Yum Yum Strawberry Fondant Socks

Last September I broke my own golden rule, which is to make sure sock two is well underway before finishing sock one.

As such, sock two was just a figment of my imagination for months on end.

Well, it's a reality now, even if I had to just had to try to remember how I had made sock one as I didn't take any notes. No major hassles, just a lot of holding the socks side by side to compare.

In the first sock I used 2.5 needles on the ribbing and 2.25 on the main sock. I decided that second time round I'd go up to 2.75 on the ribbing just to give a little more ease round the ankle because of the corrugated rib pulling in quite a lot. This is based on the cuff of a Sanquhar glove.

I really like them and the only slight disappointment is that one of the main purposes of making them was to use up the pink yarn, which didn't happen! They're made from Opal Uni sock yarn from getknitted.com.

My next plan for the scraps is to learn how to do stashbuster spiral stripes in the style of Janine Hempy.

By the way, you know me, I'm always going back to similar colour combos- do these socks remind you of my fingerless gloves from a couple of years ago?

2008 Year of Colour!

After enjoying dabbling with lace for eighteen months or so, and dabbling with stocking stitch cardigans and jumpers for three thousand years I have decided to inject a little colour into my life and I have designated 2008 as The Year of Colour!

Now, I am not afraid of colour, working with it, wearing it...I embrace a spot of colour in an otherwise neutral outfit. Remember this ? Or how about this to name just a couple. But what I really mean is a bit of fair-isle/ stranded/ jacquard to stretch the skills and feast the eyes. I wouldn't rule out intarsia entirely, but it's not high up the priority list at the moment.


I have dipped my toes in the water before, for example, there are fair isle bands on Emmeline
and I worked the self- coloured meets self-striping in Fake Isle but I feel I'm ready to give it a go properly.

DH has promised to treat me to an Alice St*rmore kit for my Christmas (yes I know it's Jan 4th, give him a break if there are expensive knitting kits at stake) and I want to get my two-handed knitting skills up and running on something where the odd mis-shapen stitch (and I mean odd as in mutant, not as in occasional) or tension inconsistencies won't spoil the overall look or fit of a worn garment.

So here's the idea.
I'm taking the Duke's pattern from my Sanquhar gloves(Remember I bought those, I didn't make them) and magicking it into a tubular scarf to get the rhythm and improve my two-colour two-handed technique before *the* kit arrives. I can just about make it happen with the two-handed thing, but it's very inexpertly done at the mo. Or should I say, being positive, it will respond to practice.

I've done a provisional cast-on on my tube because I haven't decided yet whether to graft, three needle bind-off or even gather up the ends and thread the yarn tail through. I've got plenty of time yet to decide.

Just to be clear, I'm not ruling out lace and all that jazz in 2008, I'd just like to have a good crack at some colour projects. I blame Ravelry !