Socks for Jeans

This was one of the treasures I brought home from a recent trip to visit a local mega yarn store that boasts a wall of sock yarn that's easily 15' long by 10' high. It was a wonderful antidote to my snow-induced colour starvation and offered a break from my nasty black sock project.

Its Lana Grossa Meilenweit colour #8003. I could hardly wait to get home and cast on for some dead simple plain old top down stockinette socks. It has the perfect colours for jeans and just about any colour you might want to wear with them. Its also the first obviously self striping yarn I've used so that was fun. (I know I must have been living under a rock to have avoided this stuff for this long but better late than never!) I started one sock from the middle of the ball and one from the outside and I'm quite pleased with the matching of the stripes from one sock to the next. See it close up...

and from further away...

This yarn may have great colour but it isn't the softest in the hand. With 20% Polyamide content - its a hard wearing sock yarn and it feels like it but it means I can look forward to having and enjoying these socks for a long time! Its also a bit heavier than much of the sock yarn I've used in the past so they flew off the needles.

This yarn comes with 420m to the ball - easily enough for two socks but I 'm a tight knitter (one yarn store employee recently described my tension as "board like") so I am always leery of running out of yarn.

In the end I had just enough to do the job. (Leftover yarn on the left. A new ball for reference on the right. That ball belongs to my Aunt - having it around as I finished the second sock was like knitting with sock insurance! I liked the yarn but not enough to buy a second ball - if I had run out I would have re-knit the toes with contrasting colour ) So I'm very happy with these both as a project and for wearing!

Hobby or Habit?

Last night we had a little gathering to celebrate the presence of my sister and her family from out of town. The menu was take out Chinese Food so no one had to really work to put dinner on or clean it up. That meant I wouldn't have to pitch in and help! So needless to say I arrived before everyone and grabbed a spot with good light, parking my purse to allow for smooth drawing of yarn from the bag as I of course planned to knit on my work socks for the four or five hours we were there. Bliss!

But when I looked into by bag, my omnipresent Ziploc and its precious contents weren't there!!!

Upon his arrival shortly after this terrible realization came to me my son immediately told me to just go home and get it. He said, "you know you'll be so much happier if you have it! Why don't you just go now, before anyone else gets here!

As others arrived, they too expressed sympathy with my plight.

Now one of the reasons I started this blog is because no one I know really cares a whit about knitting. My family will, when cajoled, look, squeeze, smell and make a positive comment about my knitting and or yarn but that's as far as it goes. What I know they do care about though is that they all clearly recognize I'm generally a happier person in the company of knitting (that is going well) but I had no idea how clearly they understood the corollary of that in that I am not as happy without it.

It actually surprises me how much it is the case that the presence of my knitting makes me calmer and more patient with what is going on around me and hence more content. With family here from far away how ridiculous to feel such disappointment at the absence of sticks and string! It makes me wonder just what this thing called knitting is for me...pleasant pastime or crutch?

My Sixth Socks - Try to Say that 10 Times Fast!

I've been working on a pair of simple work-style socks for my Beloved in a k4,p1 rib. The yarn is Lana Grossa Meilenweit Marmi. The colour is 7008. It yields a rather marbled effect in cream and various shades of grey with the odd hint of olive green. The effect of the green is interesting. Its not at all noticeable in the ball but then in the knitting it plays with your eyes. You think you see it then dismiss it but then upon closer examination you can make out subtle little hints of colour. I'll be interested to check out the other colourways in this yarn on my next trip to the LYS - looking more closely for hidden colours and potential new projects in them!

Can you make out the colour?



The socks look and feel the essence of good old men's work socks. A contrasting heel and toe would have been a nice addition. I'll make note of that on my pattern for sure. I may still do contrasting toes. (I'm a very tight knitter and always worried I won't get two socks out of a single ball. I seem to be developing a habit of leaving off knitting the toe of the first sock until I see how the yarn holds out through the second one.)
This pair will be my first worked without the omnipresent aid of a pattern always at hand. How freeing! My head is swimming with visions of ridiculous levels of almost comatose knitting of basic socks turning every wasted or bored minute of my life into blissful fibre filled productivity! 'Not saying knitting should be like that, ' just admitting I am. Anyway my next pair will likely be something involving a more demanding stitch or different construction and I will no doubt need the pattern with me for that but I'm just thrilled to know that for basic, commuter knitting, knitting in the dark watching movies and that kind of thing, I will be able to work away unhindered by the need for instructions.

All this from someone who just a couple of years ago thought knitting socks was a ridiculous waste of time when socks could be purchased for such a reasonable price.


A few things have changed my mind about this. First, commercial socks now seem to last less than a season before gaping holes develop under the heel, at the toe or both. Secondly, wool socks are so much warmer than the cotton/nylon variety from the store and the only wool socks available now are too thick to wear under anything but huge bulky boots which I seldom wear - whatever the weather.


My Beloved, having grown up with hand knit socks, of course has always known of their merit and is very much looking forward to wearing this pair very soon!