FO Friday: Sock amnesty

You may recall that I am currently running a Marathon Sock KAL over in my Ravelry group (you can find out about it here). Well, when the KAL started, a few people asked whether WIPs (works-in-progress) were allowed. While I decided that they wouldn't be allowed for the main KAL, I did decide that they would be allowed for a separate warm-up thread to encourage people to get some socks finished before casting on their marathon socks. Handily this also acted as an encouragement for me to get some socks finished.

Starlight Express socks

First I decided to finish my 'Starlight Express' socks. I started these socks somewhere near the start of the year, and nicknamed them Starlight Express after the very sparkly, very 80s appropriate stripey yarn (which I bought at the British Wool Show last year). I had planned to knit these using the Vanilla is the New Black pattern, but I reached the heel section while I was on the train to Edinburgh Yarn Festival in March, and working a new heel is not conducive to relaxed train or sociable knitting, so I carried on knitting a tube ready to add afterthought heels at the end.

I simultaneously enjoyed and didn't enjoy knitting these socks. The knitting itself was fine - I always find knitting stripes motivational, but the stripes are quite wide, and somewhat muddy (there is no clear distinction between the end of one stripe and the start of the next), all of which slowed me down a bit. Matching the tubes was easy enough - I somehow managed to find the same point in the stripe sequence twice (this was quite possibly luck rather than judgement), but matching the heels proved much harder - I ended up knitting the second heel twice to improve the match and they still aren't perfect...

Afterthought heels - a small leap of faith...

The finished socks are lovely to wear though. Having knitted a lot of socks I now know that I like my sock yarn to be that bit grippier, so this commercial Opal sock yarn is perfect. I also think this may be the first pair of sparkly socks I have kept for myself! Every other pair has been gifted to someone else.

Pattern: Afterthought heel socks - improvised, so no pattern
Yarn: Zwerger Garn Opal Funny mit Silbereffekt, colourway 9332 Heiter
Ravelry project page

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Festive sockalong socks

The second pair of socks I finished for the warm-up portion of the Marathon sock KAL is the socks I cast on in November for the Festive Socklong that was being run by Amy from the Stranded Podcast. When I went to hunt these out I wasn't sure how much I had knitted, and was pleasantly surprised to find that I had knitted the whole of the first sock, so just needed to knit the second to match. 

Having looked through my notes on Ravelry and in my phone (the two default places for writing notes about how I knitted socks) and coming up with nothing helpful, I had to examine the first sock carefully to establish how I knitted it. It turns out I had knitted the sock from the toe-up, with a Fish Lips Kiss heel, which was easy enough to replicate. I did fail on getting the socks to match fully as I didn't take into account that the yarn had two sections in the same colour on each colour repeat, oops. Not that it matters - the two socks have come out remarkably similar! One small thing I did on these socks that I do quite a lot with yarn that has pooled into stripes is to work the heel from the opposite end of the ball of yarn. This means you can work the heel without disrupting the striping, and I find it a pleasing fix.

While I could put these socks into a box and save them for Christmas-time, I've put them in my regular sock drawer as I think they're pretty subtly festive. I'm looking forward to wearing these ones.

Pattern: Fish Lips Kiss Heel by Sox Therapist

Yarn: Unbelievawool Merino Nylon 75/25 in the colourway Jolly Holiday (a club colourway from December 2016)

Ravelry project page

British Wool Show 2017

A couple of weeks ago, I went to the British Wool Show. Longer established than Yarndale or Edinburgh Yarn Festival, but not as well known, this was a yarn show that I stumbled across via Instagram when one of the vendors mentioned it. I looked it up, and this year it was held in Thirsk, which is only an hour from Durham, so I decided that I would pop down for the Sunday.

The show was held in Thirsk Rural Business Centre on the outskirts of Thirsk. The venue had a large enough car park (there was just enough parking for everyone), which made it an easy option (we'll ignore the 8 mile detour I had to make as I missed the entrance to the car park, oops).

The venue was large and spacious, with a good variety of stalls. One distinct advantage of the show being less well known was that there was plenty of space to browse, without having to wrestle my way past people to get to look at things, making it a very laid-back affair. I was there for about 5 hours, and at no point did I feel rushed or overwhelmed (I'll be honest, I find the bigger yarn shows completely overwhelming and exhausting; while I love yarn, I don't love being in large crowds).

One of the things I like to do when I first arrive at a yarn show is to walk methodically round all the stalls and see what's on offer. I really enjoyed my first walk round this event: I saw lots of beautiful fleece (I almost tried spinning, until I remembered that I really don't need another hobby, and that spinning wheels and small children are not a good combination), a wide variety of buttons, lots of wonderful yarn, and myriad other things that were fascinating.

I was really excited about getting to meet a few specific vendors the the show. My very favourite stall was Alice Yarn, whose website I had stumbled across a few weeks ago, and it is an excellent example of a beautiful yarn website (go and look now!); she had a lovely selection of yarn, patterns and stitch markers (which I found hard to resist, more about that later), and pick and mix mini skeins. SkyBluePink Designs had a fantastic array of buttons [I leapt at the stall as (i) I have an obsession with buttons, and (ii) I remembered their stall from Yarndale a couple of years ago]. I finally got to meet Jillian from Mothy and the Squid, whose yarn I have loved for a long time.

A stand out feature of the British Wool Show was the Sheep Show, a live show where a man told the audience all about a selection of sheep, and their uses, and a live shearing (the sheep wasn't all that impressed with that section!).

The venue was a good choice. It had a cheap and cheerful cafe on site - I got a bowl of chips and a Diet Coke for £2, which was pretty much all I needed for lunch - and plenty of picnic benches and grass outside to sit on. I caught up some knitty friends and had a lovely time doing some outdoor knitting in the sun.

So what did I buy? Obviously I couldn't travel to a yarn show without picking up a few souvenirs. I could not resist the yarn from Alice Yarns, and picked up a skein of deep, intense purple merino/silk 4 ply, which will become a crocheted shawl over the summer (I'll be using Alice's Porthcawl Shawl pattern, which I also bought). Alice also had some gin and lemon stitch markers, which also jumped into my basket (I don't even drink gin!). I made two other purchases: a full rainbow of colour-edged wooden-buttons, which I am delighted with. I had bought them with the intention of using them on a garment for my daughter, but by the time I'd got home I had decided they were for me! And the final purchase was a ball of Opal sock yarn in the colourway Cheerful - it is sparkly (!) and comes in amazing pink and grey stripes that remind me of licorice allsorts (which are one of my favourite types of confectionery).

All in all an excellent day out. I wouldn't have travelled further than an hour for it as it wasn't a very big event, but it was just the right level for me and I really enjoyed it.