Yarn review: Milla Mia Naturally Soft Sock

A few months ago, the lovely people at LoveCrafts* launched a new sock yarn: MillaMia Naturally Soft Sock.* I am a huge fan of MillaMia's yarn range - their Naturally Soft Aran* is a particular favourite: it's really soft, lovely to work with, and the garments I have made using it for my children have worn beautifully - so I was really excited to try out this new yarn.

MillaMia Naturally Soft Sock* is a 75% wool, 25% polyamide sock yarn, which is my favourite blend for making socks: the wool makes the yarn warm but breathable, while the polyamide (a plastic) adds strength to make the yarn hard-wearing. The yarn has a great handle: it's slightly crisp to the touch, rather than the soft that the name suggests, but that makes it great for colourwork as the strands stay where you put them. MillaMia Naturally Soft Sock comes in 50 g balls, which also makes it perfect for colourwork as you can buy a few colours without having to worry about what to do with the rest of a 100 g ball; this ball size is also perfect for heels, toes and cuffs - I often find that a 20 g mini skein is not quite enough for heels, toes and cuffs, while 25 g is plenty, so a 50 g ball will allow you to knit heels, toes and cuffs for two full pairs of socks.

I love that this yarn comes pre-wounds as balls that are ready to knit from - getting the swift and ball winder out often seems like a lot of effort, especially if you only want to wind 50 g of yarn - so this yarn is ready to knit as soon as you receive it.

The colour pallete for MillaMia Naturally Soft Sock* is lovely: there are 20 colours available and I think any two colours would make a great pairing. The darker colours are bold without being too bright, and there are plenty of neutrals to choose from. I knitted socks in the Laurel colouray, a lovely dusty pale green, and while the yarn looks like a solid-colour in the ball, it actually has a very gentle heather to it, which was a pleasant surprise.

The yarn was good to work with, and withstood tinking and reknitting well. I did have an underspun area in one ball that I had to snip out, but it wasn't a very long section, and the problem was easily remedied with just a couple of extra ends to darn in.

In terms of wear, this yarn feels hard-wearing. I would not describe the yarn as super-soft, but I prefer something a little sturdier for socks, so the firmer handle is a definite plus. The socks I made have been worn a few times with no obvious signs of wear.

I would defintiely use this yarn again: the colour palette is lovely; the yarn feels like it will withstand long-term wear, and the 50 g balls make it ideal for colourwork, or heels, toes and cuffs. In addition, the yarn has an OEKO-TEX 100 certification, which means it doesn't contain any harmful chemicals, which is good news for the environment and the crafter.

The yarn was provided by LoveCrafts* for review purposes. All opinions are my own.

Want to knit the socks shown? The pattern is Hiding in the Bamboo, which you can find in my Ravelry store.

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FO Friday: Paintbox Yarns Socks (review)

A few months ago Paintbox Yarns got in touch with me to ask if I would like to test drive their latest yarn: Paintbox Yarns Socks.* Paintbox Yarns have been producing yarn since last year, and pride themselves on supplying affordable yarns in a huge variety of colours across a range of yarn weights, but Paintbox Yarns Socks is their first foray into sock yarns. As I love knitting socks, and have liked the other Paintbox Yarns that I have tried, of course I said yes!

As with the other Paintbox Yarns, the new sock yarn comes in lots of colour options. The range is made up of 28 colours, divided into 4 families: mock-fairisle, pixel (which look a little bit like a uniform speckled yarn), stripes (including both graduated and distinct colourways), and Zebra stripes. I was allowed to choose any colour from the range and went for one of the defined stripe colourways (specifically because the colours reminded me of the Doctor Who scarf).

Top to bottom: Stripes, Pixel, Zebra. Images copyright Paintbox Yarns.

My first impression of the yarn was good. The yarn is a 75% wool, 25% nylon blend, and is smoothly spun. The yarn isn't as soft as a merino, but not as scratchy as West Yorkshire Spinners Signature 4ply, which is my go-to for socks, especially if I want stripes. I'd say the feel of the yarn is very similar to the sock yarns produced by Regia and Opal. Each ball of yarn is 390 m (427 yds), which is enough to knit socks for all but the largest of feet.

