Saturday, June 09, 2007

Socks and Stash Enhancement

I know - my photography skillz leave something to be desired - in fact, they are sadly non-existant. I digress.

I finally purchased some sock blockers - mainly for "sock modeling" as you'll see. I got them from Sheri at the loopy ewe, she's great! She puts lots of goodies in the package. Not pictured are 2 yarn card samples and a couple of sock cards that you list the info about your sock recipients sizes, likes/dislikes, etc. She takes very good care of her customers!

Back to the sock blockers...yes, they are GINORMOUS because I have BIG FEET!! To the the left of the blockers is some gorgeous Fleece Artist seawool yarn in the Parrot colorway and to the right is Claudia's Hand Painted "short sport" in the Peppermint Mocha colorway. It is a Louet base and is sooooo yummy!


Beware though!! I didn't read the whole description about this yarn, specifically, how many skeins were needed for a pair of socks. Turns out that 3 skeins are needed for GIANT feet like mine and I only purchased 2. Instead of trying to get another skein I decided to just make a simple stockinette sock. I used wendyknits! basic toe-up pattern and just made the leg shorter. I ended up with a few yards left over and could've ripped it out and knit a few more rows but I'm satisfied with the way this first one turned out. I just need to cast on for its mate! This yarn is a sport weight - just in case you didn't catch that right away. I'm loving the Louet!

















These other 2 lovelies are on the left, Lorna's Laces in either mint chocolate or chocolate mint. They came from a since-forgotten ebayer who has it custom dyed for her. This was my first attempt with wendyknits! pattern. It was about that time (a few months ago) that I realized that my growing sock yarn stash was becoming completely overwhelming for me. I mean, how many complicated sock patterns can I knit in my lifetime?!! Since I'm not overly fast - I decided to just take some of my yarn and just do something simple. After I made that pair I tried Wendy's feather and fan pattern. That is one of my all-time favorite stitch patterns. I used Lisa Souza's Violet's Pink Ribbon from the Lime & Violet podcast fame.


Here are my Embossed Leaves Socks by Mona Schmidt from IK Winter 2005 (and I understand it's also in their new Favorite Socks book). I used Sophie's Toes
in her Tapestry colorway. It also is a Louet base.
This yarn is YUMMY (much like the Claudia's above only it is fingering weight). The picture came out dark but maybe you can get a better view if you click on it. It was maybe too dark a color for lace but I think they turned out lovely!! I was very tired of the pattern as I got close to the end of the 2nd sock. All in all though, they were very enjoyable to knit and I would knit another lace sock pattern again. Problem is that most of my sock stash is hand-dyed, variegated yarn that doesn't always show the pattern to its best advantage but I sooooo love the handdyes!!
HWFRCA exclaimed to me the other day "So are you a SOCK knitter now?" I guess it's looking that way, however that's not the only thing I'm knitting these days. The lavender heather sweater up there in the corner is still on the needles. It's vacationing on Sleeve Island right now but will hopefully be finished before this fall. And there are other (read - too many) UFO's in the wings crying "pick me, pick me!!!" just waiting to be finished. For me, it's never been about the destination - it's always about the journey.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Cool socks!

Mona Schmidt said...

Hi Marsha,

thanks for letting me know about your Embossed Leaves - I always enjoy looking at what other knitters make of my pattern!

Happy Knitting,

Mona