Boring Sock IV

Thank goodness, this is the last of that lovely, but boring, yarn I bought last summer. The yarn had a great feel was nice to work with, but Oh! it was dull to knit with. Not much change in colour – the socks seemed to take forever.

As I was finishing this pair, I went shopping for some new brighter yarn – picked up five balls in one of my usual stops in town. Then last Friday one of the gals in the knitting group mentioned a yarn shop near the airport I hadn’t heard about so Monday afternoon I took a trip to have a look – knitter who decided to go into the yarn selling business – what a wonderful selection of sock yarns. Difficult to decide what to bring home.

Assortment of New Bright Yarns

I bought another six balls…and immediately started on a new pair of socks – bright ones this time. They’ll seem to go much faster (probably takes about the same amount of time as the dull ones, but it feels like the socks grow more quickly because they’re continually changing).

At Last A Bright Pair of Socks

Here is the new bright pair I’ve just started.

Finished last evening. To liven this variegated yarn I introduced single row stripes in different colours at random intervals – gotta try something because the yarn itself is boring!

The stripes liven up the socks a bit. It’s a ice wool yarn to work with, but none of the colour bands are bright; it’s more interesting working on a more dramatically coloured yarn.

I’ve started the final ball of this boring yarn – this ball consists of shades of mauves/purples/greys. So far just working on the cuff in a contrasting colour. Not sure yet what other colours to bring in and how to do it.

Adding interest

I bought four balls of reasonably boring variegated yarn during the summer. The challenge has been to come up with ideas to liven up the color contrasts. In this case, what works is the single row of turquoise near the top of the sock and again in the instep. The rows of burgundy and rust add very little contrast. 

So the next pair in shades of blues and greys will want something that pops out – need to think about a bright green or a red.

This is the pair of socks I finished last evening. I had only a single 50g ball of the variegated yarn so I extended it using a complementary turquoise. In this case, most of the sock was knit with the two yarns interleaved.

Along the way I made a mistake on the first sock – I decreased a second time in the leg (going from 68 stitches, to 64, and ending up at 60), making for rather snug ankle fit. I had knit too far beyond the second decrease to bother going back and removing it, so instead, I just made a somewhat smaller sock overall! Instead of my usual sock sized for a woman wearing a size 7-8 (8 1/2)shoe, this pair will go to someone with smaller feet (a size 6-7 1/2). I even remembered to knit the second sock to match!

And BTW, I finished edge stitching my way around ALL the circles on the Double Vision Quilt – I worked on that for four days. This evening I finished quilting the complete sandwich having done a very simple piecing on the back (pictures tomorrow). In the end I did rows of straight stitching between the circles in both directions. Tomorrow I intend to embroider the border with a design consisting of interlocking circles. And I’ve selected several fabrics to mirror the colour story for a narrow binding….

Finished this pair a couple of evenings ago. I enjoyed working with this yarn – I liked the colours and how they played out. The grey cuff, heels, toes blended in nicely with the grey in the variegation.

I immediately started the next pair.

I manage to knit a pair of socks about every two weeks – that’s how long it takes me – 25 hours or so. Since I knit for a couple of hours only in the evenings – two weeks.

People say to me, “Oh you should sell them!” Right – 26 pairs of socks, more or less, a year – any idea what I’d need to charge to make that worthwhile? People are shocked when I say I charge $50 for a pair – $25 for the yarn, 25 hours – that’s just $1 an hour for my labour.

Want to know what these socks are really worth – @ $90/hour that my physio or massage therapists charge – these socks should be priced $2250 + $25. The price I should be charging is $2275! Why should my time be worth less than theirs?

No, these socks are gifts of love to people I know are going to treasure them!

If fact, I like these ones well enough that they may just go into MY sock drawer!

Just finished. They seemed to take forever! Probably because I didn’t work on them every evening so they took three weeks rather than the usual two. Anyway, they are now done.

Definitely bright. 

Usually I immediately start a next pair – no idle needles; but it’s now past midnight so new socks will have to be tomorrow….