I've spent so much time knitting that I haven't blogged about it. 2014 and 2015 were very big knitting years for me. I discovered just how much I love sock knitting.
It's kind of funny actually; before I knitted any socks I didn't understand why people went so crazy for them. I usually wore plain white, black or brown socks (when not wearing sandals), and socks seemed like such a utilitarian garment, often covered by shoes and pants, so why put the effort into making cool and wacky socks that would barely be seen?
The first pair of socks I made was a birthday gift for my mother. Cuff down, but two at a time on magic loop. What a way to start, hmm?
I used a Knit Picks yarn (Telemark) that I ended up not caring for as it was a bit of a rough highland wool. I started them one year and finished them another, panicking in the middle because I had no idea where in the pattern I was. But, they did eventually get finished and they actually turned out pretty nice: http://www.ravelry.com/projects/anyeone/athena
My mom loved them, and swears she still wears them to this day. Those socks started a tradition of me making my mom birthday socks every year. But, they also created a monster.
The next socks I made were toe-up two-at-a-time for myself. I used Knit Picks Chroma Fingering which is a beautiful and soft yarn, but unfortunately as I discovered before too long, felts extremely fast. I didn't mind too much, because they were still comfortable and no one sees the bottom of your feet anyway - but then one disappeared a few months later. I ordered another ball of the same yarn in the same color way to knit a replacement. To my dismay, the texture of this ball was very uneven. The yarn for the originals was quite evenly wound, but the new one was extremely bumpy and sadly my replacement sock ended up looking like a ribbed condom! Not exactly what I was hoping for. Eventually, the original sock turned up - it had been accidentally tossed into the laundry but somehow ended up at the very bottom of a rarely emptied basket, which took six months for anyone to find. Unfortunately, it had gotten tossed into the wash and came out half its original size! Oops!
From there my sock production ramped up, and over the course of 2014 & 2015 I probably whipped up over a dozen pairs of socks in-between other projects.
And then over Christmas break 2015 I was hit by a muse, smack across the face - an idea for a sock design. I spent so much time knitting this pair of socks over the holidays I got a muscle strain and had to take three very long days respite from knitting. But, eventually I finished and I wrote up the pattern and asked some friends if they wanted to test knit the pattern to help me tweak it, make sure everything was clear. Because I have great friends and an amazing fiber arts group, I had several volunteers who quickly got to work. That pattern was the "Lattice Love Socks" that I just published on Ravelry this morning. http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/lattice-love-socks
But Lattice Love was just the tip of the iceberg. I have had idea after idea pound into my head like a freight train since then and I quite literally do not have enough time to knit these up as fast as I think up the ideas. I do wish the ideas would start coming during the daytime instead of keeping me up at night! But there have been so many ideas I'm dying to try, and so I decided that I will go full steam ahead towards developing enough patterns to fill an e-book of Boredom Busting Socks for all experience levels and attention spans.
The concept behind my patterns is that anyone who knows how to knit stitch and purl stitch should be able to gather any info they need to do one of my patterns from the pattern itself. So I have a *lot* of background technique instruction that more experienced knitters can ignore. In addition to saying what yarns I used, I describe the kinds of yarns that work well with the design (plain, variegated, self-striping, contrast etc.) and give instructions wherever possible for changing the length and resizing as needed. Each pattern will get three ratings:
- Difficulty - is this a good choice for a beginner, or not for the faint at heart?
- Attention Required - is this good knitting for watching TV or stitch'n'bitch, or do you really have to Pay Close Attention Or You Will Ruin Everything?!
- Memorability - Is it repetitious enough that you'll start to "get it" as you go and not have to constantly look at the instructions, or is it constantly different without repeated motifs?
I have two friends test knitting my second pattern "Contra-band Socks" and they are coming out AMAZING! That pattern is, how shall I put it, rather unusual. But so much fun!
Then there are the aptly named "Eternity Socks", which were named thusly because the concept for the sock were cables that wrapped around and around the sock, but became more appropriate because it took me about 11 tries to get it right. Kudos to the Wisdom Yarn folks because my Naked Sock yarn held up amazingly over the massive number of total and partial frogging that I went through before I was happy with the result (and now, I am SUPER happy with the result and ironically can't wait to start knitting another pair!) I should have named these Zig-Zag socks which also would have worked but might not have cursed me in how long it took to design them!
The Stripey Stairs Socks (in progress) are inspired by one of my friends who wants to learn toe-up two-at-a-time; I wanted an easy pattern for her to learn from but that wasn't boring - and I decided to utilize this for me to teach myself continental knitting! It was a rocky start but I'm getting better pretty quickly and I am loving the socks. I love the colors in this yarn, it's a color way of Noro Taiyo sock that looks like mint chocolate chip ice-cream, among other things.
My next adventure in cables I am calling "Anne of Green Cables" (or Anye of Green Cables, but it doesn't have the same ring to it). It's very different from the Eternity Sock but also based on cables and textures. I've only just started this one but I am loving the Madeleine Tosh 80-10-10 fingering, it is so luscious and soft.
Last night I had an idea for a very simple color work sock - but I stink at color work! I am hoping this idea is simple enough that I can pull it off, but I think it will look amazing if someone who is good at color work does it. I guess technically I don't have to make all my own samples, but I'm still going to give it a try when I get to it on the list!
I am now known as the "sock lady" at my podiatrist's office; the receptionist has also commissioned me to make some baby booties for her, and though I normally prefer not to take commissions, she's not in a hurry, booties are fast, and lo and behold it gives me an excuse to devise a baby sock pattern for the book!
My husband has been amazingly supportive of my endeavors, and he really, REALLY likes the contra-band socks. He thinks they are the coolest. Maybe I will knit him a pair :)
I will try to blog more frequently as I go through this design journey, and talk about techniques and cool concepts as each pattern comes out.
I'm so excited!
