Looking for a Christmas Eve cast-on? Tangles Socks are live!

 

Available now on:

Ravelry

PayHip

LoveCrafts

From now until 11.59pm GMT, Thursday 24^th December 2020, you can get 20% off with the code TANGLES (Ravelry and PayHip only).

Have you come across the concept of a Christmas Eve cast-on? Essentially, you choose a project that you cast on for you on Christmas Eve once all the presents are wrapped and under the tree and you finally get a chance to relax: a gift-knitting free zone! Every year I plan a Christmas Eve cast-on, getting excited about choosing some special yarn from my stash and a beautiful pattern to work from, but I am usually wrapping until the last minute, so for me, a Boxing Day cast-on is a better prospect (Boxing Day is the day after Christmas – it’s a Bank Holiday in the UK)! Whether you want to cast on on Christmas Eve or Boxing Day, I might have just the thing for you: the Tangles Socks!

The Tangles Socks were an organic project for me: I made a few swatches in this yarn before it became these lovely ribbed and cabled socks: each time I tried something new, the yarn steered me in the direction of twisted cables, and squishy rib. The sock told me it wanted to an organic heel that grew out of the ribbing. I’m delighted with the direction the yarn steered me in, and I hope you can find a yarn to make this pattern in that is similarly particular! Maybe you have something really special in your stash that you haven’t assigned to a project yet?

The socks are knitted from the top-down with an all-over 2 x 2 rib and a cable panel to give a comfortable and flexible fit. The socks have a modified-Strong heel that appears to grow out of the ribbing – a bonus of the Strong heel is that you don’t have to pick up any stitches. The toe is created with shaping down each side and is gathered at the end – no need for any pesky Kitchener stitch!

I know that one size doesn’t fit all when it comes to socks, so the Tangles Socks come in lots of sizes, from tiddly to tremendous, so once you’ve made yourself a pair, you can make some for everyone you know!

The pattern is needle-neutral, so you can knit these socks on your choice of DPNs, short circulars or magic loop.

Want to get your hands on a copy of the pattern? It’s available now in my Ravelry and PayHip stores, and from now until 11.59pm GMT, Thursday 24^th December 2020, you can get 20% off with the code TANGLES

The pattern is also available on LoveCrafts.

Want the technical details on the Tangles Socks? You can find them here.

FO Friday: Mind the Gap socks

I feel like it's been ages since I shared any sock knitting on the blog, but that doesn't mean there haven't been any socks on the needles: my Finished Object Friday post today is all about my Mind the Gap socks.

You may remember that I cast these socks on for my Little Bobbins Knits Christmas Eve Cast On, an annual event organised by Little Bobbins Knits, and my very favourite sort of knitalong: cast on some socks on the same day, and post about them and share photos of them on social media as and when you can. These socks were cast on on Christmas Eve 2017, and finally finished on February 16th, when I had a mad blitz of an evening getting them done.

This yarn had been in my stash for a long time, possibly over 18 months, but I had been a bit scared of not doing the yarn justice in my earlier sock-knitting days and had always selected other yarn over it. But by Christmas Eve, the yarn's time had finally come. The yarn is based on the London Underground (the Tube) Map, with each colour representing a different Tube line. The yarn is pretty spectacular, with twelve different coloured stripes (and, rumour has it, each dyelot has a different stripe order).

I decided that I would knit the heels, cuffs and toes using a neutral contrast, and a Fish Lips Kiss heel to avoid distorting the stripes around the heel and got to work. I had originally planned to use West Yorkshire Spinners Signature 4 ply* in Black for the contrast, until I realised that there was black in the stripes, and there was a risk of a black stripe ending up next to the contrast, so opted for the same yarn in Milk Bottle instead.

I knitted the first sock over the Christmas holidays, finishing it early in the new year. The second sock took longer, but the time I spent on it was very enjoyable. I decided that I wanted to maximise the amount of yarn I used, but didn't want offset stripes, so I reversed the direction I was knitting the yarn in for the second sock.

A minor added complication about using the two yarns together was that they knitted at different gauges. To compensate for this I knitted the cuffs, heels and toes over 64 stitches and the leg over 68. This meant I had to increase and decrease stitches as I moved between sections, which was less than ideal, especially as I forgot for the second sock and somehow ended up having to knit the heel three times. I did get there in the end though!

And here are the finished socks. I love them, and their crazy bright mismatched nature.

I have enough yarn left that I should be able to knit a second pair using the stripes for the legs and something else for the feet, heels, toes and cuffs. I'm quite looking forward to doing that, and they might even match (or not...).

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Mind the Gap socks Ravelry project page
Pattern: Fish Lips Kiss by Sox Therapist
Yarn: West Yorkshire Spinners Signature 4 ply* in 10 Milk Bottle and Mind the Gap by Trailing Clouds

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