Socks

Hibernation: It’s Not Just for WIPs Anymore

~ Kristin Tolle ~ Leave a comment

Since the global pandemic hit, I’ve noticed that lots of folks have increased their online content production. How I know this is that I’ve been consuming it (many thanks fellow bloggers!) rather than creating it. The fact is, I am in hibernation.

I’ve been spending a lot of time attempting to learn new things. Socks, which were formerly my bane, are front and center—specifically sock heels and stretchy bind off techniques. When you start to focus on the details, it’s official—you are a sock knitter. I’ve made so many pairs, I stopped using patterns and now cast on the next pair immediately after I bind off the finished one.

  • West Yorkshire Spinners Colorful Socks

  • Schoppel-Wolle Zauberball Ultra-fitted Socks
  • Jawoll Variegated Socks
  • Jawoll Stripe Socks
  • Felted Wool Socks – Vintage Yarn
  • Regia Design Striped Socks
  • On the Needles: Jawoll Tweed Socks
Hibernation Knitting Projects

I’m not a fan of heel flaps. I prefer the “store bought” look of short row or afterthought heels. Unfortunately, these have a myriad of issues, such as holes, complexity, etc. But I’m getting ahead of myself. I have quite a bit more testing to do before I post on this topic, which means my family is getting a lot of handmade socks these days.

The other thing is I’ve been focused on “comfort knitting”. Things that don’t take much thought (rectangles!). It’s like the anxiety of COVID-19 has me wanting to do less stressful projects. I started with pillow slip covers, bathmats, hand towels and dish cloths, but have graduated to exclusively knitting afghans.

  • Pillow Slip Covers
  • Tenderfoot Bathmat
  • Pillow Case
  • Tenderfoot Bathmat for me
  • Floor rug for potty
  • Garter Squish Afghan
  • On the Needles: Velour Beachcomber Afghan for Mom–She Picked the Yarn

Other things I’ve been learning is making sourdough products and wildlife photography. Both of which have had mixed results. Like socks, I’m dialing it in a bit more with every flat loaf of bread and every blurry bird photo. 😊

  • Seagulls Eat Seastars? Who knew!
  • Sea stars and cucumbers
  • Sourdough Bread with palm tree pattern
  • One of the better bread loaves–partially risen

In the absence of interacting directly with other people, language (in this case writing) has gone into hibernation. Thankfully, creativity has not.

I miss travel and seeing friends. This too shall pass.

Lemonade from Lemons

~ Kristin Tolle ~ Leave a comment

I bought this beautiful Spincycle yarn from Dyed in the Wool in the color Shades of Earth from my local yarn shop. I planned to and did knit them into beautiful, albeit expensive, socks.  

Dyed in the Wool by Spincycle Yarns in Shades of Earth

The trouble began when my husband wore them. The yarn literally broke in places. In one day, the ribbing popped at the top and a hole appeared in the instep. I was, to say the least, bummed. This wool was not good sock yarn.

I frogged them back to skeins and looked to see if I could pair them with nylon thread, but that made a tangled mess when I made attempt #2.

Frogged Balls of Wool and the Start of My Gauge Swatch

With all the stash reduction plans, I went through and catalogued my whole stash. When I came across these lonely skeins, I just couldn’t help myself. With so many big projects and requests looming, that will take *forever*, I felt like I needed “a win”; something beautiful and something quick.

The Bias Scarf pattern, by Shelby Dyas is great free pattern designed for eating up stash. I already had it in my queue with a different pair of yarns. I wasn’t expecting to do it with just one yarn, even though the designer did. What she chose was a variable yarn made from torn up silk saris.

One good (and bad) thing about DITW yarn is that the weight varies a lot (from sock to sport weight) as does the color, so even though I tried to purchase similar looking balls, they are very different.

In a bias scarf variability just works. And because it won’t be in shoes and worn so heavily, the lack of durability will be much less of an issue.

