Pair 10 - Herringbone Rib

I've been in a prolific knitting period recently, not sure why.  Having a knee injury which restricts my running to 3 tiny 5 mile runs a week instead of at least one run being of 10+ miles may be a factor, there's certainly no increase in available time, maybe a small amount since my courses finished in April.

The patterns knitted recently have been rather quick growing or easy to remember like this one.

Several false starts with the lovely Odyssey yarn from Flamboyance. The colour is called Dazzle Ships and it certainly does!

I tried and failed with another Socktopus pattern - De Stijil which would have looed cool, but it was a mess, even after following the pattern to the letter.  So the yarn was rewound and I tried Cookie A's Hedera with it.  The pattern worked, but it was getting lost in the myriad of colour, so it was turned back into a ball of wool.  I finally found this pattern and it worked perfectly, complementing the yarn and being an easy pattern of 2 rows to remember.

So I am now 10% of the way to my target of 100 socks.  It's quite a milestone and a lot of socks already. 

I do like sock knitting, it's quick, portable and I like the organic nature of the yarns and never quite knowing how it's going to end up.

These socks have 2 different stripe patterns, from a single continuous skein which is weird, but also rather interesting.

Of course being more productive with knitting socks means I make space in my yarn bag for some more.......

Pair 9 - Owlies

Fetch Sockathon 3.

Started this pair on 8 May after a few false starts with yarns that the pattern got lost in the beige/natural colours seemed to suit the pattern very well.

Used black beads to compliment the yarn.

As the socks progressed, one round of owlies appeared to be ninjas with little black masks on them, which looked very cute and from then on the socks were referred to as ninja owlies.

When I started the 2nd sock, the yarn was in a slightly different place and I didn't quite get the full ninjas like the first sock.  There are a few hiding in different places in the 2nd sock though.

Happy with these, I learned a new technique of single cables without a cable needle which was much quicker and less fiddly. 

As this was the 3rd cable pair on the bounce, I'm feeling a little cabled out and after Herringbone Ribs are completed- they were started alongside owlies I will be switching to a lace based pattern for some variety.

LMG likes these socks and asked if I could knit a purple pair for her, so yarn was purchased and when I get some silver beads to go with it and a fine crochet needle I will get to work on them, I expect them to be number 12-13 of this project! 

Pair 8 - Sunshine

Today I finished the next pair from Sock Innovations.
This pair was knitted for my mother as I haven't knitted her a pair of socks for ages.  She was given free rein to rummage through both of my stash sacks and could choose whatever yarn took her fancy.  She settled on a yarn I've had for yonks, one me and LMG (Little Miss Girlie) dyed a couple of summers ago (at least) using Kool Aid.

We had great fun dying yarn, filling old Fruit Shoot bottles with the different colours and just going wild to create a funky colour mix.  With this one though, we did stick to one colour, but it is clear that we had some areas that took more dye than others. 

The effect reminds me of a cherry ice cream I saw once on holiday  and really suited the pattern selected.

This time the pattern really shows up well against the yarn, I am strangely drawn to the loud and colourful yarns, which often lose the patterns I want to knit. 

I did enjoy knitting these, although since I started them, with a brief pause to knit a couple of baby coats, it hasn't stopped raining, so hoping the weather will pick up now they are finished.

I am looking for a pattern called Persistent Rain (or similar) in the hope it is sunny picnic weather when I knit them.

Had enough spare yarn to knit a hexipuff for my Beekeepers quilt and a square to add to the pile that will become another sock yarn throw.