I’m stash busting like a crazy fool at the moment. I have PROMISED myself that I can’t spend the £30 John Lewis’ voucher I got from W’s dad and stepmum for christmas (CHRISTMAS! How restrained have *I* been?), or the £25 voucher from Stash that the lovely J gave me for my birthday, until I have used up a load of great wool from my stash. I have some lovely stuff – yarn i just *had* to buy, and to leave it in a drawer, waiting to be used just seems like a waste.
So more knitting. Less shopping.
The problem is, I’m down to thicker sock yarn, and all the patterns I really want to knit are 2.5mm needles, which just isn’t going to work. So I’ve got a few weeks of making my own patterns up and then I think I’ll treat myself to some Trekking XXL or something.
(I did fold a bit when J and I went to ‘I knit London‘ and at the very last minute i bought some Regia, stating – very firmly – that ‘sock yarn doesn’t count!’ – but really I’m just kidding myself at this point. – I was a salve, I tell you! just to get me over the hump!)
Anyways first up is something lovely handpainted yarn that W’s mum Bev (of the waistcoat fame) brought back from the US a year or so ago.
Cute huh? Kinda fish-scaly?
The pattern is very easy:
(multiples of 6 stitches)
Row 1: (Slip 1 stitch, k2, slip the slipped stitch over the two knitted stitches, k3), repeat to end
Row 2: (k1, yo, k4), repeat to end
Row 3: (k3, slip 1 stitch, k2, slip the slipped stitch over the two knitted stitches), repeat to end
Row 4: (k4, yo, k1), repeat to end
Add in your own favourite toe, heal and cuff and you’re away. Currently I’m half way up the leg and I’ve just shifted from 3mm to 3.75mm so that they will be a bit roomier at the cuff. I knit toe up, because that’s just how I roll (or something.)
So, good sturdy house socks – which is useful since all my other ones are in the wash, and there has been so much rain recently, that I just haven’t found a decent day to get the wool washing done. So I am handknitted-sockless until the weather breaks (for the better).