Up Close Detail of the Color Variation

Lemonade from lemons! I’m not done yet, but even as a work in progress, I think this might be the prettiest scarf I’ve ever knit.

Any comebacks you’d care to share?

Sock-a-Rama

~ Kristin Tolle ~ Leave a comment

Though started before the Blacktop Ferry Socks, the Ultra-fitted socks took considerably longer. Thinner yarn, smaller needles, more stitches to the inch; it all adds up longer time on the needles.

  • Blacktop Ferry Socks
  • Ultra-fitted Socks

I’m headed back out on my international travels so I swung by my LYS and picked up more (not needed) wool and another set of size 0 wood needles (since I broke my last pair). Not sure which ones I’ll take for the trip, but I think I’ll stick with my new ultra-fitted pattern.

Which would you choose?

  • Schachenmayr Regia–the BOLD
  • Lang Jawoll Twin–the subtle
  • Lang Jawoll Color Jaquard–the varied

And yes, I am on a German sock yarn kick. It’s because I’m feeling too lazy to cake the locally made and dyed sock yarn hanks. 🙂

Rock ’em Sock ’em

Extermely Fitted Socks
~ Kristin Tolle ~ Leave a comment

Many times, I’ve said, that socks are my least favorite to knit. And yet…

Socks are the first to mind when I cast on these days. Partly, its demand pull (Nick is a sock fiend) and partly it’s what’s in the stash (READ: went on a MASSIVE sock yarn buying spree). Mostly, it is the need for a traveling project.

With a commute like mine from Orcas Island to Seattle (a once a week round trip), I need the packable project. And I must admit, socks are growing on me. They can be hard or easy, depending on the level of sophistication. I’d say, other than extremely custom fitting of Nick’s funny foot, I’m still in the “plain” sock mode as an “intermediate” sock knitter.

  • Extermely Fitted Socks
    Extremely Fitted Socks as a WIP
  • My pattern for extremely fitted socks

I envy the beautiful projects by experienced sockers, with all the intricacies of lace, braids and such. I also started with patterned socks. These days I tend to be more plain and practical, with the exception of fitting. And I must be getting better because this final pair, still on the needles, is my own pattern. Not only is there lots of fitting, it’s got a Turkish cast-on and a German short-row heel.

In the future, I’ll try and make it a download, but with a new job, long commute and very little free time (even for knitting and blogging) that might be a while. Certainly not until they are finished.

For now, I’ll just have to be happy about the Blacktop Ferry Socks I just finished. This happy accident is because I ran out of the Yarnachy Liberty sock wool I started with.

Now you see the blacktop, now you don’t. 🙂

  • Blacktop Ferry Socks
  • Nick on the ferry looking very pleased with his new socks

Wooly Skye

~ Kristin Tolle ~ 1 Comment

In Broadford on Skye, is The Handknitter Having Fun shop. I often find astounding deals of wool there. This year, since socks were my travel project, as if often the case, socks yarn was top of mind. And for another reason as well—I lost a just finished sock on an Edinburgh tram.

Wooly clouds on the Black Cuillins from the Sligachan Hotel

We time our visits to Skye to coincide with the climbing season. This year we were a week later than usual. I expected it to be warmer than it was two years ago when I brought long-johns and wished for t-shirts. This year the opposite was true. It was cold, rainy and blustery. I on one hike I was wearing almost everything I owned, soaked through and got blown off my feet by a gust of wind.

Reverse view from Loch Scaivaig on a sunnier day

Not to say the trip was a bust—not so! I was there for rest and the weather gave me time for knitting and a bit of shopping. I picked up three beautiful sock skeins and started another pair of socks, having brought two projects for the trip. Here are the three skeins which seem to be color inspired by the location.

  • Cream to blue variegated (color of the sea)
  • Shades of gray (color of the sky)

Can’t wait to see how the socks turn out. Too bad they take so long to knit!

