So Many Socks

As time marches on, here at Chez Crafty, I am completing projects at a much faster pace than I have been blogging them.  I have had it pointed out to me that I am being remiss in keeping everyone up to date with my goings on, so here is a finished-sock round-up for you, to get things started.

First a simple two-colour striped sock, as is one of my favourites.  I did the usual 3:1 ratio of rounds, this time as 6 rounds grey to 2 rounds pink.  I love how these turned out - they are a really cozy colour combination and so comfy.

The second pair is one that I took my time completing - one of my knitting groups had decided to do a stranded colour work knitalong, and I chose this design.  I pretty much only worked on them when I was with the group, so they took a long time.  The pattern is a super fun one, that you build as you go - components of the design are printed off onto paper and made into dice that you roll to decide what the overall sock will look like, 10 lines of knitting at a time.  The randomness of it and the anticipation of what the next section would add to the design kept me going on this one.  Of course, stranded knitting makes some thick warm socks, so I probably will wear these around home on chilly mornings, and not so much in shoes.

When Knit Picks reintroduced some new colours of Felici self-striping yarn, I couldn't resist picking up at least one colourway - this one is called Rustic Cabin and I fell in love with it.  Didn't take long to make a lovely pair of stockingette toe-up socks.  I will have to keep my eyes peeled for more Felici in the future.  There is nothing I enjoy more than peacefully knitting mindless stockingette and having it come out in pretty stripes without any effort on my part.

Finally, Hazel Knits did a knitalong for March/April - this cool pair of socks were the recommended design.  I thought they were super pretty and just happened to have some beautiful silvery Hazel Knits yarn in my stash, so I knitted some up.  The original pattern had beads, as well, but I left them out.  I think they're still really beautiful!

Of course I have two more pairs on the needles right now.  I will never run out of socks!  Many other things are going on, as well, including completed weaving projects and new weaving projects, so stay tuned.

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.

Doppler Socks

It's hard to follow up on those fluorescent green socks, but I had a couple more balls of the bright sock yarn from Knit Picks, and decided to knit it up, too.  These ones were blue and orange, which is another crazy colour combination (unless you're an Oilers fan.)  I decided to mix things up a bit with the stripes, and went from one row of orange to two rows to three rows and back again, keeping six rows of blue between.  It doesn't look as dramatic as I thought it might - perhaps varying the blue stripes would help, as well.  No worries, they are still cozy and fun socks, and my sock drawer is starting to look pretty wild!

The 80s Want Their Socks Back

I do love to have a stockingette sock on the go, ready to grab in an instant when a project is needed on the fly, or just around when I need some simple meat & potatoes knitting.  One of the simplest ways to jazz up a simple stockingette sock is to pick a couple of cool colours and make a little stripe.  My personal go-to stripe has been a 3:1 ratio, for a few years (that is, three rows of background colour to one row of accent colour.)  I find that this ratio will use the two colours up pretty evenly, if the accent colour is also used for toe and heel and cuff.  This time, I decided to keep that ratio but double everything, so I was doing six rows of background to two rows of accent.  That way the accent stripes were a little bolder, as if these socks weren't bold enough.

The yarn is from Knit Picks Neon Stroll collection (now nearly sold out, but hopefully they'll bring some back, soon.)  The green is the one that caught my eye, a true neon green that took me back 30 years or so, to the days of multicoloured rubber bangles and layered ripped sweatshirts, worn off the shoulder.  I thought the purple would be the best colour to accent that green and voila!  The brightest socks ever.

SPRING, Gorramit!

This year, spring has poked its warm little head out and retreated a few times already, leaving a long dull winter in its wake.  I finally broke down, mentally stomped my feet like a toddler, and decided to try to entice spring to hang around by knitting with some of the brightest colours I had in my stash - my last two balls of Felici sock yarn, in the Fizz colourway.  It's purely a coincidence that it feeds into my current stockingette sock obsession.

These ones were the same old simple design I always knit, with an afterthought heel, but I decided to change things up and do a star heel for this pair.  I'm really tickled that I did, since one of the heels sort of reminds me of a Jayne hat.

My obsession with striped socks continues, but now I have to resort to making my own stripes.  It's just a different kind of fun to come up with the colour combinations.  The next pair are a real doozy.

Violets on Television

Lately, I've been feeling a real addiction to knitting socks.  Nothing complicated, either; no lace or cables or any funny business.  Just a simple toe-up stockingette tube with an afterthought heel, in self-striping yarn.

