you where you needed to go.

I guess the yarn took me where I needed to go.

Ariel Socks

Even though I put a great deal of effort into knitting up my whole variegated sock yarn stash, last year, there are still times when seeing a particularly beautiful skein makes me weak in the knees.  When I saw this yarn at the Loopy Ewe, a fuzzy warm BFL called Willow, from Huckleberry Knits, I noticed not only the amazing colours but that the colourway was named Little Mermaid.  How could I resist that?

I started out using a 2.25 mm birch circular, on the first sock, but somewhere around the heel of that sock, the needle tip broke off (ugh) so I transferred everything to a 2.25 mm steel circular.  Being as the needles were the same measurement, I never imagined that the two socks would turn out so different!  You can clearly see the different ways the colours stack on each foot, and somehow it even looks like there's a limey green in the right foot (there isn't.)  It turns out that my stitches are a wee bit snugger and tidier on a steel circular.  This may change everything.

I have another variegated sock yarn on the needles right now, and it's doing something even crazier, but that will be a topic for another day.

Snapdragon Socks

I wanted to celebrate the end of my Variegated Sock Yarn into Stockingette Socks project, so I saved a favourite of mine - sweetgeorgia's Snapdragon colourway in my coveted BFL sock yarn - for the final pair.

Despite what your eyes are telling you, this colourway features some fun fuchsia (not reddish) stripes on a super bright lime background.  In a fuzzy BFL sock yarn, they make some pretty warm, sturdy, and spectacular socks.

I did my basic sock, toe up with an afterthought heel, and tried the round decreases on the heel again.  This time I used the kitchener stitch to graft the last six stitches together, which I think makes a nicer close than just threading the loose end through and pulling tight.  I am growing to like the round heel, although for some reason it makes the instep tighter, I think, so I'm still working out the kinks in that.

Is it crazy that I've been wanting to order more variegated yarns to make socks?

Good Mood Socks

When I was a kid, I never went to summer camp.  I would always read stories about kids who went, or watch movies where it was such a universal experience, but I never got to go, myself.  Fast forward a couple of decades (okay, a few) and a favourite online yarn shop of mine, The Loopy Ewe, is making me feel better about the whole thing.  Every summer they put on a virtual summer camp for knitters, which means no mosquitos, no bears, and lots of wool!

There will be a challenge for each of the three months of camp - June's challenge was to knit a project using one skein, in a yarn you haven't used before.  After searching through their yarns for a while, I chose some String Theory Bluestocking, which is a beautifully dyed BFL wool.  I've knit with BFL once before, in Sweet Georgia's yarns, and I loved the slightly haloey glossy wool, so I was looking forward to doing it again.  String Theory has some amazing colours, and the one I chose is called Nectar, a blend of pinks with a bit of coral and lavender mixed in.

The pattern I matched it up with was a pair of socks that I've had in my queue for quite a while, Hunter Hammersen's Mood socks (ravelry) from her book Silk Road Socks.  I was surprised to see that the pattern was only written in one size, so I altered it a bit, adding 8 stitches to the circumference to upsize it, and then casting on and knitting the leg with a larger needle than the foot.

In the end, the socks are amazingly beautiful, and I am really happy with this project.  Next month, a spectacular lace shawl in some dazzling Madelinetosh!

Autumn for Spring

A little while ago, I was placing an order with Sweet Georgia Yarns, for a couple of designs I've been cooking up in my head.  I picked a lovely bright blue sock yarn, first, and then decided to try her BFL sock in solid grey, for another project.  Somehow I managed to screw up the order, and I accidentally ordered the BFL in a variegated colourway called Autumn Flame.  I didn't notice the error in the confirmation of the order, nor in the confirmation of the shipment, but only when I got an email that they'd successfully delivered it.  Sigh.  I found my peace with the colourway, and was actually so excited to try knitting with the sheepy BFL that I decided to make a pair of stockingette socks with it, right away.

It turns out that using 2.25 mm needles for my size of socks (68 stitches around) makes the variegation of the yarn turn into the most perfect little stripes.  Imagine my happiness.  I have seen other projects in this colourway end up with all sorts of pooling or flashing, but I got stripes.  Goes to show that even mistakes can turn into blessings.