Tag / eat.sleep.knit

by TechnicolorMom

Chirality Socks

I am so excited to introduce my newest design, Chirality Socks! This pattern has been one of my favorites to design and is so fun to knit up. The pattern is available now on Ravelry.

The Chirality Socks feature a lovely cabled rib pattern that travels from the cuff to the toe and even onto the heel! The cables on each sock twist in opposite directions, making them “chiral,” or non-superimposable mirror images. I loved adding all of these little details onto the socks and figuring out the best way to arrange them. I’ve always wanted a pair of socks that were cabled all over, and the Chirality Socks are the closest I’ve gotten to that so far. I love how these dainty 1-over-3 cables add a beautiful texture to the socks.

For the Chirality Socks, I chose this lovely, very lightly speckled yellow from Teal Torch Knits, called Dose of Sunshine. I used her TTK Sock base, which is probably one of my favorite sock yarns to design with — I feel like Christina’s colorways just “get me” with their brightness, joy, and neon amazingness, so I keep finding myself on her shop again and again to order more skeins.

Designing Challenges

When I’m designing, I like to work in increments of eight so that I can always include my standard sizing: 48 {56, 64, 72, 80} stitches (because I never want anyone to feel left out). The good news is that I can fit a lot of design into eight stitches, but sometimes I end up with something that I want to split, and for my 56- and 72-stitch size socks, this can be extra challenging since they won’t have a full eight-stitch repeat on the front and back of the sock.

I consider it a personal challenge to include all of the elements of the designs in all of the sizes and to make them as symmetric and centered as possible. For the Chirality Socks, this means that I needed to set up the 56- and 72-stitch sizes to have one more cable on the front of the leg than they do on the back of the leg. That way, they get maximum cabling and no interruptions to the cabled rib motif. It took a while for me to solve this problem, but in the end, I think the socks turned out beautifully.

As a result, the 56- and 72-stitch sizes have a slightly different heel flap, where the pickups will proceed as they normally would in one of my slipped-stitch heel flaps. Here is a pair that I made for my daughter in this lovely blue from Adella of Lolabean Yarn Co. This pair was made using her Bean Sprout base in the Chevron Chalet colorway, which was an Eat.Sleep.Knit exclusive from a few years ago.

Picking Up Stitches

The even sizes of the sock (48 sts, 64 sts, and 80 sts) have the cables going all the way to the edge of the heel flap so that everything stays centered. This ended up being slightly different to pick up stitches. I always like to pick up the strand between the slipped-stitch edge and the stitch right next to it. I find that this makes a lovely, clean pick-up edge on both the inside and the outside of the sock, and it avoids gaps or bonus spaces in the pickup.

On a regular slipped-stitch heel flap, the neighboring stitch is always a knit stitch (when viewed from the right side of the sock), but in this case, the neighboring stitch is a purl stitch.

When the pattern was in testing, we realized that for the 48 sts, 64 sts, and 80 sts sizes, unless you pick up your stitches similarly to how I do them, you might end up with a slightly different look at the edge of the heel flap. I recorded a video tutorial to show you how to get this lovely edge that looks great from the outside and the inside of the sock. You can find the video here:

This technique can be applied to any heel flap where there is a slipped stitch edge with a purl stitch right next to it. The technique will also work for when there is a neighboring knit stitch, but it will look slightly different. Are you interested in seeing how I pick up stitches on my regular heel flaps? Let me know!

Appropriate Dye Styles

This design will look fantastic in any fingering weight wool or wool blend yarn in solid, tonal, lightly speckled, heathered, or low-contrast colorways. I would consider both of the colorways above to be *very* lightly speckled, but how does the sock look with some more speckles?!

Personally, I think it looks fantastic! This gorgeous peach colorway is from The Lemonade Shop, and Heather is so talented at getting these teeny tiny individual rainbow speckles onto her skeins. Please forgive that there’s only one sock so far — the other one was the one I used for filming, and it just needs to be finished up, and then I’ll be wearing them all the time!

My lovely test knitters also knit up their socks in a variety of colorways. You can check out this page on Ravelry to see some of their gorgeous photos.

