This isn’t quite how I planned my triumphant return to blogging after something of a hiatus.

I had a lovely post all planned out celebrating the 10th anniversary of the Winter Footstep Socks, my oldest design and the first one that I ever listed for sale.

It was a fabulous piece, all about 10th birthdays and how far we’ve come.

Then I checked my notes and realised that the design is actually 11 years old - not 10. Ooops!

Buy sock pattern

At the tail end of this year I decided that I would reknit these socks in a contemporary yarn - the original socks have long since vanished (I have no recollection of where to) and I fancied a new pair of socks for me.

I had some gorgeous sock yarn from Dystopic Fibre in his fabulous Teal Woodcap colourway which I knew would make for a perfect winter sock, and I’d forgotten how addictive and how quick this lace pattern is to knit up.

A lot has happened in 10 (11) years and my life looked very different in January 2013 when these socks were released. On the one hand it feels as though it has passed in the blink of an eye, but on the other hand so much has happened that when I sat down to write it, it honestly felt a little overwhelming.

So I’m going to save you the emotional part and just wish my Winter Footstep socks a happy 11th birthday. There’s a link below in case you’d like to knit a pair of your very own.

Winter Footstep socks

If you are a member of the UK Sock Knitters Group on Ravelry you may already know about their year-long KAL themes. It was a challenge from them a few years ago that first got me started on my sock designing journey - I think it was a seasonal theme and my first “proper” sock design Winter Footsteps was as a result of taking part.

This year though, they have surpassed themselves with a Periodic table KAL - inspired by a love of all things to do with Chemistry. As a biochemist by training this immediately appealed to my inner science geek and I couldn’t wait to come up with some ideas based on this theme. The group is great fun and very low-stress - with all manner of tenuous connections to the monthly theme accepted, even welcomed.

Last month was Hydrogen and so I knit socks with bright pink yarn from Truly Hooked - called Big Pink Beaver (Hydrogen - water (H20) - Beaver)

This month the theme is for chlorine or iodine. As you can probably tell from my colour selection I opted for the yellow/green of chlorine. Additionally I’m having fun with a cable design which is based on a 17 stitch panel (17 being the atomic number for chlorine).

It’s been a while since I designed a cable sock pattern and it’s really enjoyable to get the squared paper out again and wrestle with a few numbers.

Even if you aren’t up for another challenge right now, do go over and check out some of the projects on the group. It’s really inspirational stuff.