FO Friday: Lots of socks!

It's been a producive couple of weeks of sock knitting, so for FO (finished object) Friday I have not one, but two pairs of socks to share with you.

When my aunt and uncle sent out save the date cards earlier in the year for their joint 70th birthday party, I knew that I wanted to knit them each a pair of socks. I think handknitted socks are prety much the perfect present: every stitch is knitted with love, and even if someone already has some handknitted socks, they do eventually wear out, so you can't really have too many. Once I had decided that I wanted to knit socks I contacted my cousin to see if he could find out my aunt and uncle's shoe sizes for me, which he did.

I had known for months that the party would be in mid-October, but for whatever reason didn't cast on the first pair of socks until the start of September, and knitted the first one and a half socks around other projects, rather than dedicating any proper knitting time to them, which meant the final two and half socks were knitted at super high speed last week. One day I will learn!

The first pair of socks I knitted was for my uncle. I used Regia Pairfect*, which is designed to be knitted from the top-down, and pulled from the centre of the ball. This isn't my favourite way of knitting socks (I usually knit them toe-up), or way of pulling yarn from a ball (I usually work outside in), but I decided to go with it, and used Kate Atherley's book Custom Socks to guide me through the sock knitting process. I LOVE this book. It has lots of very useful information inside, including a table of shoe sizes and how they correspond to foot measurements, as well as basic top-down and toe-up sock patterns for lots of gauges.

The socks knitted up really nicely, and other than a little tangling at the start of the ball of yarn, pulling from the centre of the ball was ok too. One huge advantage of the top-down sock pattern in Custom Socks is that it doesn't require grafting at the toe, instead you draw up the final few stitches and secure them in place. As I'm not a fan of Kitchener stitch, I think I'll use this toe method again, should I ever knit more top-down socks.

There might be ambitions for more complex sock construction somewhere along the line!

Ta dah! Finished socks!

All wrapped and ready to go

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The socks for my aunt were always going to be quicker than the socks for my uncle. I am used to knitting socks in UK size 9+, so UK size 5.5 socks always seem tiny. But realistically, I should have cast the socks on before the Thursday before the Sunday party! I had never before managed to knit socks in under 5 days, and that was a pretty intensive experience. But all I could do was try, so I cast on the socks and got knitting.

I decided that as both pairs of socks were going to the same household I would use the same construction, so again following the pattern in Custom Socks. My aunt loves the colour red, so I had a bit of a think, and remembered that I had some West Yorkshire Spinners Signature 4ply* from their bird range that featured red stiripes (Bullfinch) in stash, and that I had the coordinating solid (Cayenne Pepper), so decided to combine the two, using the solid for the cuffs, toes and heels and the stripes for the rest of the sock.

I had forgotten how much I like working with the bird stripe colopurways: the stripes are quite short, so I always feel like I'm making speedy progess, and the repeats mean you can measure how much progress you're making (and whether you're on track for your stupidly tight deadline). I took these socks everywhere for the latter part of last week - in the car, in the kitchen, to drinks, to dinner, to breakfast... I even knitted on them while sat on a wall outside King's College in Cambridge city centre (and only got the ocassional odd look).

By Sunday morning I still had half a foot and toe to go. And if I had nothing else to do I could have completed them before we got to the party. But in the end I hid in a corner for the first 30 minutes of the party and quickly did the final few rounds, then hastily darned in the final few ends before putting the completed socks into their gift box and adding them to the pile of presents. I would have loved to get better FO photos of these socks, but it wasn't to be. If you imagine the first sock looks like the second you're there!

In the end I managed to get the second pair of socks knitted in about three and a half days, which is pretty insane when even I think about it! Remind me next time I have a birthday deadline to allow myself at least a week to get the socks knitted!

The state of play on Friday morning. Maybe a little behind schedule...

Slight hold-up! For some reason I struggle to keep count while knitting toes, and sometimes it's easier to start the toe again than to try and fix it!

One sock down!