Thanks & Coupon Code

Thank you so much for being here and for reading through my design ramblings. Subscribers can use the code TECHNICOLORMOM to get 50% off of the pattern now through Friday, October 24, 2025. I can’t wait to see your beautiful Chirality Socks!

On the knitting front, I have accumulated an alarming number of single socks (*cough* more than ten *cough*), but I am working away on them and having so much fun. Are you hoping to see any design elements or techniques used in a future sock pattern? Let me know in the comments!

by TechnicolorMom

Alexander Socks!

Y’all! I designed another pair of socks! In 2019 years ago, I reached out on Ravelry to recruit test knitters for my third sock pattern, the Fireside Cable Socks. One of my volunteers, Jordan, knit a lovely pair of socks as she was testing out the pattern before publication. Fast forward to 2022, when I was able to regularly go to my local knitting group for Knit Night. I became fast friends with Jordan, who shares my love of pink, hand-dyed yarn, and all things cables. A long while later, we realized that these two Jordans were the same person! How small is the world that someone I interacted with online three years before ended up being at my Knit Night?!

Jordan is on the receiving end of a lot of my design-related brainstorming, and she is enthusiastic and encouraging as she reads and responds to all of my text messages. I’m so thankful that we had the chance to meet in person! We have spent a lot of time talking about socks and what would be our “perfect” sock design. Jordan really loves when patterns continue onto heel flaps, and we both really love cables.

So, I promised her a design with a fancy heel flap. And here we are! The Alexander Socks, named for my friend Jordan, are for those of us Hamilton fans who will never be satisfied with vanilla socks and want to elevate our socks without a huge commitment to fixing missed cable crosses or having to focus, focus, focus. When incorporating these cables, I used what has become my signature increases and decreases at the starts and ends of the cables so that you don’t have to think too hard about which size to make — just use your vanilla stitch count, and you are good to go. I used Teal Torch Knits TTK Sock in the colorway Tall Drink of Water for my sample, and I love how these light speckles look with the cables.

The Alexander Socks are knit cuff down, beginning with a German Twisted Cast-On and a beautiful cabled cuff. The leg of the sock features a relaxing 3×1 broken rib that continues down the foot of the sock. A cabled heel flap levels up the socks, and a traditional gusset makes for a great overall fit. The broken rib texture flows into the rounded toe for a polished look with a comfortable fit. Kitchener stitch is used to finish off the sock.

I’ve now knit three pairs of these socks — two for myself and a tiny pair for my 4-year old. The great news is that this pattern includes five cast-on sizes: 48 sts, 56 sts, 64 sts, 72 sts, and 80 sts. The 48 sts size is great for little kids with fingering weight yarn, or if you knit them with DK weight yarn, you’ll get a super cozy pair of adult socks. I use the 56 sts size for my 8 year old, and I knit the 64 sts size for myself. I usually use 72 sts for my husband or dad, and the 80 sts size is great for anyone who struggles with foot swelling or needs a looser fit.

I knit these pink socks using Leading Men Fiber Arts Show Stopper in the Pink Lemonade colorway. How amazing is that tonal?! I already have another pair of these on the go for my daughter, and I’ve got several skeins of yarn that would look amazing with these cables. What colorways do you think will look fantastic in these socks? I think this pattern will play nicely with any fingering weight merino/merino nylon blend yarn in solid, tonal, lightly speckled, or low-contrast colorways. I’m thinking Lolabean Yarn Co’s The City So Nice, They Named It Twice colorway would look amazing in this design — I used that colorway for my Concentration Shawl design a couple of years ago.

Are there any design features that you would love to see in a pair of socks? I’m really enjoying the fancy cuffs and heel flaps and of course cables!

by TechnicolorMom

Saturation Blanket

After publishing my Dilution Cowl pattern, I kept thinking about how lovely the cables and texture looked and how nice they would look together in a blanket design. I daydreamed about the corners on this blanket for months before I finally picked up some needles and yarn and started swatching. I love a challenge, and I knew I wanted the cables on this blanket to stun at the corners. The way the cables met at the corners had to be different from my Dilution Cowl and Concentration Shawl patterns because the cables needed to be continuous — they needed to go in the same direction all the way around the blanket instead of pointing towards one another at the corner. It took five or six tries, but eventually I figured it out.