I'm not sure if it's because it's so meditative, or because sometimes life is too complicated to think about anything but stockingette, or just because I need a dose of colour after the aforementioned neverending winter (which I'm sure anyone in the northern hemisphere is mighty tired of by now.)  There is just something perfect about the simplicity of a sock like this.

Immediately after finishing the pink ones, I pulled out my next set of Felici yarns and began these.  I mourned the yarn all over again, since it's such a pleasure to knit that I had a hard time putting them down.  I love all the shades of purple of these ones, and finished them in about a week.

These colours are a bit more calm than the last pair, and nowhere near the riot of colour of my final Felici pair, now in (peaceful and meditative) production.

Spring Flowers socks

After the long and arduous winter we've had, it's nice to have things warming up and melting, in the last few days.  I've been able to leave the house without a jacket for the first time in six months or so, and I'm looking forward to seeing some colour popping out of the ground.

I made some colour of my own with these self-striped socks from the now-defunct Knit Picks Felici yarn.  I'm super sad to see this yarn go, since I always loved the base yarn and the simplicity of knitting the self-striping colours.  I haven't got much left, but I'm hoping they'll come up with something else by the time I run out.

This particular colourway was called Peachy, and I think it's pretty perfect for spring.

I did the usual, nothing new here: toe up, 68 stitch circumference, afterthought heel.  If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

I do love how the stripes match but are offset from one another.

Happy spring!

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?

Iris Socks

There were a few great things about participating in Camp Loopy this year - one was having a chance to make a few lovely projects, another was having the chance to buy fabulous yarn at a discount to make them.  One of the final treats is that successful participants in Camp Loopy got a free skein of fingering weight yarn at the end of Camp!  There were a few colourways to choose from, and the one I chose was called Meadow Wildflowers, a lovely blend of grassy greens and gorgeous purples.  The base yarn for the free skeins is Lorna's Laces Solemate, which I've knit with before and really like.  There's a beautiful sheen to it and a really soft touch, along with a drapiness that reminds me of bamboo blends.

I didn't fuss about with this yarn at all, but just did my simple toe-up stockingette sock, to let the colours shine.  I'm so happy with these beautiful comfortable socks!

June Gardens socks

Many years ago (nearly a decade already?) when I was a beginning knitter, there was an amazing yarn dyer in Edmonton named Virginia vanSanten.  I used to admire her yarns in the shops and dream of knitting with something so wonderful and beautiful.  I bought some of her yarn for a shawl once (Ravelry link) and loved every moment of knitting it.  Some time after that, I found out from one of the LYS owners that she had passed away.  It was a palpable thing, to know that such an amazing fiber artist was gone.  Suddenly the few skeins of her yarn that I had left seemed so precious.

These socks represent the only skein of her sock-weight yarn that I had in my stash.  I held onto it all these years, but finally decided that I would do it justice by knitting it, more than I would by keeping it in storage.  The colourway was called June Gardens, but I've always felt that it was more of an autumn colourway, with all that orange and red.  Perhaps her garden was full of marigolds and roses.

I did my usual toe-up sock recipe, a 68-stitch circumference on 2.25mm needles, but for the afterthought heel I did something a bit different: a star heel with decreases in the round, since I felt like that would reflect the shape of my heel more than the usual way (simply reversing toe shaping.)  If the center of the star heel doesn't feel weird when I wear them, I may do this for heels from now on.

Juju Socks

Nothing expends some nervous energy better than the repetitive motion of stockingette knitting.  A couple of months ago, I had a sudden trip to the emergency room with my HLM.  On the way out the door, I had the presence of mind to grab a ball of sock yarn and a needle, for the waiting room.  While time ticked by in the hospital, I cast on the toe for a sock and knitted my nerves away.

The night at Emergency turned into nearly a week's stay in the hospital, and every day I took the sock and knitted away on it while I visited.  The blue and green colours began to remind me of scrubs and it seemed right that these were the socks I was knitting, in that moment.

By the end of the first sock, he was home and getting healthy again.  The bad juju of the first sock was going to be countered by some good healthy juju with the second sock.  Yesterday we were back at the hospital for another follow-up procedure (and all is well) and everything came full circle, as I sat in the waiting room, finishing the afterthought heel of the second sock.

Only after taking the photo did I notice that the charcoal colour is slightly darker on the bad juju sock than on the good juju sock.  Coincidence?

Serenity Now!

So I've had this Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock yarn for probably four or five years.  I used other skeins of this yarn for other socks, and had some issues with pooling and flashing, so I was waiting to imagine the perfect design that would make some beautiful socks.

However, since I've started my new pledge to find peace with the random designs made by a bunch of stockingette socks in variegated yarn, I pulled these skeins out and just knit 'em up to see what would happen.

