FO: Hockey Socks

 

It feels like a miracle to be typing this, but I finished my hockey socks at long last! This poor neglected project sat around in my sewing room a year and 2 months, but now they are finished and I can stop feeling guilty about them, lol.

This is the Jaywalker pattern by Grumperina, which is free on Ravelry. I've made this pattern once before, but those do have some issues that I set out to correct with this version. I love this pattern for self striping yarn because it just makes those chevrons stand out and look very impressive. This yarn is Premier Yarns Fruits in the Dragonfruit colorway, which is 100% acrylic, but I just couldn't stay away from the fun print. I used this yarn for my Watermelon Socks as well and it's held up great, so I wasn't worried about using it again. 

The story of these socks makes them probably the least planning for a project I've ever done. I was going to a Solar Bears hockey game at the arena and I wanted to bring some knitting, but I didn't know how particular they would be able bringing in knitting needles plus they have a bag policy. I had less than 10 minutes before I  had to leave to pick a project and grab the supplies, so I grabbed a pattern I already had printed out and had used before along with some cheap dpns and this yarn. I stuck the needles in my small purse and put the yarn in my pocket and went on my way. I cast on at the game and got just beyond the cuff done, then I quickly lost interest in the project because I had others I was more excited about at the time. This year, I decided I wanted to make myself more socks, but being the responsible individual I am, I couldn't just abandon this project and start yet another. So I set out to get these done, which took a whopping 2 weeks to complete. Craziness.

When I started the first sock, I just wanted the pink at the top edge. Once I got to about where the heel should begin, I noticed I was just starting the pink again and I could get it to line up just at the beginning of the heel flap, so I went back a few rows to make that happen. I knit the heel flap and as I reached the end, I was absolutely shocked by how the stripes in the yarn lined up around the gusset and foot. The first time I made this pattern, I changed the heel to an afterthought style because I wanted to make extra sure the stripes in my self striping yarn lined up. This time I deliberately threw caution to the wind because I've learned that heel flaps just fit my feet better, so I was willing to accept that the pattern might be thrown off after the heel. Lo and behold! It lined up so well that I couldn't have made this happen if I actually tried. There is no extra spacing on the top of the sock and the heel is framed perfectly by the pink and yellow stripes. Absolutely amazing lol.

It seems that my second sock came out a smidge shorter than the first one, which is odd because I really thought I started the toe in the same spot. By that time, I was just wanting to finally be done and it's just the toe so I really didn't mind it enough to go back and change anything. In the end, I do wish I had used a smaller needle for the cuff at the top as they kind of bunch up since this yarn is acrylic and have no natural spring. Lesson learned! I will still wear these and think they are ridiculously cute.

So that's one more sock project for my drawer - just in time for it to be too hot to wear socks, lol. At least now I am free to dive into other socks that I want to make without these making me feel guilty. Love that for me!

Summary:

Yarn: 2 skeins of Premier Yarns Fruits in Dragonfruit - $11.67

Pattern: Jaywalker by Grumperina - Free

Time: 1 year 2 months

FO: Watermelon Socks

This project was the case of well-placed advertising. Facebook spied on me and showed me an ad for Premier Yarns Fruits fingering weight yarn, and I just had to have some. No stores local to me sold it, so I wound up ordering some from Walmart.com of all places. I settled on the watermelon and the dragon fruit colorways as they were the most obvious what fruit they were trying to represent. The only drawback is that this is totally acrylic yarn, but for the design and the price I was willing to give it a try.

When the yarn arrived, I decided to work up the watermelon first and I went with my tried and true - the Smooth Operator Socks by Susan B. Anderson. I've made this pattern several times now and it works great for a self striping yarn to show off the design, especially since the heel is done as an afterthought, so you can make sure to line up any stripes to be the same on each sock. Sadly, this type of heel never photographs as well, but it fits very comfortably so that's what really matters.

I'm very pleased with how I got both socks to match. The trick is just to make a note of exactly how far into each color you start your cast on and make sure the second starts the same as the first (i.e. make your slip knot 4.5 inches before the first black spot). Once I started actually writing down the measurement from a certain color change in the yarn, I've been able to get them to match ever since. 

This yarn impressed the heck out of anyone who saw me knitting with it, which is ironic because this was the simplest sock pattern ever. People who don't knit don't know about self-striping yarn being dyed this way, and I always find the reactions hilarious. I remember having to explain the dying process to several curious onlookers. I find that self-striping yarn is a great motivator to keep going in the knitting - I would think "I'll just knit until the next section of color" or "Let me get through the green and white stripes, they're small". This wasn't necessary since these socks are just stockinette stitch, so there was no counting involved whatsoever to where I would need to stop at a certain spot to remember my place in the pattern, but it did help me to get these done faster because I was always pushing to just the next section when I would work on them.

The yarn has worked out just fine for me even considering it's acrylic. I stick to the idea that most socks are made of cotton or wool for a reason, and acrylic can be sweaty in the more aired-out of places on your body, so I was worried about sweaty feet in these. I tend to only wear my hand knit socks on much colder days (for Florida) and with my tall boots, and I'm happy to report these did not make my feet sweaty, but it was also cold enough to probably not really sweat anyway. I would not wear these in warmer weather, but then I wouldn't wear wool ones in warmer weather either. Anyway, the yarn is soft and smooth on my feet, so it gets a thumbs up from me.

All in all, I love how these socks turned out. They were a mindlessly easy knit but packed a big punch with the fantastic yarn design. What more can you really ask for in a pair of socks?

 

Summary:

Yarn: 1.53 skeins of Premier Yarn Fruits in Watermelon colorway - $11.67

Pattern: Smooth Operator Socks by Susan B Anderson

Time: 2.5 months