Found! My Latest Pair of Knitted Socks

I’ve been dying to wear my new socks, but couldn’t find them after showing them on the last episode of the Olann and Podcast. Dis-organisation at it’s best – nothing new there. You can imagine my relief, when I went to pull out another pair I’d been working on and discovered these beauties.

If you caught Episode 6, then you’ll already know I’d finished them and I wasted no time casting on another pair straight away. Despite, all the sock knitting I’ve done this year, I think these are only pair number ~~six~~, no that’s seven if you include the pair of Rose City Rollers that I made for myself too. I’ll have to have a proper check and make sure I’ve included all of them on my Ravelry Project pages.

Being involved with the magazine, has meant I’ve got far better at loading up all of my makes, but I’m still way behind in terms of this year. Of course you wouldn’t tend to load up the projects that you’ve knitted so far, only to frog and re-knit again. Well I wouldn’t, but it would definitely increase the metres of yarn I’ve knitted with in 2016.

This pair were made with the yarn I bought whilst on holiday in Thirsk, Yorkshire in August. The yarn is from West Yorkshire Spinners; Signature 4 Ply Country Birds Collection, shade 851 Peacock Sweet Shop for the foot and the leg and shade 365 Blueberry Bonbon for the cuffs, heels and toes. It’s the same yarn I used for my orange stripy socks a few months back, which I gushed about then. It’s lovely to knit with, comfortable to wear and seems to wash well too If that wasn’t enough, there is such a great range of colours to choose from too.

The heels are knitted with my usual slip stitch pattern to give a little extra reinforcement, although touch wood, I’ve still only managed to get holes in the one pair.

Toes are a French Toe, but I think I might try a circular one on my next pair, if I remember that is.

There is the usual whirlwind of knitting going on here, with projects stashed everywhere around my home at the moment. There’s nothing like the freedom of having the house pretty much to yourself most of the time to create woolly havoc. The hubby has been working away, so it’s been me, Kye and the dogs for some time now, which is probably why I mislaid these socks in the first place.

I’ve been test knitting a plenty, much of which involves knitting, ripping back and then re-knitting. This is just one of the many projects I’ve reccently cast off and I can happily report it is blocking right now. Unfortunately thought, there are still ends to sew in.

Sorry about the quality of the photo.

It’s a black Chunkeanie that I knitted for Kye, so he could have something to keep his head warm when we had that cold snap. He picked the pattern on Ravelry, but wasn’t too happy with it once I’d made it. Speed knitting aside, it only took a few hours to whip up, so I didn’t mind ripping back the crown shaping to knit on another inch and a half, so it was a little more slouchy. The biggest problem I had, was trying to find the end, that I had so expertly sewn in, it was well and truly hidden. After what seemed like ages looking for it, I resorted to a using a sharp pair of scissors, to snip a couple of stitches.

As I no longer wear black myself, my stash would be quite limited, so I ended up using 2 strands of King Cole Merino 4ply held together. The design is a free pattern from Woolly Wormhead and it’s knit in the round. It’s a reverse stocking stitch hat, but I did spot that a couple of people have opted to wear the hat inside out, so the more traditional stocking stitch fabric is on the outside.

Either way, it’s a lovely easy knit, very suitable for the men in your life.

I think I’ve just about recovered from the first Olann and Yarn Crawl, which took place on Saturday just gone (December 3rd). We lost a couple of people to the Winter Vomiting Bug, but the remaining ten of us, still managed to have a day full of fibre fun. We bought all around us, laughed and thouroughly enjoyed Dublin. The three shops we visited, Winnie’s the Wool Wagon, This is Knit and The Constant Knitter, were all so hospitable. Rosemary in The Constant Knitter, even had much needed, tea and biscuits waiting for us, when we arrived. We will write up a blog post about our trip for the Olann and Blog, but hopefully, it will be the first of many.

I had a slight mishap (in truth it was a right catastrophe) on the minibus up to Dublin, when this happened. The tip on one of my 2.5mm Knitpro Karbonz came right off in my hand, swiftly followed by a quarter of my sock stitches. I guess the glue, just came unstuck, but it very nearly meant no knitting for me, as two of the shops had sold out of the 2.5mm x 60cm circulars.

Crisis averted, Rosemary had two sets left in the HiyaHiya’s, which weren’t the sharp ones – we just don’t get on. I’ve only managed to knit a handful of rounds since switching over, but I’m happy to report that they seem like a nice needle to work with. More about them next time, when I’ve gotten to use them a bit more.

I have to get back to sorting out some more content for the next issue of Olann and, which we hope to release during the week of the 12th of December. It’s much later than we’d planned, but it just couldn’t be helped.