Tag Archives: sock yarn

I MADE SOME YARN!

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I usually try to write something clever, or at least do a little funny intro to my posts, but the only thing I can say today is:

I MADE SOME YARN!

YOU CAN BUY IT!

IT’S SUPER PRETTY!

A few months ago (actually, quite a few months ago, because apparently it takes a while to manufacture yarn), I collaborated with KnitPicks to design a couple colorways of their eternal-favorite self-striping sock yarn, Felici, and my yarn has just become available!!

My skeins are the bottom two- the bright, multi-colored ones! They’re both inspired my my (sometimes unrequited) love of gardens and gardening. (They both had garden-y names when I designed them, but I guess the KP marketing folks decided to rename them… who knows?)

The first one, Dragonboat, is a mix of greens and bright red, yellow and orangey-pink, the colors of my favorite zinnias, which always remind me of a summer garden. Not my summer garden, since all my zinnias are kind of sad and stunted this year, but still.

My other skein, Fiesta, is inspired by my neighbor’s garden. She’s a much better gardener than I am, and her yard is always teeming with vibrant dahlias, powder-blue hydrangeas, vivid roses and golden sunflowers.

I can’t wait to see the yarn in person- my skeins are en route as we speak! I think I’m going to start with a classic pair of stockinette socks, but then who knows where I’ll go… hats for everyone? A stripey sweater for the kid? The sky’s the limit!

Grab your skeins here!

Vacation Yarn

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Some people collect miniature spoons, or porcelain thimbles when they go on vacation.  Others collect magnets or key chains or tiny, personalized license plates.

I try my darnedest not to collect tschotchkes, but I still want something to remember my vacations by.  So, I’ve started collecting something that I think you guys could get behind.

Vacation yarn.

I try to buy a skein of vacation yarn whenever I go out of town for the last few years.  At first I would just get a skein or two of whatever piqued my fancy.  But now, after realizing I have a bunch of skeins vacation yarn in my stash that I’m probably never going to use for one reason or another, I have given myself Vacation Yarn Rules:

  1. The yarn must be purchased at a local yarn store- no online stores, no big box stores that happen to be in the area.  It’s gotta be something I can only get on location, or what’s the point?  (Plus, it’s a great excuse to go find a new yarn store!)
  2. The yarn must be spun, died, or both by a local yarn producer.
  3. The yarn must be in a colorway that reminds me of the vacation. (This rule has a little more wiggle-room than the others… I can pretty much convince myself that whatever skein I find the prettiest is the one that most closely matches the location.)
  4. One skein must be enough to make a complete project.  This means that 95% of my Vacation Yarn ends up being sock yarn.  But that’s great, because now I’ve got a bunch of pairs of Vacation Socks!

We just got back from a trip to Lake Tahoe, down in California (which is lovely by the way.  I highly recommend going in October- It’s practically empty, the weather is perfect for taking long walks along the lake or sitting in the sun with a cup of tea and some knitting.  And when the weather’s not perfect, it’s a great time to go inside and play board games with your buddies).

And, of course I got a skein of Vacation Yarn.

It’s from a very cute little shop in South Lake Tahoe, Knits and Knots Tahoe, and was hand dyed in the area. This sock yarn was dyed in a colorway called “Driftwood” and it’s a lovely brown-y olive, with little speckles of dark brown and a splash of bright leaf green.  It really reminded me of the colors of the area- the soft brown of the dead pine needles that cover the ground under the massive pine trees, and the green of the little plants peeking through the forest floor.  IMG_0486

I can’t wait until I have time to knit up my Lake Tahoe Socks!

What do you collect when you’re on vacation?

More Socks

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It seems like I’ve been on a sock kick (ha!) since the baby was born.  There’s something about a small, simple project that you’ve done a million times that’s very comforting.  It’s something I can pick up whenever I get a minute or two, but can then put down again when the little guy starts crying.  I’ve made so many socks over the years, that I could probably do them in my sleep.  (Which sometimes happens these days.)

