Category: knitting

Still moar socks!  If you missed the first two installments, here are links for Part 1 and Part 2.

Plain Socks Again
Pattern: Sock Knitting Workshop
Designer: Alysania (yours truly!)
Needles: US 1.5 (2.5mm)
Yarn: Schachenmayr Regia Fluormania in, “7184”
Ravelry Project Link
Who couldn’t just love this colorway?  Blue and Orange?!  I’m in!  Arguably my favorite color of the fluormania color line, these (again) had to be plain socks to show off the color.  I really love how the transition from color to color isn’t perfectly clean and even and there’s a little bleed over, almost like a watercolor painting.  I’m also pretty thrilled that the socks are almost opposites of each other in how the colors lined up – blue on one toe, orange on the other.  They’re just perfect, and again, this is a great workhorse sock yarn and I’m sure they’ll last me for ages.

 

 

Hand Dyed Socks
Pattern: Hermione’s Everyday Socks
Designer: Erica Lueder
Needles: US 1.5 (2.5mm)
Yarn: Artsygal Colonial Nylon Blend, hand dyed by me.
Ravelry Project Link
The pattern was really simple so the socks knit up very quickly.  There’s enough of a pattern to not be plain old socks, but not so much that the pattern is lost in the color.  The yarn was hand dyed by yours truly at a dye day class taught by ArtsyGal.  It was the first time I’d dyed yarn, so it was fun experiment and I’m glad I finally knit with the yarn which was dyed in 2008!  Oof!  So, this is some pretty well aged sock yarn, but thankfully not past its prime.  I love how the pooling worked out to look like waves of color instead of striping or spiraling.

 

 

 

Fireball Socks
Pattern: Sock Knitting Workshop
Designer: Alysania (yours truly!)
Needles: US 1.5 (2.5mm)
Yarn: Zitron Trekking Pro Natura, hand dyed by me.
Ravelry Project Link
You’ll forgive me for yet another plain sock since this one is pretty neat, right?  I dyed this skein from a blank base myself, measuring how much yarn it takes to knit a row and then mathing it all out so I could get stripes like this.  Then it was walking laps around a set of chairs in the kitchen to re-skein the yarn in the right length, dye, reskein again into a smaller skein and FINALLY knit the yarn.  They buying/dyeing was done in 2008 (seems that class gave me ideas), and they were finally knit this past year and I’m IN LOVE with them.

On to the second installment of my adventures in sock knitting from 2015.- for Part 1, click here.

Vanilla  Socks
Pattern: Sock Knitting Workshop
Designer: Alysania (yours truly!)
Needles: US 1.5 (2.5mm)
Yarn: The Alpaca Yarn Co. Paca-Peds in, “Carribean Chocolate”
Ravelry Project Link

The pooling worked out almost like a self-striping yarn with these, and I rather like how the brown and turquoise work together.  The yarn was soft and squishy with only 20% alpaca content, so it’s soft but still has that classic wool bounce and sproing.  Just your basic socks again since I didn’t know what to do with yarn that wouldn’t work for intricate patterns.

 

 

 

 

Stretchy Socks
Pattern: Sock Knitting Workshop
Designer: Alysania (yours truly!)
Needles: US 1.5 (2.5mm)
Yarn: Crystal Palace Yarns Panda Cotton Print  in, “Fall Herbs”
Ravelry Project Link

Another plain sock.  I’m sort of mystified how the same yarn can knit up into two very different socks because the pooling lines up differently, but it’s really rather interesting too.  The yarn came put up in two balls, so I suppose the one was just a hair enough different, or my gauge was that different between the two socks.  Either way, I’m not a huge fan of this yarn – when I wore them, they stretched out like crazy and almost didn’t stay on my feet.  I’m not sure if maybe the elastic is too old (the yarn had been ‘aging’ in my stash for quite some time) or that the bamboo and cotton overpower  the elastic.  I’m hoping a machine wash in warm water may bring them back to life.

Jaywalkers
Pattern: Jaywalker
Designer: Grumperina
Needles: US 1.5 (2.5mm)
Yarn: Zwerger Garn Opal Feelings in, “1702”
Ravelry Project Link

This yarn was just begging to be Jaywalkers with those HUGE stripes.  The coral and red colors look like that in real life too – it’s super hard to distinguish between the two colors.  For the heels, I did the heel flap and turn in yarn from the opposite end of the ball so that I wouldn’t mess up the striping pattern.  I think I forgot to do that on the first one and then remembered for the second.  Great, basic workhorse sock yarn with fun colors and a super quick (3 day!) knit.

I finally got everything set up and photographed the socks that I’ve knit over the past year.  The tally?  15 pairs!  Some of them are from the end of 2014 since the last time I photographed handknits was September 2014, oops.  Fifteen pairs of socks is no joke, but the majority of them are plain stockinette socks, so it’s really not a lot of substance when you get down to it, especially when you consider that I can knit a single plain sock in about four hours.  I had an off year, what can I say?  The majority of the knits from my past year in knitting were meant to keep my hands busy while I watched TV, fill time while waiting, and bust some of the more colorful sock yarn stash that isn’t suited for intricate cables and lace.  In that way, it was a successful year indeed, and now I’m well stocked to continue working on a scrap yarn blanket for a few more squares.  Here are the first two, and I’ll post a few more every week.

Fluormaina Socks
Pattern: Sock Knitting Workshop
Designer: Alysania (yours truly!)
Needles: US 1.5 (2.5mm)
Yarn: Schachenmayr Regia Fluormania  in, “Neon Ocean”
Ravelry Project Link

Nothing really fancy going on here.  I used the same basic sock recipe I use for all my plain vanilla socks, and I happened to publish it on Ravelry and the blog here a few years ago when I ran a sock knitting workshop at a local cafe.  It’s easy peasy and lets the crazy wild color of this yarn really shine.  I just couldn’t bring myself to do anything but a plain stockinette sock for this colorway since it may be my favorite one of the whole Fluormania line.

 

 

 

 

More Plain Socks
Pattern: Sock Knitting Workshop
Designer: Alysania (yours truly!)
Needles: US 1.5 (2.5mm)
Yarn:  Wisdom Yarn Marathon Sock in, “Twin Cities”
Ravelry Project Link

This was a silly impulse purchase because the price was right at Tuesday Morning on a trip through one day.  Green and blue self striping yarn at over 50% off?  SOLD!  It’s your basic sock yarn, nothing too fancy, not particularly soft, but it feels durable, so that works!  I like how the colorway knit up and again, used the same simple basic sock pattern as before.