i have become quite the knitting machine recently. all i really want to do is sit comfortably somewhere and knit socks. maybe listen to an audiobook, or sit outside if the sun's shining, or chat to the family, or maybe even just follow my thoughts while they wander... but that not so much actually - sometimes my thoughts can go on long hikes...
that's not happening of course. at least not all the time since there are other things to be done like cooking and laundry and walking to kindergarten and back and the little bit of cleaning that simply can not be avoided... (you may notice here: i'm not the biggest fan of house work and chores.)
anyway, i pulled out my entire stash of sock yarn recently - just for fun and to see how much i actually had... a lot.
i have a box of lovely gradient high quality yarns, a box of solid colours, a box of cheapo yarns i picked up because they were at the store and then there's of course the box that holds everything that doesn't fit in the other boxes... and of course i could try and convince myself that it's not so much after all... but i won't - because it would be a lie...
pulling all of that yarn out of the cupboard and spreading it out like that was very inspiring. not that i had really forgotten about any of the yarn i had, but seeing it all at once refreshed all the ideas i had when i bought it...
(i should mention that i did not have to pay for all of this yarn myself. one year for my birthday my wonderful husband had asked the family to contribute a little something to a yarn-buying-present. i got a lot of money for buying yarn to my heart's content... i'm so lucky...)
to date i have finished 23 pairs of socks. i have two new ones on the needles already - i always work on at least two different pairs parallel because i tend to get bored if i have to work on the same thing for too long. so when i don't feel like working with the green yarn i can still do some knitting with the selfstriping yarn - just an example.
i'm also working on a scarf for R - it's going to be the same one i made for T when he was about the age R is now - only in different colours.
i have so many plans! i have two different techniques for toe-up socks i want to try and at least one if not two different heels. i want to learn how to do twist- or swing-socks, which is creating wavey patterns using short rows, and hexagon-socks, and i want to knit funky patchwork socks with double rolled edges, knitting going in all directions, knitted dominos, maybe even some crochet sections. leftovers and yarnscraps would be great for that... at some point i guess i will want to tackle cables as well. i was playing with some shawl-ideas too and i have already chosen the yarn to knit socks in the linen-stitch.
sometimes i have a picture of myself in my head with several pairs of arms and hands each knitting on something different. for some very strange reason i always seem to wear a lace bonnet in these pictures...
these are my husband's, pair #19 made from about half of a Schoppel Zauberball Stärke 6 (6-ply) "Café Flair". it's a very simple and basic sock with k1 p1 ribbing, a boomerang heel and a ribbon toe.
this is pair #21. (i can't show #19 and #20 just yet.) i just loved this yarn so much. i first saw it when i read this post in 2012 i think (sadly the blog has been discontinued but i'm glad the content's still there) and i searched everywhere for it but i didn't find it. it's by Opal and it was in a collection from 2011 - no wonder i couldn't find it - opal yarn collections apparently ship to retailers and when it's sold out it's sold out. if i understand that right they don't have a lot of "permanent stock" which is okay and a good thing i think but sometimes it can be frustrating when you see and old blogpost where someone has that wonderful yarn and then you can't find it anymore because it's a year and a half later and it's sold out everywhere... anyway - last spring opal released a "best of" collection where this lovely rainbow yarn was re-released. it's full name is "Opal Leckerbissen Best of Opal 4-fach Surprise, Farbe 4061". it would have been easier had i known that before spending hours clicking through every yarnshop i could find. some that had it didn't ship to austria or the shipping cost was about twice as much as the yarn itself. finally i found an itty-bitty yarnshop that still had one single ball of it left and i got it!
opal has just re-released it in yet another collection called "Happy..." and this time it comes with silver sparkle! i might just have to...
i called pair #22 "wicked wizard" and i have dyed the yarn myself back in 2012 or something... i was very surprised to see how the yarn knitted up - one section of purple (or green) was exactly enough for one round (with the number of stitches i had for these socks).
after i had dyed the skein of yarn and wound it into a ball i wasn't too crazy about it and put it into one of the boxes. when i asked my husband lately if he wanted to choose the yarn for his next pair of socks i was very flattered that he chose this one specifically... oh - and i love how the heel turned out on these:
when knitting in rows the yarn made very nice stripes...
pair #23 was only finished yesterday. the pink reminds me of the "Hubba Bubba" gum i used to love when i was little - and i know i loved it mainly because of its colour and the pink yarn was in the box of solids right next to that rich burgundy colour so i just had to use them together. i inverted the stripes for the second sock because i kind of made a promise to myself to never knowingly make another exactly matching pair of socks again. Friedensreich Hundertwasser, the austrian artist, never wore matching socks. at first accidentally and then intentionally, saying that clothing has to become art again. that made me think about knitting as an artform... and while i try to knit my socks a perfectly as i'm able to (far from it though) to make sure they last long i want to be and try to be artistic when it comes to choice of pattern and colour. it started with me considering it a waste of yarn to pull out the thread of selfpatterning yarn to start the second sock at the same point as the first one - i just didn't bother - now i don't want to. i like looking at my feet and seeing different colours and patterns... that means if i knit a pair of striped socks and i stick to the same number of rows per colour - the least i can do is make them uneven. if i want a pair of perfectly matching socks i will go and buy some...
i'm knitting Opal Tiger socks for T at the moment,
a scarf for R using Schoppel Zauberball Stärke 6 "Kunterbunt" and
Mojo Socks for myself using the absolutely gorgeous Schoppel Zauberball crazy "Kleiner Fuchs" (= little fox).
i'm busy...