NOTE TO SELF: hand dyed—don’t use different skeins and expect them to look like the belong together. This said, in spite of cutting the skein in half and caking it in reverse, the Schoppel-Wolle Zauberball® socks I started are variegating in the most peculiar fashion. Even if I make that mistake, it won’t be *this* different.

Even with taking a ball in the middle and caking it opposite, these socks look VERY different from one another

Shades of Gray

~ Kristin Tolle ~ Leave a comment

It’s always a bit gray in the Puget Sound in the winter. Oddly this weekend and past it has been sunny, but my knitting starts haven’t. They’ve been gray, gray, gray.

I’ve been slow to post because I’m traveling a lot. And because I’ve returned to the road, I need small projects to take on my trips. My last pair of socks, two-at-a-time, toe-ups, were a perfect airplane project for two consecutive trips to DC and India.

This week I cast on the yarn Felici Stormy Sky from Knit Picks that I recently purchased at Vogue Knitting Live in San Francisco. Right now they are barely more than the Turkish cast on I learned at the event. But with all my international trips on the horizon, they will be socks soon enough!

The pre-trip cast-on

I also cast on a hat for myself I call Greywurm. I’m using the Wurm pattern and two Sublime Yarn baby cashmere and silk grays—Skipper and Tittlemouse. Since it is a quick knit, it’s not a great travel project. But I’m dying to use these beautiful yarns I won in a Woolful drawing also want a “get ‘er done” project I can feel good about in the way I never do with socks or larger projects like the next one I started just last night.

Sublime in So Many Ways!

The last project is another Squares Throw in Cascade’s Tivoli; color: Fog. My mother has been trying to get me to knit her an afghan in bright aqua, but I was drawn to this project because of how beautiful the brown one that sits at the end of my bed looks—and that this one was already in the queue (not that I stick to the queue order—ever).

This said, it will go great in the spare bedroom and it will make an excellent “lap” project for the car and ferry commutes to and from Orcas Island.

Simple Squares for my Circles Duvet

Though I always think I should knit summer things in winter, it just never turns out that way. All I can think about is getting and staying warm.

How about you? What’s your go-to winter project?

UFO Sister- and Brotherhood

~ Kristin Tolle ~ 2 Comments

Aliens? No. Not that kind of UFO. There is, sadly, no abduction involved. Though sometimes I feel like my ever increasing stash of wool might carry me off.

Last time I talked about giving myself permission to have more than one project going at the same time. And I’ve done it—gotten over my head in projects. And as I look around at these works in progress (WIPs), I feel a little weighed down. It is as if they are all staring down at me saying, “Do you really think you’ll get back to me?”

If it isn’t obvious, I’m a perfectionist. Everyone that knows me, knows this is true. Whether I’m preparing a lecture or I’m knitting a pair of socks, I can literarily give myself an ulcer worrying if it isn’t just so. And this is, by and large, the only source of unhappiness for me, given my life is busy, full, and downright good!

Body image, learning new skills, investment for retirement, these are all sources of my endless frustration of coming up short of an unrealistic ideal—heaven forbid I read the news! And Nick, my dearest love, even posted a photo of me and my parents (the Joneses) with the tagline “Are you keeping up?” for most people that wouldn’t be an accusation. For me…? Hmm.

Unless it is a competition to have more WIPs than anyone else, I’m just keeping my head above water. And you know? I like it that way. That jolt of tension? It’s a good thing.

IMG_7267

My little surprise of joy today was finding that I’m just a couple of inches of easy knitting away from Nick having another pair of socks. The trip to Santa Fe with my parents, well, I must have gotten in more knitting time than I remember. If all goes well, he’ll be taking two pairs of my “lurid” hand knit hoof covers on his UK trip to “inspect” Margaret and Peter (his parents).

And with a glass of house Chardonnay from the Lower Tavern—I raise my glass in a toast to all of you with UFOs (unfinished objects) of all crafts and kinds.