Sock It to Me

I'm sick of self'-striping yarn for socks. There! I've said it. Yes, indeedy, I'm ready for some tweeds and some solids. Whatever happened to solids? Handpaints, stripetity-stripes! Give me some subtle tweeds, some handpainted solids with subtle variegation. Do I have to dye my own?!!!

Okay, with that little rant off my chest I feel better. However, I am not feeling so good when I look at these socks that don't rock. The yarn, Socks That Rock from Blue Moon Fiber Arts, is 100% superwash merino feels good and strong. The colorway Yosemite, is not my cup of tea.

This sock-and-a-half is suffering from quite a few maladies, the first of which is that my Auto Knitter sock machine was trying to be boss again and you can see the evidence in the ribbing of the top sock. Secondly the color, which looks better in the picture(less bright) than it does for real, is more suitable for Wicked Witch socks sticking out from under a house in Oz. And it looked so good in hank form! (Pay no attention to the neon orange. That's just the waste yarn-- starting and ending yarn.) I didn't complete either sock. They are my take on swatching. On the sock machine I make an actual sock as a swatch. What the H, one sock takes only half an hour! So I ended up with dropped-stitched, ugly sock and part of sock. Today I will frog them back to a cone then wind them into a ball for some other use. Maybe a hand knit doll sweater would do the colors justice. Or maybe hand knit socks in a pattern would do the trick.

Below are some socks made on another of my sock machines, the Legare 400.

L - R: (1) 1x1 ribbed, fold-down cuff, stockinette leg and foot; (2) 1x1 ribbed cuff, 3x1 ribbed leg and instep; (3) 1x1 cuff, 3x1 leg, stockinette foot


In contrast here are some lighter colors.




The center pair was knit on the Legare 400 circular sock machine. The others are hand knit. This is as much as I know about the yarns: L - R (1) Trekking; (2) Handpaint from an eBay seller (3) Opal Petticoat. The three heels are different.



Heels: L - R (1) machine knit short row; (2) hand knit Dutch heel with Eye of Partridge flap; (3) hand knit Dutch heel with normal k1, sl 1 flap


And if you're tired of socks, here are gauntlets from Sally Melville's The Purl Stitch hand knit shorter to accommodate the amount of Koigu in my stash.




That's what I'm talking about! I love Koigu. Not stripes, not tweed, just right.

Bona Fide Knitter