Sock Design Challenge: A final vote

Apologies for the delay but I am pleased to be able to show you the sample for this challenge sock and also to ask you to vote one final time on a name for the pattern.

The names currently up for debate are:

1. Copper Mine
2. Bracken Wood
3. Rosthwaite
4. An other?

As you can tell, my name choices are skewed by my recent trip to the Lake District. The yarn colour really reminds me of barley sugar sweets but that name is already used :)

Seriously, please do vote and let me know what you think or feel free to suggest one of your own - in the true spirit of this challenge.

Sock design challenge: Week 4

So, it looks as though you would like a little bit more adventure in the heel department. The 'something different' option won by quite a margin.

We are looking at a unisex sock with a simple, easy to memorise cable repeat and something a little out of the ordinary for the heel. It's a good job I have been doing my homework and have a few tricks up my sleeve.

I have left the most difficult question until last.

Most of my designs I like to offer in both toe-up and cuff down formats but due to the time constraints of this project only one option will be on offer.

So, over to you...

1. Toe-up

2. Cuff down.

Leave a comment below or head on over to the Ravelry group to cast your vote.

FO Friday: Socks and more socks

This week my FOs are all about socks it would seem.

 

A combination of a family holiday (we visited the Lake District and had a lovely time - thank you) and school holidays has meant a lot of busy days and brain-frying activity. Some days I didn't manage to knit a single stitch - and my DH rapidly realised that a 'mummy-day' was needed in order to preserve my sanity. 

 

 

The saintly man occupied the boys singlehandedly in wet woodland for over 6 hrs whilst I climbed my first solo Wainwright peak - Whin Rigg - and then spent a happy few hours by myself in front of a log fire, happily sock knitting.

(For the record, the males of the family erected a tarp for shelter, made hot soup and noodles on the camping stove, ate marshmallows and made a bow and arrow set)

 

Thankfully, before we went away I found my long-lost project bag and my one-and-a-half socks in the Golden Skein yarn  - from Desert Vista Dyeworks.

 

I opted for an afterthought heel (using this tutorial) in order to preserve the stripes and I love the way they turned out.

 

In addition I also packed a skein of The Knitting Goddess yarn in Ducks Ditty - a fabulously cheery colourway which was instantly claimed by my DS1. Indeed, so smitten was he with the yarn that he took to sleeping with it under his pillow at night hoping that the tooth fairy's sister would work her magic and leave him with a lovely pair of toe-up, mid-calf socks.

The sock knitting fairy took slightly longer to produce the socks than he would like, but she got there in the end.

FO Friday - More socks

I do love having a finished pair of socks ready for the weekend. I tried them on yesterday morning before work for a quick photo and I loved them so much that I really begrudged taking them off.

I have a professional working life away from the knitting (I'm not quite ready to give up the day job yet) and few, if any, of my colleagues know about my crafty life outside of work. There are times though when I wish the two could overlap a little and I could express my creative side at work a little more. Who knows, it might even be fun, and heaven forbid, liven up the day a little.

In winter I can be quietly subversive and wear my hand knit socks in my boots but in summer I just have to resign my hand knit socks to the sock drawer and just bring them out at weekends. I'd love to be able to wear the 'Mary-Janes with socks' look but I fear that might be a step too far for my colleagues.

Anyway, down to knitting business. The yarn is from the incomparable Sparkleduck in the aptly named Rainbow colourway. The colours change rapidly so that on average you get 2 colour changes per round of sock.

Knit on 2.5mm needles with 60st I found that this made for the perfect balance of striping and movement and didn't result in large blocks of colours as I first feared. Perfect, clever dying from a very talented indie - dyer. Not surprisingly I think the Sheep Shop has sold out but rumour has it that more will be in stock shortly.

Maybe we could all knit a pair and wear them to work with pride. Never mind Knit in Public day - we ought to be able to have a 'Wear your hand knit socks to work day'. Although, on reflection I think we need a catchier title.

Sock heaven

Now, heaven knows I have no shortage of socks on my needles at the moment. I have a complicated toe-up design which is currently tying my brain in knots. I have a straightforward sample knit which is quite relaxing, but suffering ever-so-slightly from 'second sock syndrome'. I have a plain pair of grey socks for my father in law which are languishing in the WIP pile - plain, grey, huge - not very appealing -say no more.

And then, into my sock knitting doldrums drops this little beauty:

The very talented Sparkleduck has produced a wonderful rainbow yarn in her fabulous Socka base, which produces two colours per round on a sock. The colourway is Warm Rainbow (in case you were wondering).

I can be a little colour-shy sometimes but this yarn positively sang to me and implored me to take it home and knit it...so I did:

I was dithering about whether to do an afterthought heel so as not to interrupt the stripes but in the end I plumped for my favourite Fish Lips Kiss Heel and I love the way the stripes work over the heel - great fun.

I was also a little worried about potential pooling and did consider a pattern designed to work with highly variegated yarn such as Hermione's Everyday socks but in the end I decided to just go with the flow. With 60st on 2.5mm needles the stripes worked up into a very pleasing sequence that is strangely hypnotic to knit.

I sock down, and 1 to go.