Socks

“Nova Scotia Tartan” Socks

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Two weeks ago I started knitting this pair of socks – had a solid blue for cuffs, heels, and toes that blended nicely. I didn’t think anything in particular about the colour combination until I was knitting in the group last Friday afternoon and someone commented they looked like Nova Scotia tartan. Since then several people have remarked on these “Nova Scotia Tartan” socks.

Similar colours for sure: the royal blue and yellow with hints of white. The tartan has both medium and dark green along with a fine red stripe. But I guess you could say the socks do have the flavour of the NS tartan.

Nova Scotia Tartan

Anyway, the socks are now finished and in the sock stash. I have lots of blue socks in my drawer so these will be passed on to a deserving recipient for a birthday or holiday gift.

Started the next pair, immediately, as usual.

Reconstruction #3

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This is the last of the “legs only” reconstructions. The heels and underfeet were so worn they were unsalvageable. I saved the legs and knit new feet.

Reconstruction #3

Who will notice? The feet are inside shoes/sneakers anyway. And the socks are, for all intents and purposes, new. My friend will be happy to get them back in her sock drawer.

That leaves two pairs needing new heels – those are put aside for now. I’m knitting new socks with new yarn at the moment.

Resurrecting Socks

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I’m back at regenerating socks from the pile in my “Fix” sock basket. I started with somewhere like eight pairs of socks to restore – some needed just heels, others needed full feet. I repaired (replaced heels on) three pairs a number of months ago but there were still five pairs in the basket. I started working on those where I was able to salvage legs only a couple of weeks ago. It’s still worth repairing these socks – the legs are fine and that saves me about a week’s work. The challenge is to come up with variegated yarn that kind of fits in with the original pattern. So far, I’ve done rather well.

Here’s the first pair I completed ten days ago. They were delivered back to the owner who thought they looked familiar but didn’t remember giving them to me for repairs.

Resurrected Socks 1

This is the second pair I finished last evening. It took six days to reknit the feet and the yarn I used works quite well.

Resurrected Socks 2

I’ve started on the third pair of legs – that will leave me two pairs that need just heels – they won’t take a lot of time. I’m probably not going to work on those immediately, however. I want to continue building up the stash of new socks – Christmas is coming and I’ll want to give some socks as gifts.

Zippy Socks

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Finished this pair a couple of days ago. They’re for my chiropractor who did me a wonderful favour. I thought a pair of bright socks was a reasonable thank you.

Zippy Socks

I did think about keeping them for myself as I was knitting them, but after making the foot long enough for a man’s size 9-10 shoe they are definitely a gift.

I think he’s confident enough to proudly wear bright red/grey/black socks. He’ll appreciate them in the middle of winter. Right now it’s 30+ C and very humid. Wool socks are very far from anybody’s mind right now – except for me who happens to be knitting them in the evening.

On Deck 3

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I’ve got this far today. Added the windows and the handrail (lots of stitching on both).  Added shading to the decking and stitched the boards.

I’ve positioned (and sort of fused) the woman – now I need to stitch her in place using a clear invisible thread and a very narrow blanket stitch. Then I’ll be able to fill in shadow lines and other colour demarkations. I also need to add her shadow to the deck so that she’s attached to the rest of the image. Tomorrow!

On Deck 3

Finished these colourful socks last evening. They’ve gone in the give-away collection – while I have clothes in these colours I don’t need (actually, I don’t have room for) another pair of socks in my sock drawer!

Colourful Socks

New Turquoise Socks – Finished

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Finished last evening. Completed the previous new pair on May 14 – however, between working on that pair and this pair I reconstructed two pair of worn socks. So the time frame is consistent – about two weeks (25 hours) to knit a  pair of socks.

Turquoise Socks

I found the colour combination satisfying to work with. I don’t think I have another ball in the yarn stash that will knit into this pattern (the previous pair was the same as this just with different colours).

Have to say, I’ve set this pair aside – they might go into my sock drawer. I have a couple of turquoise wool sweaters they’d look good with….

Blue/Green Socks

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Finished these socks last evening. They were soothing to work on – enough gradual changed in the unfolding pattern to keep them interesting.

Blue/Green Socks

I should really now return to a couple of sock repairs – there are still five pairs of socks in the repair basket wanting attention. Maybe I’ll work on one before returning to new yarn.

Ugly Yarn – Interesting Sock

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I started with this yarn – came in a skein which I balled and wondered whether I’d ever use it. I didn’t particularly like the colour combination and as a rule, these skein-dyed yarns don’t knit up into an interesting pattern.

Ugly Yarn

However, these are the socks that knit up – not bad at all!

Interesting Sock

Finished last evening. Now on to another pair.

I have another skein (which I’ve also balled) not variegated but green on one end, yellow on the other, graduated in between. Were I to knit it up I’d have one green sock and one shades of yellow. What I think I will do with that yarn is knit using both colours at the same time alternating rows to form a spiral. The socks will not match but at least they’ll look similar – we’ll see.

Yellow/Green Ombre Yarn With Turquoise Contrast

As for the Bamboo Quilt top – I’m plodding along slowly. I still have three/four blocks to make, then I have to find something for borders. I don’t think I have anything in my stash that will complement the inner panel so it’s off to the fabric store yet again.

And talking about new fabric – I came across this collection “Blushing Peonies” at Sew With Vision and couldn’t resist buying some. I already have an idea what to make with it.

Blushing Peonies by Moda

I’ve ordered yardage of two more grey fabrics from the collection from The Missouri Star Quilt Company – the greys I have on hand just didn’t blend well enough to work with the other fabrics.

So now to get on with finishing the Bamboo Quilt.

New Socks

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Finished these socks the other evening.

I used a yarn from New Zealand (Waikiki) that contains 10% possum, 15% alpaca – very nice yarn to work with – for the heels. I do hope it wears reasonably well – 20% nylon, it should. It would be a shame if it didn’t.

The socks went into the stash; I started the next pair.

Socks from a Hand-Dyed Skein

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Finished this pair of socks last evening. Too bad I didn’t take a photo of the skein – the colours were luscious – and distinct. But unwind and ball the yarn and you get this kind of blurred mixture which is relatively boring when knit into socks. I tried choosing embedded colours for cuff, heels and toes but they don’t blend – they stick out.

Here’s what hand-dyed yarn can look like: you can get large swaths of colour

Hand-dyed Yarn – Sectional

or it can look like this

Variegated Hand-dyed Yarn

In either case, they knit up looking more or less like my socks.

While the colours are enticing, I find this yarn much less satisfying to use than commercial balls dyed to create an actual pattern. Socks with hand-dyed yarn always seem to take a lot longer because there are no pattern shifts to indicate the progress you’re making.

So back to another patterned ball of yarn….