A couple of months ago, I posted a picture of these socks in progress. They’ve been done since the end of January, but I have yet to report back on them.
Francie by Rebekkah Kerner knit in Sundara sock yarn in Secret Garden {More}
I started knitting these socks while I was reading A Tree Grow in Brooklyn for my Ravelry book club. The socks are quite cleverly constructed, but I wasn’t a big fan of the way the pattern was written. This is purely a personal preference though; if you like patterns that go into a great deal of detail about how to do things, you’ll like the extent to which the designer goes to explain things.
Since the basis for the pattern is 2×2 rib, the socks are still an easy and quick knit. I love the way it knit up in this gorgeous, semi-solid green Sundara, which I chose to continue the tree imagery. All in all another great pair of socks to add to my overflowing sock drawer.
James has two sisters. I’ve already knit them scarves and fingerless gloves, and this year, I decided it was time for socks.
Stockinette Socks knit from Vesper Self Striping in Serendipity {More}
Maelstrom by Cookie A. from Twist Collective knit from MadelineTosh Sock Yarn in Turquoise {More}
For Claire’s birthday in June, I made a second pair of Maelstroms, and for Jess’s birthday in September, I settled on some simple stockinette socks from self-striping yarn. Jess’s socks were very historic, completed during the AFL Grand Final. I had to put them down during the last few minutes of the very tense game because I kept screwing up the toe decreases. I never used to care about sports, but James’s family has gotten to me. Although I won’t say I’m a big fan, I do care what happens to Geelong (and they won the premiership!)
There’s not much else to say about them, except that they were well-received (well, one pair was, I still haven’t managed to hand over the second pair!)
Does anybody remember that I said I’d blog every day in November? Yeah, that didn’t happen. My only excuse is that it’s assignment crunch time at uni. But here’s another pair of socks.
Cornucopia Caroline Dlugy-Hegwer knit with Sunshine Yarns Soft Sock Yarn in Buttermilk {More}
This is a pattern I’ve had my eye on for a while, and I could only picture it in this particular yarn. It’s a simple diagonal repeat, and I love the added texture of the purl stitches to the eyelet pattern.
As for the socks themselves, I’m pretty happy with them. The yarn is lovely to work with, but it’s on the skinny side. Personally, I prefer a more substantial sock yarn, but if you like thin yarns, I’d definitely recommend it.
Here’s the full report on my first Socktoberfest pair of socks.
Stockinette socks knit in Sunshine Yarns Twist Sock Yarn in Reducto {More}
This yarn is part of the Harry Potter sock club, and when it first arrived, I really didn’t know what to do think. It’s about as far away from my usual style as you can get, a dark grey/purple base with crazy little specks of all kinds of different colours. Now, usually I prefer solids or semi-solids, and when I go for varigated yarns, they almost always have longer colour repeats. Still, after a while, the yarn grew on me, and I decided to go with it. Basic stockinette was the only thing I could imagine, and I’m happy with the way they turned out. I especially like the cute picot cuff, a feature I love for basic socks.
As for NaKniSweMo, I’m still plugging away on the basic stockinette of the first sleeve. I’d forgotten how slowly sweaters knit up when you knit at 8.25 stitches to the inch!
October was a very busy month for me knitwise, and I ended up with alot of FOs to show for it. The final count is fifteen single socks, eight completed pairs and one cowl. Here’s an overview of my sock-knitting activities.
Socktoberfest was a bit of a mixed bag for me. I love sock-knitting, and it was a great opportunity to really focus on knitting some of the patterns that have been sitting around my queue for a while. Towards the end, however, I got a stressed and my knitting time became devoted to finishing the pairs I’d started rather than actually enjoying the process. Of course, this is all my own fault. If I hadn’t been so goal-oriented and had been happy to finish half as many socks, I might enjoyed myself more.
I’ll post a bit more about each pair later, but for now, I’ll just say that it’s really interesting to see them all together. It’s so obvious where my colour preferences have been lately. I promise to aim for a bit more variety in the coming months.
Right now though, I don’t really want to think about socks. And since November means NaKniSweMo and sweater-knitting, I’m not going to. I’m really excited about my November sweater, and I’ve already cast on for it. My November sweater involves a bit of design work, and I’d really like to be able to report more on my day-to-day progress than I usually do. I’ve hinted at the sweater before, but I’ll go into more detail tomorrow. Tonight, I’m going to put on an episode of Buffy and continue knitting on the first sleeve.