The finished socks, all ready to gift

 

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Regia Pairfect socks
Yarn: Regia Pairfect* in Waterfall 7114
Size 9.5 (UK)
Ravelry page

West Yorkshire Spinners socks
Yarn: West Yorkshire Spinners Signature 4ply* in Bullfinch and Cayenne Pepper (heels, toes and cuffs)
Size 5.5(UK)
Ravelry page

*Affiliate link.

Yarning Along: Record socks

This time last week I was one a half socks into a four sock deadline. Did I make the deadline? Well, sort of! Somehow, through some serious speed knitting, I managed to get both pairs of socks completed by the end of the party (yes, that does mean I was still working on them when we arrived). I think these socks deserve a post of their own, which I'm going to save for FO Friday, but here they are in all their giftwrapped glory!

Having finished my gift socks, I am back to the autumnal socks I gave you a sneak peak of last week. The yarn is Paintbox Yarns sock yarn,* which will be available from Love Knitting** by the end of the month. I'm going to give these socks a full post to themselves when I review the yarn, so keep an eye out for that, but for now, just enjoy those beautiful stripes.

This week has felt long and we're only on Wednesday. The party we went to at the weekend was in Cambridge, which is a very long way from Durham, and we only spent one night there, so we spent a lot of time in the car. It was worth it though as we managed to catch up with friends, spending the afternoon walking round the parkland at Wimpole Hall, which was gloriously autumnal, before having dinner with my sister and her family, followed by drinks with just my sister after our children were safely asleep in bed. We nipped into Cambridge very briefly on the Sunday morning to show the city off to my brother in law who had never visited, and my son, who is currently studying the Tudors at school, was very excited to see all the Tudor buildings in the city centre. I spent three years living in Cambridge and it is one of my favourite places, so I was delighted to be back, even if it was only for an hour. The party itself was wonderful. I met many of my mum's relatives who I hadn't seen in years, and some that I had never met. The party was held in one of the Cambridge colleges, and the kids loved exploring the gardens and chasing the squirrels.

Yesterday I went into town to queue to get tickets for the Lumiere Festival, a biannual festival held in Durham city centre. I've been to all previous events and am looking forward to it again this year. Some of the event is held on the Durham peninsular, and tickets are required to enter that area between 4.30pm and 7.30pm on festival days. Having been to all the previous years, I know how busy the event can be outside these hours, when access becomes unrestricted and the area becomes very crowded, and as tickets are free queuing for them yesterday morning as soon as they became available seemed like the only sensible option. I ended up queueing for an hour, which was actually a bit less time than I expected. I took a book (I can't knit while standing up, I'm not sure I've shared that here before!) and read my way round the queue! I'm still reading Autumn by Ali Smith, and while I am not disliking it, I am unsure of where it's going and what its conclusion will be. Also, the book has no speech marks to indicate when someone is talking, which is annoying!

As ever, linking up with Rachel for Yarning Along. What are you crafting on and reading this week?

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Don't forget, I'm currently running a competition for my blog's first birthday. More details can be found here.

*Yarn provided by Paintbox Yarns for review purposes. All opinions are my own.
**Affiliate link.

Yarning Along: I had no plans for Socktober

In the online knitting world, October is referred to as Socktober, a celebration of all things sock.* Many people set themselves sock-related challenges, such as knitting their first pair of socks, knitting as many pairs of socks in a month as they can, knitting some socks for charity, or trying a new sock construction. This year I decided that I wasn't going to get involved in any Socktober activities, but here we are, one third of the way through the month, and I have a lot of sock projects on my mind.

This weekend I am going to a family birthday party, and I decided months ago when the save the date card arrived that I would knit a pair of socks for each of the two hosts of the party. And now, four days before the party I have almost one pair of socks (knitted in Regia Pairfect). Which isn't quite enough - I can't give one host a pair of socks and not the other! So for the rest of this week, I'm going to be using every spare minute to whip up a second pair of socks, in West Yorkshire Spinners Signature 4 ply, and keep my fingers tightly crossed that I can get them finished on time.

A little disco sheep progress marker to help me make the socks the same length

I have another half finished pair of socks that have been on the needles for too long. The socks are knitted in some brand new sock yarn that I have been lucky enough to get my hands on before the yarn's official launch next week. These socks have been my out and about/leisurely lunch socks for the past month or so, and while I am very pleased to have one sock complete, I probably should have a full pair by the time the yarn launches next week. In the meantime, here's a tiny sneak preview. Aren't those colours perfect for the season?

