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My name is Julia. I'm married to the most wonderful man and we have three children: two boys and a girl. I'm mainly a mum but I'm also a frantic sock knitter, journal maker, mess creator, fantasy lover and semi-professional sleeper. My favourite colour is lime green and I love ferns and the forest. My favourite season is autumn and sometimes I could live on strawberries. I hope you enjoy my ramblings.

stuff i made

mojos

socks #33

#251 opal abo crazy waters stromschnellenrodeo 11311 f. I

This is pair #251. I made it for my sister. She chose the yarn at Christmas, knowing that I wouldn't make them immediately. (When I gave them to her she was actually surprised that I got them done "that soon" - haha!)
The yarn was in my May '22 Opal box but will be part of the "Crazy Waters" collection, available in late July '22. The pattern is Tennarisukka, one of my favourites. 

#252 opal abo sweet kiss sinnlichkeit 11262

Pair #252 is a pair of Mojos for my husband. He chose the yarn, surprising me with his choice, as usual. 
The yarn was in my March '22 Opal box but it is part of the "Sweet Kiss" collection which is currently available. 

#253 opal abo gutenachtgeschichten lama im zuckerwatteland 9894

This is pair #253 and I love it so much! The yarn was part of my March '20 Opal box but was part of the "Gutenachtgeschichten" (= bed time stories) collection. I don't know if it's still available. 
I had this in my stash for a while. I wasn't sure if I'd like it but curiosity won and I cast on a pair of sock simply because I had to know what it looked like. (Googling images isn't always enough.) To my surprise I absolutely loved it and flew through the first sock in less than two days. I'm not normally one to go for pastels but somehow I got totally addicted to the colours and the pattern they create. They reminded me of pastries with apricots, raspberry jam and custard cream, sprinkled with chopped pistachios. 
Generally the yarn I use doesn't spark instant associations like that but some do and I always enjoy it a lot when it does... 

#254 opal abo regenbogen + sweet kiss glücksgefühl 11265

This is pair #254. I made it using a ball of grey-blue yarn from my March '22 Opal box and a ball of rainbow yarn from my December '21 box. The grey-blue was also part of the "Sweet Kiss" collection, the rainbow seems to have been a subscription box exclusive. (I had the two sitting in my self next to each other and thought they looked just like the sky did though most of April and May - but with more rainbow.)
It doesn't show a lot in the pictures - or even when I'm wearing the socks - but the rainbow stripes start narrow, get wider up to the middle of the foot and then narrower again towards the toe. (You can see it most at the toe.) I tried to emulate the arch of a rainbow.
How successful that was I don't really know.
There was a lot of counting and calculating involved to get the stripes to work out. Maybe I'll write up a separate post about how I did that with charts and details on how to calculate the right number of rounds.

I still have plenty of both yarns left and I want to make some more Rainy Day Socks with different stripe designs. 

#255 gründl hot socks simila 585

Pair #255 is a funny one. The yarn I used is by gründl; Hot Socks "Simila", nr. 585. It doesn't look particularly fancy but this yarn is actually for making two identical socks with long, patterned legs, plain speckled feet and then, if the feet are big enough, stripy, patterned toes. Like this: 

#178 gründl hot socks simila 304
#178 gründl hot socks simila 304
#178 gründl hot socks simila 304

I bought all the colourways of this yarn when I had the chance - they were on sale at a local store - because I really like them...

P3121491

... but I've noticed that I don't really like to wear socks with very long legs. Don't ask me why, I can't really explain it, I just don't; not even in the winter. 

So I came up with a way to use the nice yarn anyway: I re-wound it into individual little balls, separating the patterned section and the speckled section. Then I used the speckled yarn for the cuff and the heel and the patterned yarn for the foot. I had planned to use the speckled yarn for the toe as well but I wanted to have more stripes on my feet. 
I love how it worked out and maybe I'll do that again with another one of the colourways. 

#256 opal abo knuddlebande tollpatschkatze 11322 f. V.

This is pair #256. I made it for my sister's partner with the yarn he chose at Christmas. (Yay! for men who like funky socks!)
I used my Caterpillar Sock pattern but extended the pattern part on top of the foot to give the sock some more texture. 
The yarn was in my September '22 Opal box but the design will be part of the "Knuddelbande" 6-ply collection available in late September '23. 

#257 opal abo d.blau-lila-rosa-türkis f. R.

For pair #257 I used yarn from my March '23 Opal box. My daughter chose it for a new pair of socks and I used the Tennarisukka pattern again because it works well for this kind of self-patterning yarn and it knits up very quickly (which was good because I'm not crazy about the colours and the pattern the yarn creates). 

#258 opal abo regenwald 19 klassensprecher 11337

This is pair #258. I can't really get over the fact that my son now wears bigger socks than I do...
The yarn was in the September '22 box but it's part of the "Regenwald/rain forest 19" collection and will be available in 4-ply as well as 6-ply in early and late July '23 respectively. 

That's it with the socks for now. I have another finished pair that I haven't taken pictures of yet and then I have to get out some of my son's - too small but otherwise perfectly fine - sneaker socks and make them longer so he can wear them again... 

 

Lots of love! xxx

 

If you're wondering about the Opal boxes I keep mentioning: I get these as a gift from my wonderfully indulgent husband and I explain all about this subscription and how it works in this post.
I don't get paid or free products for mentioning them here. (That goes for all the other brands I mention as well. If I was sponsored I'd let you know.)


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