i started knitting socks on october 2nd 2010 around lunchtime. i know that because that's when i went into labour on the day my son was born - which was later that afternoon.
i had been wanting to start knitting socks for quite a while and waiting for my baby to be born seemed to be a good time to do it. (it was too early to go to the hospital and i desperately needed something to keep my hands busy.)
so i grabbed an old tangled ball of yarn i had in my stash - i wasn't even sure if it was actual sock-yarn and there was only about a third of the ball left - and a set of knitting-needles.
i made the cuff of the green sock before we headed to the hospital and finished it when we came back - now three of us - and my new baby was sleeping.
the other sock i made from an equally old and tangled scrap of yarn that was the same kind as the green one. i had to use some black yarn to finish them and when i had finished they turned out to be too big and loose and didn't fit at all. i was rather frustrated until it turned out i had cast on too many stiches and used needles that where a size to big for the yarn - since they were scraps i didn't have the paper label any more and had to guess. i went to the yarnshop that was just across the street from where we lived then and bought leather soles to stitch onto the socks and turn them into house shoes. i still wear them at home...
this is the 2nd pair of socks i made. i went back to the yarnshop and asked the lady for some nice sockyarn and what size of needles she recommended. this yarn is "Regia Colormania fiesta color (4066)" - it is a 6-ply and i think i used 3mm or 3,5mm needles. they worked a lot better and fit better too but since i had no experience with the length of the foot and when to start decreasing for the toes they turned out a tiny bit too long for me and i gave them to my mother. they fit her perfectly, she loved them and was very honored to be given my first "real" pair of socks. =)
my 3 rd pair of socks was another pair of house-shoe-socks with leather soles for my dad. he liked the first ones a lot but they were too small for him. so i bought two balls of "Regia irland petrol color 05859" and made him a christmas present.
this was the first pair of socks that i kept for myself and that actually fit. i bought the yarn in a value-pack of three 100g-balls - one solid brown color i didn't much care for (who wants brown socks? i guess people who wear brown suits - and they probably wouldn't wear hand-knits...), one ball of a red and black ply i haven't touched since i put it in my yarn box. and this lovely self-striping. i think the pack was called "Herbst" (autumn) and i think it's out of production. the brand name is "Freizeit" and they have lots of very nice colours to choose from.
after that i went totally crazy with the sockyarn. my husband asked everyone who wanted to give me something for my next birthday to donate whatever they wished so i could buy yarn to my heart's content. i think that was in 2012...
this is one of them: "Opal - Lasst Blumen Sprechen" (say it with flowers). it's hand-dyed and there were six colourways (in better picture-quality than mine =):
i don't know if they are still available. i got the top right one which is "roses", the middle left one which is "dahlias" and the middle right one called "tulips".
i gave the tulip-socks to my mother for her birthday and kept the dahlia-socks for myself.
this yarn doesn't just stripe while knitting - it spirals!
i even used the paper label from the tulip-yarn to make a giftcard for my sister for christmas that year: i would knit a pair of socks for her from any kind of yarn she chose. she chose this one:
this was a "Zauberball Fuchsienbeet" by Schoppel Wolle. i absolutely love zauberbälle! i have five or six more still to knit lovely stuff with in my yarnbox and two more on my wishlist. =)
remember the brown ball of yarn i mentioned before? well, who wants brown socks, right? brown is awesome when combined with other colours, especially teal, petrol, turquoise and blues. the legs of these socks were just rectangles stitched together and the foot got knitted right onto that. i had initially made these for myself but they turned out too short. so i gave them to my sister for whom i had made similar socks a while back in red with a leg made out of beige and red speckled yarn. i think she wore those to death anyway so the new ones arrived just in time.
half of these socks is also made from that brown yarn. the other half from some cheap sockyarn i picked up at a discounter when they had a special. i liked the colour even though it's not as soft as brandname yarn usually is and it split while knitting which made the process a little slower that usual.
this is the latest addition to my sock-family. i got this yarn for christmas 2013. it's ATELIER ZITRON Trekking XXL Color Duett. it's absolutely stunning! it's not so much a color duet as a symphony... it's soft and easy to knit and i had a really hard time putting it out of my hands.
i finished this pair within four days. with most of the others it took waaay looonger and usually one sock was done while yarn and needles were patiently waiting to be picked up again for the second one or i had started the second sock and worked my way up to the heel just to get annoyed and put it in my basket for the next six months... although i don't have this problem so much any more. since i knit mostly with yarn that slowly changes colour i have to keep working on it to see the change - it's odd but i can't seem to stop until i reach the colour that's peeking out from under several layers of wound-up softness and when i reach it there's already the next promising shade coming through and it goes on and on...