Plus, it’s a great excuse to play with some beautiful, fancy yarn.  Like this:(Country Yarns Artistry, a hand-dyed super-dense sock yarn that I picked up at last fall’s Vogue Knitting Live.)

It’s even prettier in real life- all blues and greens and purples, vibrant and saturated.  (I can’t for the life of me figure out how to photograph intense blue yarn.  For some reason my camera always washes it out and makes it look all one-note.  I even tried Photoshop to correct the color, but it still doesn’t look great.  If anyone knows how to fix this, I’d love to hear it!)

Now, I love variegated yarn… when its in a skein or balled up, ready for knitting.  I visit a yarn store or a knitting expo, and I almost invariably leave with a skein or two of something hand-painted or dyed.  It’s irresistible!  But, then I get it home and start knitting and go “Eh.  It’s not as pretty as I thought it would be.” (I make a point of only sock yarn in variegated colorways these days.  It’s no big deal if the colors are a little bit brighter/sillier/tackier than I would normally wear.  )

But, this time I am pleasantly surprised.  Somehow, the pooling on this sock worked out really well!  It’s turned into a pretty blue-and-purple spiral, zooming down the broken seed stitch leg.Unfortunately, the heel has messed up the perfect spiral pattern.  Dang.

Hopefully the spiral will come back as I make my way further down the foot.  (And hopefully I can get the other sock to match!)  Fingers crossed!

Have you ever been surprised with how a new yarn works up?

Sick Days and Sock Yarn

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I’ll be honest with you, it’s been a rough couple days at my house.  I’ve come down with the plague, or as my doctor put it “just” a cold.  I’ve been a coughing, sniffling mess.  My house feels full of Kleenex and I’ve been drinking water like it’s going out of style.  It’s the worst!

I haven’t had the brain power to do any planning on my Ravellenic Games knitting, so I guess we’ll all be surprised with what I decide to do, come Friday morning.

I haven’t been able to muster the energy (or the brain power) for doing anything more than simple knitting-and only knitting.  No purling, no shaping, no counting.  I don’t want to leave the house to get more yarn (because I don’t want to spread this plague to anyone else), so into the stash I went.  And lucky for me, I found a ton of single skeins, half-skeins, and tiny balls of sock yarn.  I have a vague memory of going crazy a couple years back and getting 20 or so skeins of Knit Picks Stroll during one of their sales.  I’ve been slowly working through it, but there’s still quite a bit leftover, and not really enough of any one color to make a full pair of socks.

So I said, “Hey, let’s make a blanket with this!  But a baby blanket, because I’m not insane enough to try knitting a great big blanket with sock yarn.  And I should hold the yarn double and knit it with big needles so that it’ll go fast.”

And, that’s exactly what I’ve been doing.

I’ve cast on a bunch of stitches (I didn’t count, but it’s about a yard’s worth of stitches- I’m sick! Give me a break!) with some nice big US10s, and I’ve been knitting back and forth, watching crummy daytime TV for the last couple days.  And whenever I get bored of a color, or when a skein runs out, I switch that strand for a different color.  So far, I gotta say, I like how it looks!Plus, it’s crazy simple, and I’m cruising through really quickly.  It’s going to be a really nice, cozy blanket!

What do you like working on when you’re feeling under the weather?

Snips and Scraps

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I’ve been making a lot of socks lately, which means I’ve been ending up with a lot of little balls of scrap yarn.   You know, the 10 or 20 grams of sock yarn that’s left over after you’ve finished your socks.  It’s not enough to make another pair (or anything else really), but it’s enough that you can’t bear to throw it away. When I have leftover bits of worsted yarn, they go into my Mother Bear stash, but when it’s sock yarn… I just kind of hold onto it “just in case.”

So, let’s take a look at some gorgeous pattern ideas about what to do with those last little bits of sock yarn.

I love this simple blanket- it’s nothing more complicated than a mitered stockinette square, but the combination of all those sumptuous colors of leftover sock yarn… gorgeous!