I started out by calculating what the smallest size blanket I could make would be in order to get in a full repeat and make the cables continuous. This purple version was knit using a skein of Hedgehog Merino DK in the colorway Hush. While I ended up using a worsted weight yarn for the pattern, I was able to make sure that my corners worked.

After all of the calculations and pattern drafts, I knitted up this lovely turquoise blanket in a size big enough to cover up with. I am so happy with it, and I can’t wait to gift it to my new nephew. I called the pattern the “Saturation Blanket” in keeping with my chemistry theme for this cable and texture combination that I’ve used in previous designs. In chemistry, a saturated solution is one in which the maximum amount of solute has been dissolved in a solvent at a given temperature. If you’ve ever ordered iced tea and really wanted sweet tea, you likely found that after dumping in a few packets of sugar, quite a few crystals of sugar settled on the bottom of your glass. This is because the solution, your now only slightly sweetened tea, is saturated; that is, no more sugar can dissolve in the iced tea.

While working on this blanket for my sister’s new baby, I kept thinking about how this child will enter the world with their parents’ and sisters’ hearts full of love, or, if you will, saturated with love.

The faux rib/garter texture of the Saturation Blanket creates a squishy, cozy fabric. The edges of the blanket feature beautiful braided cables that entwine at the corners and continue along all four sides of the blanket, giving it an elegant, cohesive look. With plenty of rest rows and pattern interest, this blanket will fly off the needles.

The work on the pattern didn’t stop after I’d finished making my full-size sample. I really wanted knitters to be able to complete the project without getting stuck, so I knit another sample and photographed my progress to guide knitters through the applied edging that is used to connect the cables along the top and bottom of the blanket.

I filmed a series of short video tutorials to help with any techniques that might be new to knitters, such as the Dec-9-to-1-k that helps make those beautiful cables connect to one another. And finally, I had the pattern tech-edited by a professional editor and test-knit by my lovely volunteers Cindy, Cyn, and Wilma.

This pattern can now be found on Ravelry, and if you use the code SATURATION20, you can save 20% from now until October 25, 2024. I can’t wait to see your beautiful new heirloom being gifted to yourself or your knitworthy loved ones.

by TechnicolorMom

Pause Time Socks

I am so excited to share that the Pause Time Socks pattern is officially out in the world! This pattern is available on Ravelry, and the code PAUSE20 will get you 20% off now until Tuesday, February 6, 2024.

The Pause Time Socks are knit cuff-down, beginning with a German Twisted Cast-On and 2×2 rib. The leg and foot of the sock feature a beautiful trio of short and long cables on the front of the sock and stockinette on the back. A traditional heel flap and gusset make for a great overall fit, and a rounded toe and Kitchener stitch finish off the sock.

The difficulty rating for the Pause Time Socks pattern is INTERMEDIATE. This project is worked in the round from the cuff down and includes cables, slipped stitches, increases, and decreases. Kitchener stitch is used to finish off the toe.

The pattern has been tech edited and test knit.

Pause Time Socks in Neon Melon

DESIGN INSPIRATION

It seems as though the older I get, the faster time goes, and sometimes I wish I had the ability to pause time. My two children seem to change and grow as quickly as the smaller cables on the Pause Time Socks. As I typed up this pattern, my three-year-old sat in my lap, pretending to type and control my finger movements. He won’t be small enough to sit in my lap for long, but I will enjoy the moment for now. The larger central cable takes the shape of an hourglass with longer stretches of stockinette between the cables, reminding us to pause and breathe in the beautiful moments around us.

RECOMMENDED YARN

This pattern will play nicely with any fingering weight merino/merino nylon blend yarn in solid, tonal, or lightly speckled colorways.

I used Sock by Teal Torch Knits, a 75% superwash merino wool/25% nylon, 463 yds (423 m) per 3.5 oz (100 g) base, in the Neon Melon colorway for my sample. I love how these cables pop in this color, and I cannot wait to get these cables onto some more accessories.

