Germany socks

It has been quite a while since Salvbard got a new pair of socks. (Apparently the last pair was finished in February 2012, blogged in March that year.) It isn't that I hadn't started a new pair. I just kept not finishing them! At last though he has his Germany socks, which are particularly welcome with the colder weather rolling in.

I have many skeins of this yarn that I bought when it came out that Regia was going to discontinue it. Salvbard is very proud of his German heritage, as his father is a German citizen. This pair of socks took almost exactly 2 skeins, with some additional black yarn used for the heel flap and first couple of rows of the gusset to preserve the striping sequence as much as possible.

Yarn: Plymouth Yarn Sockotta in color 13 (black) & Regia Nation Color (discontinued) in color 5397 (Germany)

Yarn Supplier: Little Knits & Windsor Button (closed), respectively

Needles: US 1 / 2.25 mm

Pattern: cuff-down with heel-flap, gusset and wedge toe

The week of Thanksgiving also means that it is the anniversary of us going to the Justice of the Peace to be legally married. After four years of marriage and home-ownership together, I am just as smitten as I was when we started dating twelve years ago. I am so glad to share my life and home with you. The least I can do is make sure that your feet stay warm.

As an added bonus, we are blessed to have Salvbard's father down for Thanksgiving for the first time this year. Given how much more of this yarn I have stashed away, maybe he could use a matching pair...

Clapotis

Remember a few years ago when everybody was knitting a Clapotis or three? Yeah, me too. Holy crab-cakes, we are coming up on it having been out for ten years. I have no idea how that happened.

Anywho, so it is only this past spring that I have managed to bring myself to knitting one. (Yes, I know, bad blogger.) I had several skeins that had been sitting on the shrine of precious yarns too long and it turns out this was the perfect match for the six skins (822 yards) of highly variegated kettle-dyed yarn. These were from among my final purchases at the Knitting Room, which was long ago in East Arlington.

Yarn: Mirasol Yarn Hacho in color 304

Yarn Supplier: The Knitting Room (long closed)

Needles: US 5 / 3.75 mm

Pattern: Clapotis by Kate Gilbert

The actually knitting was every bit as fantastic as has been claimed by everyone else on the internet, so I have nothing ground breaking to report there. It was perfectly mindless, with highly amusing interludes to do the dropped stitches. Good times. I increased for the end triangles until I used up one skein, knit straight until I had only one skein left, and then decreased back down to the final corner with the last skein. I didn't both alternating skeins. Other than making sure that I alternated the skeins that happened to have a slightly brighter chartreuse accent, I let the yarn do what it wanted. The combination of bias and dropped stitches hides most of the sins there.

In the spring, this was fantastic with my wool coat. In the summer I wore it as a light shawl in over-air conditioned buildings and public transport. And now that it is getting chilly again, I find that I wear it more than ever. This is absolutely my most used hand-knit that I have ever made, which is high testimony!

This last photo was taken out hiking this Fall. Have you ever noticed that knitters wear uncoordinated knitwear more than everyone else? (Also in this picture is my blue spiral hat, which Chiquita had long-abandoned and I use a lot now.) Well at least I am warm!

Blood orange socks

A while back, a friend showed up to a party we both were attending with yarn in hand. Since she only knits socks for herself or her mom, she had been culling her sock yarn stash of yarn that she wasn't going to use, and this lovely orange and red skein from a sock club she was in was up for grabs.

Majes took one look at this yarn and instantly claimed it as his future socks. In fact he promptly took a picture of the skein (below) to post to the internet so the announcement would be official. It turns out that he is an excellent hand-knit sock recipient. (At which point I realize his first pair are not blogged yet, oops!) So I didn't mind at all knitting him another pair, even if he does have giant feet.

The colors are a little more true in this picture than in the finished pair of socks picture.

I admit I was more than a little touched later, when I realized that Majes had planned on wearing these hand-knits as part of his outfit for his wedding reception. (They totally coordinated as he was dressed all in red and white and looked splendid.)

Yarn: Island Yarn Sockish in blood orange (sock club colorway)

Needles: US 1 / 2.25 mm

Pattern: cuff-down with heel flap and wedge toe

I made this pair with heel-flap, unlike the first pair that had a short row heel. Majes hasn't reported a significant difference from his perspective, but these seem like they fit the shape of his foot a little bit better to me.

I knit these cuff down and was really nervous that I would not have enough in the end. It was close, but there was just enough with about two yards to spare. Close call!