My knitting experience with the yarn was good. The stripes are uniform widths and the colours have been selected such that there is good contrast between adjacent stripes. Each repeat in the colourway I tested has 8 colours, which is on the generous side; I really enjoyed seeing each stripe emerge as I knitted, and the yarn got lots of admirers as I knitted at various knitting groups. While the joins between the stripes are clean, there are some colour spots on some of the stripes, but I don't think that on this occassion they detract from the yarn, but that might be something to look out for. The yarn was smooth throughout the ball, and I didn't find any knots. I've worn my finished socks a couple of times and they feel good on my feet - the yarn is sufficiently squishy that I can't feel every purl bump, and I think it will wear well.

The yarn is designed to be easy to care for, and is machine washable at 40 degrees, so I think this would be a good yarn to knit gift socks with, so long as you can trust the recipient not to tumble dry them. The yarn costs £8.79 per ball, which is about what I'd expect for the quality of yarn.

I do have a couple of comments on the colour range. The range is good, with several masculine options, which is always nice to see. I love the animal stripes, but think Paintbox Yarns has missed a trick by not having a tiger colourway.  I was also a little disappointed that there were only three solid stripe colourways, but only because I love stripes.

If you fancy giving the yarn a go, you can buy it here.* If you want to make socks that match mine you'll need the Summer Vacation colourway. I'll defintely be knitting more socks with this yarn. I think I'll try the Zebra stripes next.

Thanks for reading. What's your favourite sock yarn?

This yarn was supplied by Paintbox Yarns for review purposes. All opinions are my own. Unless otherwise stated, the photos in this post are (C) Vikki Bird.

Ravelry project page
Yarn: Paintbox Yarns Socks in Summer Vacation*

*Affiliate link.

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.

Yarn review: DMC Top This!

I'm always on the look out for last-minute knits for friends' children, and when I saw DMC Top This! in my local yarn store, I knew I wanted to try it out (especially as my daughter requested that I bought the ball with the owl hat topper; she's pretty irresistible when she requests something).

DMC Top This! is a ball of self-striping chunky weight yarn that comes with a small stuffed toy that can be used as the pom pom for a hat; there's even a little label featuring washing instructions, which you can stitch into the finished hat. The yarn comes with instructions to knit a hat, and instructions on how to attach the pom pom. All you need to supply are knitting needles and a darning needle to weave in the ends (you'll also need sewing thread and a sharp needle if you want to sew the label in).

Working at a gauge of 15 sts to 10 cm, the yarn knits up really quickly, and the self-striping nature of the yarn keeps it interesting. The different colour sections also have different textures - some regions are smooth while others are more like chenille. The yarn has a chainette construction, and the different sections are very securely joined to one another. The yarn is rather synthetic, but not unpleasant to work with (but you may wish to avoid it if you dislike velvet textures - the chenille region is very similar).

Easy enough to knit whilst reading a book!

The pattern is clearly written and comes in a range of sizes from child to small adult. I knitted an intermediate size and had plenty of yarn left over. My ball came with two sets of instructions, one for knitting in the round and another for knitting flat, which gives you plenty of options.

Attaching the pom pom was easy: the yarn comes with a foam button to put underneath the pom pom to stop it pulling through the fabric, and the pom pom itself has ribbons on the underside to tie the pom pom in place.

I gifted the hat I made to a two year old last weekend, and she was delighted with it. She did, however, find the ribbons a bit tickly, so if your child is sensitive to such things, you may wish to stitch the pom pom in place instead.

I have another of these to knit for my daughter (the owl I mentioned earlier), and would definitely recommend these if you need a last minute gift. You might even have time to knit one for this Christmas if you order now!

*This post conatins affiliate links, see the Disclaimers and policies page for more information. All items are subject to availability.*