As some of you have seen in previous posts, I have decided to do a Yarn Harlot-inspired self-imposed sock club. Now, the Harlot had a cool approach, in which she bought all 12 months’ worth of yarn and got all 12 months’ worth of patterns gathered up and matched with appropriate yarn, put them together in individual baggies, and blindly drew a new baggie every month, making each month a little bit of a surprise. I’m not quite going that crazy with it, but am buying the yarn as I go and just picking a pattern at the beginning of each month.
I am a quarter of the way through and it’s going very well. I’ve remained largely on schedule despite double-whammy of a major life change combined with a couple of months of an insanely busy schedule while directing and producing my school’s production of Fiddler on the Roof Junior. My sock knitting habit has been a source of great comfort and therapy during some trying times, and I remain dedicated to my socks. At this point, here’s where we are:
January–Devil’s Snare
In January I kind of cheated by deciding halfway through a sock that I was going the self-imposed sock club route. I felt no guilt about this because I knew I was coming into school musical season and would have less knitting time than usual. These socks are the Harry Potter-inspired Devil’s Snare design by Erica Lueder, a design that I would find fabulous even if I wasn’t a big fan of the movies and books. I used Malabrigo sock yarn in the Stonechat colorway, a yarn I practically stole from a yarn store in Charleston, SC as it was mis-priced at $10 for a 100g hank! This yarn and pattern were made for each other, and go beautifully together. My one issue is that the lace panel along the front is getting rubbed a little raw where the tongue of my shoe hits it.
February–The Gansey Sock
For February’s sock of the month, I decided to try out a new technique–toe up socks–and who better to follow on this quest than the splendiferous goddess of toe-up, Wendy Johnson. I bought her book Socks from the Toe Up back in January, following the lead of a friend who swears that toe-up is THE best method for knitting socks. I often have difficulty following written directions for new techniques, and this was no exception, so I had my toe-up expert-in-residence coach me through the one part that worried me most…the cast-on. She taught me what she said was “Judy’s Magic Cast-On,” which worked very well, though I found out later it was really the Turkish cast-on. Good thing I did my research too, because by the time I started sock #2 I had mostly forgotten the cast-on and had to look up a Youtube video to refresh my memory. This sock was Johnson’s Gansey Sock knit in Knit Picks Stroll sock yarn in some kind of greenish heathered thing whose name I can’t seem to recall. I like how it came out…simple knits and purls, which is just what I needed leading into the big production the first weekend of March.
March–Rick
My March socks are my favorite yet on this adventure, the Rick pattern by my all-time favorite sock designer, Cookie A. Cookie is a legend. Her mind works in ways that mere mortals can’t possibly understand and couldn’t handle if they did. This pattern is from her revolutionary book Sock Innovation. Last winter I knit a cell phone sock based on this pattern, but hadn’t done the socks until now. What I love is that it is fairly simple (for Cookie) but the two socks are different from each other…they’re symmetrical. This meant using a slightly different set of stitches on the second sock than is used for most of the first. I say most because as you can hopefully see from the photo, the raised rib spirals change direction halfway through the instep, with a ribbed triangle on much of the foot. These are easily the most comfortable socks I’ve ever worn, and the raised rib/lace combo allows them to breathe, but also keeps them from falling down or being eaten by the shoes. For this one I used a very special yarn, Classic Elite’s Alpaca Sox in a colorway I’d love to share with you if I hadn’t forgotten it. Look at the picture and try to match it if you like it. I have a bit of a thing for alpaca: incredibly soft without all the weird hairy quality of mohair, and this was an absolute dream to work with.
So that’s my journey so far. Tomorrow I’m planning on casting on my April socks, and this time it’ll be a pair for my 9-year-old daughter in (dare I say it?) pink. I don’t like pink. I pretty much loathe the color, but the love of a father transcends all color preferences. Besides, she photographed the first three months’ worth of socks for me this afternoon, so I guess I owe her.
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Needles and Balls 