Friday, October 12, 2012

Monster Mash

I knit a lot.  Mostly, i love to knit socks as they are utilitarian, will see lots of wearing, they are small projects and very portable.  They are generally well received as gifts and sizing is not generally too complicated.  When i am cold, wool on my feet is an instant warm hug.  I also just love looking down at my feet to see the crazy colorful socks i knit.  It makes me all hella happy.  Once you start wearing hand knit socks, it's near impossible to go back to cheap crappy store bought.  Sure, you will pay between $9 and $30 for the wool for one pair of socks, but that pair will last 10 times longer than your typical sock and 30 times longer than a dollar store sock if cared for properly. 
Sock pattern is available from Drops Design.  It's a great pattern but for established sock knitters.  These were my first attempt at stranded knitting in the round.

These are Puzzle socks by Violet Green (pattern is available for purchase).
One of my more favorite socks to knit up are Stripe Tease for their unique construction. Yay General Hogbuffer! So nice, i knit them twice. Too bad these ones shrunk.  My son inherited a great pair of socks. This pattern is free on Ravelry too.


Shown here is Kalajoki by Tiina Seppälä... an excellent free pattern available to download from Ravelry.  Note, you must be a member to access the patterns on Ravelry. If you love to knit, and you aren't on Ravelry, well what are you waiting for!? It's awesome there.

What happens when you knit so many pairs of size 6 women's socks is you are often left with 1/6th of a skein of yarn or about 70 yards.  In fingering weight yarn, that is not all that much to make any one item.  you can save them all up to make a scrap yarn blanket which i will be doing this winter but you can also combine those remnants into MORE SOCKS.  These are commonly referred to as Monster Socks.  You can use any old sock pattern, and there are many different ways to combine the colors of yarn including but not limited to, knitting 2 rows each of 5 or 6 left overs or using the Blender Sock formula.  I like to stagger a few rows back and forth with my various yarns and do some stranded colorwork.  It makes for some super cozy socks that are fun and colorful. 


 These were knit for my teen daughter... and i can barely get them from her long enough to wash them.

These are all mine baby!



No comments: