Testing My Patience

There is nothing better than a finished pair of socks. Well correction, nothing better than a finished pair of socks that were truly testing your patience.

Enter my Inlay socks by Hunter Hammersen.

Yarn: Sweet Georgia Yarns Tough Love Sock - Glacier
Started: January 2, 2015
Finished: February 1, 2015
Needles: Knit Picks Size 1

It was truly a combination of things that had me almost frogging these babies and tossing the yarn in the trash. Yes. They were that frustrating. At least in the beginning.

My true issue was with the yarn. Though, not with the color.

It really is a beautiful color, and honestly, that color seduced me into purchasing it. One day last year I was perusing one of my favorite online shops for purchasing sock yarn, and I came across this baby. It's not a color I would typically purchase, so that is exactly why I bought it. It was beautifully different for me!

No no, my real issue is with the base and twist of the yarn. You won't be able to tell from the photos, but this yarn is what I call "fuzzy" and "splitty". Combine these two traits with all the twisted stitches in the pattern and what do you get? One big fat ugly mess. Because of the "fuzziness" I couldn't see where my size 1 freaking needle was going into the stitch and nine times out of ten I would end up splitting the yarn, which easily splits because the twist ain't all that.

Putting my gripes aside, this yarn knits beautifully, and problem free, when you are just knitting and purling it. Which is good, because I have another skein of it in my stash.

Now the Inlay pattern is wonderfully written and I had absolutely no problem with the directions, even with all the twisted stitches.

Please don't let all the twisted stitches scare you off from knitting these socks. I found the repeats were easily memorized within each row, and really, the twisted stitches give these socks a little extra oomph!

I mean look at interest they add to the sides of the socks...

They also make the socks feel more substantial.

The real question is, would I knit this pattern again? Yes.

I have to say it feels real good to have two pairs of socks finished. I am hitting my goal of one pair per month. I currently have a third pair on the needles. I am almost done with the first sock. Not sure if I will have the pair finished by the end of February. I will try, but honestly, my knitting time is during my lunch hour right now, as I am slightly distracted with scrapbooking after work this week. Trying to find balance with all my hobbies!

Let's Talk About "Socks" Baby

Hello my friends! It's been awhile hasn't it? I returned from my eight day vacation early Sunday afternoon and between adjusting from the 60 degree temps I enjoyed to freaking snowstorms here at home, I am just now getting my act together.

Proof of the lovely welcome home I got!

Before I said adios to the Big Apple, I had snapped some pics of my sock knitting projects to share, but never got around to writing the lovely post to go along with them.

The Friday night before I jumped on the big ol' plane, I ran around like a chicken with its head cut off trying to get everything I wanted to bring with me into my bags. Let me tell you, it was a "sit on the suitcase while I zip it up" situation. Not pretty folks. So with each passing moment I wrestled with my luggage, the time I was going to devote to this post dwindled.

But alas, I am here with you now and let's talk about socks. I currently have quite the sock knitting situation going on in my knitting world.

Of course, there is also one sock in progress missing from this photograph as it is in time out, oh say for the last 4 years.

As you know, two of my knitting goals this year is to knit one pair of socks per month and to knit from my sock yarn stash. In an effort to meet these goals, I sought outside help from my dear best friend named Ravelry.

I hooked myself up with the Sock Sampler KALs group where they knit through different sock patterns together. For the months of January/February we could choose any pattern from Hunter Hammersen. Well I was on board for this one. I have had her Inlay sock pattern in my queue ever since I first saw it in Knitty back in 2011.

I went stash diving and came up with a SweetGeorgia Yarns Tough Love Sock yarn in Glacier.

Love the pattern, even with all the freaking twisted stitches, but the yarn choice for the pattern was maybe not the right call. It looks beautiful, but the yarn is what I call fuzzy and splitty which makes the twisted stitches more difficult. Because of the fuzz I have a hard time seeing where my needle is going and therefore end up splitting the splitty yarn very easily. Put all this together and I can only knit on these socks in VERY good lighting. That means once the sun goes down to sleep, so does this sock.

For Christmas my honey received some sock yarn from Santa in his stocking. I am still trying to figure out why Santa didn't knit the socks for him too. But anyhoo, I decided to take the yarn and knit a pair of vanilla top down socks.

In the photograph, one sock is already complete. Honey approves of both color and pattern.

In another effort to meet my knitting goals, I joined the TTL Mystery Sock 2015. I have joined in on this fun in the past and know that the pattern turns out to be just lovely, even the previous one that had bobbles on it.

As the first clue wasn't to be released until January 15, all I could do was pick out the yarn I was going to knit.

I received this beautiful little handpainted gem from Ellen over at The Ellen Report, which I won in one of her many generous giveaways last year. If you get a chance, pop on over and check her blog out. I absolutely adore reading her posts. I am usually left giggling. She keeps it real folks and I love it!

Lastly, another one of my knitting goals was to address my old UFO's. May I present my Smaug Socks:

I put these babies in time out on July 3, 2014 for two reasons. First, I came to the point in the pattern where I was ready to complete the toe. My gut was telling me something wasn't right. I had trouble interpreting a part of the pattern and therefore that gave me some doubt. Second, the sock was just a tad big on my foot. I wasn't sure if I wanted to frog it and go down a needle size or if I just wanted to frog the sock and never return to it because I wasn't entirely sure if I would have enough yarn to complete the second sock. (That was just a super long sentence.) So into time out it went!

Before I left on my vacation, I told myself to make a decision. This is what happened:

Yup, I frogged it, but what am I going to do? Well first this yarn is going to stay in some serious time out just like this. If you remember, I had used this yarn in another pattern that I ended up frogging back in June and now I just frogged this yarn again.

Needless to say the yarn has got some serious kinks and I have some doubts whether it can be revived. So right row it will stay hidden away as I am not ready to cast on with it any time soon.

The next question is, will I recast on for the Smaug Socks? Yes. I will however go down a needle size and maybe choose a yarn with more yardage on it.

While I was away on vacation, I took the Inlay and Honey socks with me. I made serious progress on one and finished the other. Stay tuned to find out which is which!

Share with me what's on your needles right now. Any sock patterns I should check out? Have you reviewed your UFO pile and decided to take control and deal with them?