Caution, zig-zags!

The yellow and black diagonal stripes remind me of caution tape, though maybe bumblebee stripes would be more accurate. This pair of socks was inspired by these socks here, though I didn’t follow that pattern and instead made up a pattern based on the pictures.

To get the bottom of the sock to be all black, I had to keep the yellow at the top. Since mosaic knitting always uses two rows of each color, that allowed me to knit across the top of the sock, and then purl back across of the top with the yellow each time it was used. I then had to do some extra rows with black on the bottom of the sock, so half of the time I knit across the top with the yellow, purled across the bottom with the black, twisted the yarns together, then knit back across the bottom with the black and purled back across the top with the yellow. For the other half of the yellow rows I did short rows with a wrap and turn at the left hand side of the pattern. I’m really happy with how small the gaps are, though I find the whole process remarkably tedious. It was worth it in this case though, because the yellow yarn is a 100% superwash merino that doesn’t feel very sturdy (I picked it for its color, for the rainbow shawl - the dyer was Copper Corgi), so by keeping the yellow on top and the sturdy black Opal sock yarn on bottom, I think the socks will wear much better.

and some more cables...

I’m really quite fond of this type of pattern, so I end up doing quite a few socks like this. This pair is for the owner of the local yarn shop! The yarn is Kim Dyes Yarn’s sourdough sock base, and it’s very nice to work with.

This is my 16th pair for 2019, so I’m averaging a bit over a pair a week! I feel like the knee high socks should count double though….

Cables round the toe!

The key feature of these socks is that the cable that runs down the ankle loops around at the toe and comes back up the other side. I have no idea how comfortable these will be in shoes, but the yarn is 10% cashmere (80% superwash merino, 10% nylon) from Primrose Yarn company, so they are certainly soft!

pair number 15 for 2019, 575 overall

Aurora borealis socks

These socks are from the same yarn as the laser tag socks: Kim Dyes yarns sugarcookie sock. With this pair I put in a subtle texturing, some zig-zag purled stitches. I also used fewer stitches than on the laser tag socks, so that it wouldn’t pool as much and would stripe more. I was running out of the colorful yarn, so I had it fade into black, which I think matches the aurora borealis name.

And here both the aurora borealis and laser tag socks are being modeled!

Laser tag socks

Sometimes there are these really loud yarns that just call to me, and this was one of them. Something about the bright colors against the black, and the sparkles! The yarn is from Kim Dyes Yarn, and it’s a really nice yarn to work with. Plus I’ve been enjoying the ridiculously bright colors.

As a bonus, here’s the view out of the window at work the other day. I was passing by the window, and all the deer looked up at me as if to say ‘what are you doing here?’

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Sister's sister socks

When I started the socks for my sister, my first attempt wasn’t big enough to comfortably go around her calf, so I had to start over. I had gotten a fair amount of cuff done though, so I kept it to make into a pair of socks for me, in a similar style. Here they are!

Behind the socks you can see the puzzle we did this weekend! It’s Seascape near Les Saintes Maries de la Mer by Van Gogh, and the puzzle pieces are all sorts of cool shapes, made from wood. The company that makes these wooden puzzles is called Liberty Puzzles, based out of Colorado.

This pair is 12 for this year, 572 overall.

Rainbow leaf shawl

I wanted to try the leaf shawl again, in a very different yarn, and see what happened if I just continued the pattern for longer. Turns out that it works just fine, though eventually you get to the point where each row is around 800 or 900 stitches and takes forever. Added to that, I was alternating between three different skeins for most of this shawl to try and extend the length of each color stripe. In the last few rows of seed stitch I was getting a color change in each row-each row was about 1.5 colors.

The yarn is knipicks chroma, So this project saves me from making mosaic socks out of some of my stash. I think I used around 300g, but I still have about three skeins left of this that will turn into socks eventually. I found I didn’t mind the occasional thick or thin spots as much for the shawl, nor was the yarn splitting quite as much as normal.

Between this shawl and the knee high socks, my sock output has really slowed! I just bought more yarn at a yarn tasting for Once upon a corgi, so I better get knitting!

Sister socks

Every once in awhile my sister asks me to knit something for her. She generally gives fairly tight constraints, but then wears the object regularly, so any time she asks my mum and I jump. This time it was knee high socks in a neutral oatmeal color. One of the hardest bits was to find yarn in the correct shade of neutral-neither my mum’s nor my local yarn store stocks it. We did find some online through Baa Ram Ewe eventually.

I really like how traveling stitch socks look, so I decided to design some knee highs. I’m really pleased with how the decreases after the calf look. Better pictures to come eventually, but here’s one of me trying it on to determine foot length.

Leaf shawl

This shawl was originally inspired by a lace pattern called ‘fountain lace’. I started the original shawl (the blue one) without being sure what shape it would turn out to be, and when I blocked it I wished I’d done it in green because it reminded me of a leaf. I happened to show someone at the local yarn store a picture, and they asked if I’d written down the pattern. I did, but I had to touch it up a bit before it was ready to hand out, so I decided to go ahead and knit it again it green The yarn is knitpicks Diadem-an alpaca silk blend, and very soft. These pictures are from blocking it.

I’m having some people from the local yarn store test knit the pattern for me!

Mosaic 38: Betsy Ross squashed octopodes

First, the name. I see eight armed critters in these socks, and while octopodes may not be the most correct plural for the word ‘octopus’, it is certainly a fun plural. Also, I peeked ahead at some of the future patterns, and there’s another one that features a repeating octopus motif, so to differentiate the two I picked on the circle of dots in this one that reminds me of the circle of stars in the Betsy Ross American flag.

Second, this is my first pair of socks with an afterthought heel! I’ve been knitting socks for forever, and yet I haven’t been super adventurous with my sock construction. I like the way my socks fit as they are, and haven’t seen the need to try and fix what isn’t broken, particularly since my foot dimensions seem to require a fairly long heel flap to keep the socks from falling down all them time. For these socks, however, I wanted a smooth color transition all the way down the top of the sock, and I wanted the heel to be out of the colorful yarn. In this case, an afterthought heel is ideal, as the main body of the sock is knit first, with the same number of stitches, so that not only is the color transition smooth, it also keeps happening at the same rate (after a heel flap there are more stitches, so color transitions happen more quickly until the gusset is done). The afterthought heel worked just fine, and I took pictures at the various different steps.

The colorful yarn is Perth from the Queensland collection, and the white is a spool of 100% wool my mommy gave me for christmas. The two are much closer to the same weight than the black and rainbow was, so I plan to pair the rest of my Perth yarn with the white. Since it’s also thinner, I think I’m going to wait until the 16 stitch wide patterns (they start around #44?), and use 10 more stitches around, as these socks turned out rather narrow.