FO Friday: Captain Nemo socks (Knit Picks Felici review)

Over the two and a half years since I learnt to knit socks, I have learnt that my favourite socks to knit and wear are vanilla socks (socks knitted in stocking stitch with no additional patterning). Vanilla socks really are the ultimate portable project: 100g of yarn and a single set of needles and you have a project that you can take anywhere with you, with long stretches of straight-forward knitting that can be done in waiting rooms, on the bus or while chatting with friends; you only have to pay attention for the heels and toes, and once you've done a few of those, even they don't pose much of a challenge. For ultimate portability, afterthought heels leave the heels to the end, so you don't even have to worry about those halfway through the sock.

Vanilla socks are made even better with the addition of self-patterning yarn. Self-patterning yarn, as the name suggests, does the hard work for you, by being coloured in such a way that it stripes or patterns as you knit. You can get striped yarns, fairisle-effect yarns, animal print yarns, even yarns that create pictures as you knit!

One of the yarns I was most excited about trying when I got confident knitting socks was Felici, a merino-nylon blend produced by Knit Picks, which comes in a wide variety of self-striping colourways. Only one drawback: Knit Picks are based in the US and, when I first heard about them, only shipped to selected countries, and those countries did not include the UK.

And then, late in 2015, Knit Picks started shipping to the UK and I got my hands on some Felici. I bought three colourways* and set about knitting some lovely stripey socks.

Felici collection: clockwise from top left: Spring Blooms, Coutness, Rainbow, Captain Nemo

Felici is released in batches once or twice a year, and when it's gone it's gone. I managed to get two colourways in the last release: Captain Nemo and Spring Blooms. I cast on the Captain Nemo colourway at the start of the summer and finally finished the socks last weekend.

The first thing to say about this yarn is that it is so soft. The yarn is made of a blend of merino (75%) and nylon (25%) - the nylon strengthens the yarn, making for quite durable socks. I would say though that I find the yarn knits up slightly looser than I would expect on my standard needle size (2 mm) - every pair of socks I have knitted with Felici has come out the tiniest bit bigger than expected, so consider going down a needle size or casting on slightly fewer stitches than you usually would.

The yarn comes in an amazing selection of bright colours, however, the colours are varied seasonally, and are not often repeated, so you should always buy as much as you need when you see it, as you may not be able to find the right colourway again. There are a couple of downsides to the colours: sometimes the colours have inconsistent stripe widths between colours in the the sequence, which can look a little odd when knitted up; often the contrast between adjacent colours is not great enough, so it looks like you have one giant stripe in one colour; and sometimes the colour changes are not the cleanest.

So here they are, my latest Felici socks. The colours are fab, and I really do love them. I knitted them from the toe up and added an afterthought heel. I had fun doing the heel of the first sock - I had left my scissors and darning needle at home, but managed to improvise with a fork to snip the stitch for the heel, and did the Kitchener stitch with my circular needle.

Ravelry project page

Yarn: Knit Picks Felici (currently unavailable)

*Two balls of each - the balls are 50 g each, so unless you're knitting small children's socks, you'll need two balls.

Yarning Along: A heel short of a sock

This week has been swatching heavy, so while I have done a lot of knitting, I don't actually have all that much to show for it. The Pavement Sweater now looks like a sweater, but still has a long way to go. Which isn't to say I'm not enjoying it. The long rounds of stocking stitch make excellent television knitting, and I can happily work on the jumper while reading, which makes for lots of extra reading time.

I haven't done much work on my Felici socks in the past week, but I do now have a sock! While the kids were at soft play this afternoon I added the afterthought heel (I nkow that if I don't do the heels as I go then they won't get done!). There were a couple of stumbling blocks - I had failed to pick up either scissors or a darning needle, so I had to improvise a little. I used a fork as a pair of scissors to snip the yarn to unravel stitches to make a hole for the heel, and managed to do Kitchener stitch using just the knitting needles that were holding the sock to pull the yarn through the stitches (I used the instructions in this blog post for the actual Kitchener stitch). While it would have been easier to wait until we got home and I could access a darning needle, it was hugely satisfying doing it the unconventional way!

I have had time to read this week, which has been lovely, and this afternoon I finished The Keeper of Lost Things, which I loved. The story is made up of two separate threads, one set in the present day, and another set in the past, but moving towards the present. The present day story is about a man who collects lost things to make up for something he lost in the past, and the story is one of loss and love. I related hugely to the characters and really enjoyed the writing style. There were a few elements of the story that startled me as I was so invloved with the tale. I highly recommend this as a nice light summer read.

Linking up with Rachel for Yarning Along.

Yarning Along: Round and round we go...

Hello... Is it Wednesday already?! Half a week in to the school holidays and I have lost track of the day of the week!

This week's knitting is almost exclusively stocking stitch in the round. One pair of socks in Knit Picks Felici in the fabulous colourway Captain Nemo, and my Pavement Sweater. Neither requires much attention (I'm knitting the socks with afterthought heels, so I haven't even had to think about the heel yet), and I'm switching between the two depending on the size of needles I fancy working with (2 mm for the socks and 3.25 mm for the jumper). Both are perfect portable projects for taking along to play dates, so I'm making good progress!

Last night I finished reading Running on the Cracks by Julia Donaldson. A well-written and tightly plotted read, whose thiller element was very much at the young adult end of the genre, I enjoyed this book, and throughout was keen to see how it concluded.

I've just started reading The Keeper of Lost Things by Ruth Hogan (which I came to via Rachel) and four chapters in know that I am going to whizz through it, and love the ride. So far, the central characters have been introduced, and I am finding them all fascinating.

Linking up with Rachel for Yarning Along. If you like crafting and reading, head over there to see what other people are sharing.