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.

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.

Pie Filling Socks

My sister was destashing some sock yarn, a while back, and offered me a couple of skeins.  As soon as I picked this one up, I stopped in my tracks and said "this has cashmere in it."  Obviously I took it, even though it's not exactly a colourway I was drawn to.  Cashmere socks are to be coveted, even if they aren't as beautiful as you'd like.

I knit it up as part of my variegated-yarn-into-stockingette-socks project (which really needs a catchier title) but upon knitting the socks, I realized that it was going to stripe rather than be a randomly variegated yarn.  I took a second look at the ball band (Dye Hard Fibre Arts Serendipitous Sock) and realized that it actually said "self-striping" right on it.  Der.

The colours grew on me as I was knitting them, since they are each, in and of themselves, really quite lovely.  As a trio, I wasn't sure initially, but after a while I began to see them as a group.  And I also began to think of pie filling: blueberry, apple, and strawberry rhubarb.  Yum.

They're a bit thick for this time of year - I ended up knitting them one needle size up from my usual sock gauge, which confused me enough that I actually did a different stitch circumference for the second one (of course I didn't realize this until I put the two heels in at the end, and noticed the numbers didn't match.)  Fortunately they feel pretty much the same on my feet, despite the difference.

Besides, they are soft and warm cashmere, so I'd wear them anyway.

Unicorn Mermaid Socks

I think it must be springtime, because I have a hankering to start a million new projects, while established ones are languishing on the back burner.  I have new knitting, new weaving, and even new cross-stitchery (!) on the go, with plans for much much more, but never fear, even old projects are getting some time dedicated to them, including my ongoing stockingette sock series.

This is some beautiful Koigu KPPPM that I've had for about as long as I've been knitting (I'd say about three apartments ago.)  Another example of one so beautiful that I just couldn't imagine what would do it justice.  I bit the bullet and cast on the stockingette socks and once again was so enchanted by the perfect little stripes that appeared.  I do love knitting with Koigu, so these ones were a joy from start to finish.  And the colours... to dye for.

Hopey Changey Socks

As part of my ongoing project to knit up all my variegated sock yarn into plain and simple stockingette socks, I found another skein that's been in my stash for five years or so.  I got this one in a sock yarn club way back then, and while I liked the colours, I assumed it would knit up as a crazy variegated blobby mess.  Imagine my delight when I started to knit it up and realized it was going to make stripes, instead!  All those years of wondering what to do with it and it worked out perfectly without any effort.  Lesson learned.

This yarn is Zen String Lotus Toes fingering, a thin little superwash merino, and the colourway is called Hope.

Only four more variegated skeins and this little project is finished.

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.

Green Apple Fossoways

I mentioned previously that I'm starting to purposefully knit my way through the last of my variegated sock yarn stash.  I've decided to do it the easy way and just make the simplest stockingette socks from them all.  Not only will it be a quick and mindless batch of projects, but it's also an exercise in Letting Go of the Outcome.  My tendency is to be an über-planner and a bit of a perfectionist and I do like to challenge that tendency by just doing, sometimes, and learning that I can still fall in love with unpredictable results.

My latest simple sock project from the yarn stash was this pair of bright and happy green and yellow Koigu KPPPM socks.  The stunning beauty of a skein of handpainted KPPPM is definitely one of the hardest temptations for me to resist, though it is also a yarn for which it can be difficult to find an appropriate knitting design.  I've been hoarding this Koigu for the better part of a decade, so it's a nice feeling to finally use it.  The socks even ended up being pretty cute - the effect is mostly stripey, which is the most I could have hoped for.

p.s. George RR Martin fans will perhaps recognize the name of these socks - but only from the books, not from HBO!

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.

Jester Socks

It was finally cool enough for five minutes yesterday for me to put on these socks for a quick photo shoot.  I finished them a while ago (and in fact am more than halfway through yet another pair of stockingette socks) and really wanted to show them off.

I know I've already shown a couple of photos of these ones, while they were in the making, but I can't help but think they're just the cutest.  The colour combo is pretty wild, and the little zigzag borders just make me smile every time I see them.

There is nothing particularly remarkable to say about these, although the components of them make them great - the leftover TFA cashmere-blend yarn, the aforementioned stranded-knit zigzags, and the simple backdrop of mindless stockingette to show it all off.  Love.