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?

Holmes to my Watson

A couple of years ago, I knitted a pair of Elementary Watson socks for my dad, and they were a lot of fun to knit and turned out very nice.  When I had occasion to knit a pair of men's socks for another man in my life, I could have gone another route and tried something new, but as he is an avid Sherlock fanboy, I knew that these ones would be the right choice (again.)

I once again relied on the kindness of SweetGeorgia to supply me with a beautiful colour, this time a fairly solid slate grey, and went to work.  I went down a needle size, since I found them to be a bit biggish last time, at the recommended gauge.

Note to self: men's socks take ages, since their feet are even bigger than mine.

In the end, the socks are lovely and pretty perfect for the recipient, so hopefully he'll love them as much as I enjoyed knitting them.

Tenth Doctor Scarf 2.0

Lest you think you're seeing double, this is actually a second version of the previous scarf I wove.

As I mentioned in the last post, I decided the first scarf might be a bit on the itchy-wool side of things, so I wanted to weave the same pattern in something softer.

Believe it or not, I had the two exact right yarns just sitting in my stash (it really pays to have too much yarn, sometimes.)  I have a little basket of SweetGeorgia yarn (mostly sock yarn, and yes, a whole basket just for her yarns) and I realized that I had two skeins of Cashluxe Fine in there, in the colourway Bison, that were just the absolute most perfect brown for this scarf.  And with 20% cashmere, definitely on the soft and luxurious side of the spectrum.  Then I remembered I had a skein of Tough Love sock in the Mist colourway, which is an almost ideal shade for the pinstripe - I was aiming for a cornflower blue, and Mist is just a skosh more purpley, but pretty darn close.  So, voila!  A second Tenth Doctor scarf from my stash. 

You can see that the Mist is a bit variegated, which gives some nice visual interest to the stripes, and the Bison is fairly solid, which makes a nice even background fabric.  It's soft and drapey and wonderful and I really couldn't be happier with the end result.  Hopefully the recipient feels the same way!

Pretty in Pink

Last winter, I made myself a pretty blue hat from SweetGeorgia's superwash worsted yarn, and I've worn it a lot this year.  It has a great drape, and hasn't lost its charm one bit.

With the holiday season coming, I had an idea to knit another one, as a gift for someone who would look great in a cool slouchy hat.  I thought that pink would be a good colour for her, so this time I chose SweetGeorgia's Orchid colourway, in the same round and lovely yarn.

I didn't change a thing about the hat, since I think it's pretty perfect as it is.  Once again, it was a super-quick knit and I had it done in no time.

Perhaps it's going overboard, but then I decided to make a cute pair of matching mittens, in Orchid and Charcoal.  I wanted to do this herringbone mitten pattern (free on Ravelry) for years, and now was my chance.  I chose superwash dk for this one, and somehow got gauge and made the loveliest mittens.  I have tons and tons of this yarn left over; I bet it's even enough to do a second pair.

I think a chevron might have been more aesthetically pleasing (especially since chevrons are so in, this year) but with chevrons, the floats in back would be up to five stitches long.  With this particular herringbone, they are never longer than two stitches long on the front or back of the mitten.  This means they will be super warm stranded mitts, but not so snaggy as something with longer floats.

I love the look of the thumb, the most - especially the way the stitches grow out of that center black column.  If it wasn't so awkward to get a photo of the inner thumb, I would show you how they disappear into a black column on that side of the thumb, too.  The biased knitting makes the thumb nice and snug and comfy.

The only thing that makes these less-than-totally-perfect is that the two yarns took the Orchid colour slightly differently, so the hat looks just a bit more red and the mittens a bit more pink.  Even so, they're beautiful, and I think the giftee will agree on that.