Turns out that 68 stitches on 2.25 mm needles makes some pretty cool stripes.  Once I did a few increases to accomodate my large instep and calf, all hell broke loose.  There were some definite blobs, some fat ol' stripes, and they definitely ended up more fraternal than identical.

The name I chose for these socks is Serenity, partly because the sock colourway is called "River" which makes me think of River Tam on Firefly, and also because of the crazy way they turned out, which makes me think of the Costanzas.

Greynbow Socks

It's a while ago that I started these socks (and mentioned having to restart them a few times.)  I was halfway through the second sock when I left them to hibernate a bit, while I started and completed the Umaro blanket and started another pullover.

I recently picked them up again (mostly because I had another pair of socks I wanted to start, and self-imposed a rule that I had to finish this pair to start another pair.)  Having finally memorized the stitch pattern helped to get them finished.  Taking them to work a couple of times to knit during breaks didn't hurt, either.

The yarn was a gift from a kind knitterly friend, some time ago.  It's a lovely greyed-out rainbow of colours from Dream in Color.  The pattern is from the AntiCraft, also some time ago.  I didn't follow the pattern exactly, but rather decided to use my own sock recipe, more or less, with the Vinnland pattern on the instep, and simple ribbing on the back of the leg.

I also elected to try a new type of heel, this time, rather than the simple and reliable afterthought heels that I've been relying on, lately.  I used Cat Bordhi's YouTube tutorial for her Sweet Tomato heel, and tried it out.  I actually had to rip it back a time or two to make it fit my heel just right, but in the end it's pretty comfy and smooth, and looks cool, too.

Karma Chameleon Socks

It's always nice to have a stockingette sock to plug away on, when you need a mindless project to occupy your hands.  It's even nicer when the yarn came to you for free from your sister's destashing.

This particular yarn is Koigu KPPPM (one of my all-time faves) in some crazy blue & purple & pink combo.  I knit them toe-up, and put in the afterthought heel before I even finished the leg, just to make sure I could use up every darn bit of the yarn.

Thanks sis!

Fiji Mermaid Socks

I'm over my cold, now, and back to knitting some more complicated projects, but I did manage to finish one more pair of stockingette socks, first.

This is another pair from leftover Knit Picks Stroll Sock - the toes, heels, and cuff are in Midnight Heather, and the stripes are 5 rounds each of Tidepool Heather and Sapphire Heather.  Yes, the yarn was all left over from my Anthro 101 cardi, and yes, I will make sure we get some photos of it soon.

I played a bit with the sizing on this pair, adding a few increases on the instep, then a handful more along the leg.  It gave a bit of ease which I think makes them fit better on me than a straight tube.  The stripes helped to make it easy to match the second one to the first.

(If you're wondering about the name, I took it from one of my favourite X-Files episodes: Humbug.  It seemed to suit.)

Duchess in Wonderland Socks

I am fighting off a bear of a summer cold right now, and there is nothing worse than sniffling and coughing while sweating away in 30 degree weather, in my estimation.  I've been pretty miserable to be around, I expect (I'm sure my coworkers and my HLM would back me up on that) and unable to accomplish much of anything but knitting simple stockingette.

As you can see, this helped me to polish off a pair of socks, made of yarn leftover from my Anthro 101 cardigan. (Knit Picks Stroll Sock in Duchess Heather and Wonderland Heather, if you care.)  I do realize that I still owe you photos of that cardigan, as well as the long-finished Swoon quilt.  First, though, I need another kleenex.

Embers Socks

While working on my shawl design, I wanted something mindless to knit on. I pulled some Knit Picks Stroll out of my stash and began one of my usual striped toe-up socks. The grey (Basalt Heather) actually has a bit of red heathered through it, but that's not so obvious when it's next to the red (Firecracker Heather) yarn. They knit up fairly quickly (mostly since I've been enjoying the simplicity of knitting them more than I've been enjoying the complications of charting out a lace shawl.)

I did an afterthought heel on them, since that makes them as mindless as possible, and the regular stripe pattern makes it easy to make the two socks match - the heels went on the 20th stripe up from the toe. Simple. I also did a three-needle bind-off on the end of the heel; it's a bit less fussy than kitchener and adds a sort of cool-looking 3-D design element.  Or maybe I'm just telling myself that.

I used almost every inch of the grey yarn, making them nice and tall, but I had a fair bit of the red left over. I could make the toes longer or make a longer ribbed cuff, if I really wanted to use up all of both colours. Even now, this pair is taller than my usual socks, so I am very happy with them. The colours, like burning coals, will surely help to keep my feet warm on a cool cloudy spring day.