This month I also need to knit a pair of socks as a magazine commission (and yes, that is all I can say about them), and I really, really want to cast on my superb self-striping Halloween sock yarn from Strawberry Fields Yarn, but at this point I'm not sure that's going to happen. Ah well, next month I'm sure I'll be casting on some special festive socks to wear in December!

*Socktober didn't start as a knitters event. Socktober was coined by Brad Montague in the US in 2011 as a charity collecting socks locally to distribute to the homeless. This initiative is ongoing, and more information can be found on the Socktober website.

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This title of this week's book is very seasonal: Autumn by Ali Smith. I've been reading this for a little over a week now, and while I don't feel like I've made that much progress I am enjoying the variation in writing styles between chapters, and the relationship between the central characters (a child, her friend, whose is an older male neighbour, and her mother). There have been lots of little gems in the writing that have made this an enjoyable read so far.

As ever on a Wednesday, linking up with Rachel for Yarning Along.

New design: Susurration socks

Today I am delighted to announce the release of my new pattern: Susurration socks.

This pattern came about as a collaboration between me and my friend Fay (Bea and Rose), an indie dyer local to me who creates beautiful colourways: think deep saturated colours with plenty of speckles. A few months ago Fay suggested we work on a collaboration together, and this is what we came up with: the Susurration socks. Fay has dyed up amazing rich autumnal shades that echo the colours of wheat fields, a theme that is reflected in the lacy wheat stitch pattern that makes up the central panel of the socks. I came across the slipped-stitch textured stitch pattern in a stitch dictionary under the name grass stitch, which tied in so beautifully with the theme I couldn't not include it!

Why Susurration? Susurration means 'whispering or rustling', which makes me think of the sound of wheat ears rustling in the wind.

The Susurration socks are knitted using my favourite toe-up construction with a gusset and heel flap shaped with short rows. The socks have a pattern on the instep and around the leg, while the sole is knitted in stocking stitch. The gusset length is affected by your row/round gauge, so a table of gauge-dependent lengths is included to help you achieve the perfect fit.

I've written the pattern in three sizes (finished sock circumferences, 16 (20, 23.5) cm [6.5 (8, 9.25) in]), to ensure you can make perfectly fitting socks. When choosing which size to knit, choose the size that is approximately 2.5 cm [1 in] smaller than your foot circumference – socks are stretchy and negative ease helps the socks to fit properly. The pattern is needle-neutral and can be knitted on any of DPNs, short circulars or long circulars using the magic loop technique.

The socks are shown in a sample of Fay's 4 ply sock base (4 ply; 425 m [463 yds] per 100g skein; 75% merino wool, 25% nylon). The yarn is a merino/nylon blend that is perfect for socks with the softness of the merino yarn being strengthened and stabilised by the addition of nylon. The sample socks shown are the medium size for a UK size 6 foot (foot length 24 cm/9.5 in) and used 330 m [357 yds] of the suggested yarn.

If you buy the pattern direct from my Ravelry store, you will get a 15% discount code for Fay's shop.* Fay has dyed up several colourways especially for this pattern: Braciaca (top left), By the Fireside (top right), Cornucopia (bottom left) and Gather (bottom right).**

As ever, if you'd like to share your progress, create a project page on Ravelry, or post a photo to Instagram and tag me (@vikkibirddesigns). In addition, Fay will be running a knitalong for these socks in her Ravelry group until the 1st November 2017. Head over to the thread to join in the fun and be in with a chance of winning a skein of her hand dyed yarn and a project bag.

*Your discount code will be included on the final page of the pattern. Just open the pattern pdf when it arrives to find your code. Codes will be valid until 11.59pm BST, Tuesday 17th October 2017. Fay ships internationally and has a beautiful selection of yarn. Some colours have been specially dyed for the socks but the discount can be used on any product (excluding yarn clubs).

**Colourway photos are copyright Bea and Rose.