Giant Square Scrap Blanket by Laura PetersOf course, this quilt is the new standard “using up all my lovely bits of yarn” pattern.  I’ve seen lots of knitters making the little hexipuffs, but I’ve never actually seen a finished one in person.  Maybe that’s a sign that I need to make one for myself. (Or maybe it’s a warning that if I start it, I’ll never finish it.  It could go either way, really.)

the beekeeper’s quilt by tiny owl knits

I really love this blanket, too.  I love the seashell pattern, and the fact that it’s all knit in a single piece- no seaming!  I imagine the short rows might get a bit tiring after a while, but the finished product is so pretty, they might be worth it.

Seashell Scrap Yarn Blanket by Charan Sachar

What do you do with your scrap yarn?  Do you have a go-to scrap yarn project?

Help me! I think I have a problem!

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And that problem is that I’m now obsessed with lace shawls.  I can’t stop looking at patterns.  I’ve even gone digging through my stash and found a bunch of yarn I could use .

Sock yarn!

I’ve been collecting sock yarn over the years, and I have a big box of it next to my desk.  Sometimes I open it up and dig around in it just for fun.  But now I think I want to make a lace shawl with some of my sock yarn (despite having absolutely zero time for “fun” knitting right now.)

So here’s your task: talk me out of knitting one of these shawls.

I love the garter stitch body on this one, with the big openwork edge and the chunky braided cable.  Gorgeous and elegant!  Look at those huge eyelets along the edge!  So pretty!

French Cancan by Mademoiselle C

DSC_8833_medium2[1]I love this one, too.  It’s not exactly lace-y, but it is completely beautiful.  And I could use up a bunch of little skeins of leftover yarn to make the gradient stripes!

Song of the Sea by Louise Zass-Bangham

DSC_6050_-_Version_2_medium[1]And how great would this one look with a soft gray garter stitch panel and deep burgundy or forest green for the lace edging?  *Drool.*

Henslowe by Beth Kling

IMG_1366Or, of course, I could (should) just keep on working on the projects I’ve already committed to.  But where’s the fun in that?

Yikes! Stripes!

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I don’t know about you, but I’ve still got socks on the brain.  They are possibly my favorite project to work on when I’m looking for something easy, portable and fun.  But, sometimes having a million plain socks gets boring, so sometimes I mix it up, and use self-striping sock yarn.  Lots of brands carry self-striping sock yarn, and when you buy it, it just looks like regular variegated sock yarn (except that the label will have the word “stripe” on it…duh):

But, when you knit your socks, you magically end up with beautifully striped socks with absolutely no effort on your part!

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Pretty awesome, right?

So, how do they do it?  Basically the yarn company figures out how much yarn the average knitter uses for every row when she makes her socks.  Then, they dye the yarn in row-long increments, so that each row is a different color.  So, for example, if it takes 1 yard of yarn to knit 1 row, they might dye the yarn sow that 5 yards are blue, then 5 yards are green.  This means that in the finished sock, you will end up with a 5 row stripe of blue followed by a 5 row stripe of green.  Pretty clever!

It’s too pretty out for a real post

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If the sun’s out in Seattle, you’re pretty much required by law to spend your day outside.  So, I decided to sit out in the yard with a nice iced coffee and a pile of granny squares and sew them together.  Not a bad afternoon.OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

After an hour or two of work and a few chapters of my most recent audiobook…

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And I’ve whip-stitched my squares together:

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They’re nowhere near an entire blanket yet, but they’re a start.  It’s going to end up being possibly the tackiest blanket ever (since I’m using up all my sock leftovers from over the years, and I tend to knit brightly colored socks), but I’m kind of OK with that.  It’ll be a nice project to work on a little at a time, whenever my bowl of sock yarn leftovers gets too full.

Granny Squares

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Want to make your own blanket like Chummy’s?  It’s super easy (and satisfying) to make granny squares from your scrap yarn.

I made you a video!  (I even figured out how to and sound and a title!  I’m still not sure about editing and stuff yet.  Next time, I’m thinking special effects, background music and unicorns.   Some day, I will become the Steven Spielberg of knitting/crochet videos.)