GIFT KNITTING

One of my goals for this year is to knit using stash yarn, and another is to knit gift socks for my extended family members. My husband, dad, mom, Grandma, MawMaw (maternal grandmother), and mother-in-law have all been enthusiastic supporters of my knitting endeavors, and this year I want to treat them to some handmade socks.

I wrote about the Dragon Fairy Socks that I gifted my Grandma a few weeks ago, and I just finished up a pair of Pause Time Socks for my MawMaw. She wears a size 6 shoe, so I was able to finish these up in just a few days. I love how these cables look in this gorgeous tonal yarn.

Pause Time Socks in Sangria

For these beauties, I used The Lemonade Shop House Sock in Sangria, which I purchased in September 2020. My MawMaw loves bold, saturated colors, so I thought this colorway would be perfect for her. I started these socks on January 26, 2024, and I finished them on February 2, 2024. You can find more info about this pair, including when I started the toe of the sock, on my project page on Ravelry. I’ve already started working on the sunburst granny squares to use up the leftover yarn.

Do you have a beautiful tonal or solid skein that would look amazing in these cables languishing in your stash? Maybe it’s time to cast on! Have you knit cables before? If not, what is holding you back? I’d love to ease any fears you might have about cable knitting.

by TechnicolorMom

Design Process Spotlight: Dilution Cowl

I was participating in a general cowl knitalong (KAL) with my local yarn store, Eat.Sleep.Knit, in early 2023 when the idea for the Dilution Cowl came to me. I was originally choosing colors for a different cowl project by one of my favorite designers – one where you hold a strand of DK weight yarn with a strand of fingering weight yarn, but alternate out the fingering weight yarn to create a marled fade. I made several swatches and could never settle on a good fade using only stash yarn. Eventually, I realized that I needed to choose something different because I felt like I was forcing the colors.

I loved how the DK weight yarn diluted out the speckles of the fingering weight yarn, and after I found a pair of yarns from my stash that I loved together, I knew I had to make something really special with it and started sketching. An asymmetric shawl is my favorite shape to knit for a shawl, and when this yarn spoke to me, I knew it wanted to be a cowl that had that same asymmetric shape. I wanted it to have a cable that was featured on the front and to have an interesting but easy texture for the drapey part of the cowl.

The earliest sketches of this cowl just had the cable along one side, and I just started knitting. This literally flew off my needles and was only slowed down by me stopping to take photos to share with a friend and admire my work. Do you do that? Stop to gaze lovingly at your knitting or crafting? If not, you should totally try it! Be impressed with yourself! You are creating something amazing!

Now, as I approached the length that I wanted the neckline to be, I started to think about how I wanted to finish off the live edge. I considered a simple i-cord bind off, and while I think that would have looked really nice, I decided to try something crazy and attempt an applied edging, where you knit an edging perpendicular to the body of the fabric. The idea was that I’d try to make the cables meet at the corner, but if I couldn’t make it work out, I’d just overlap them and call it a day. Usually I don’t put a lot of pressure on myself to just finish and prefer to figure it out, but I was on a relatively short deadline for the cowl KAL that I wanted to submit the project for. After several hours on the floor with a notebook, a calculator, and a measuring tape (which my children call “measuring snakes”), I ended up with a tentative plan.

I did not get the corner right on the first try. I got down to where I was ready to start intertwining the cables and started taking very meticulous notes. After the first attempt failed, I realized I needed to switch to a swatch so that I wouldn’t wear out the yarn with multiple frogging and reknitting attempts. I am a problem solver, though, and I just knew that I could solve this problem if I stuck with it. It took me about three tries to get it right, and let me tell you, I was just over the moon with pride at how clever I was when I did.

Once I had a good idea of how the corner was going to go, I switched back to the main project, finished out the corner, blocked the fabric, and seamed up the back, and there it was, the Dilution Cowl! I just love how this project turned out.

The last time I had published a pattern before the Dilution Cowl was in late 2019, so I was a little nervous about putting this design out into the world, but I’m so glad I did! Once I got back into the swing of things, I managed to publish seven patterns in 2023. Some of my design processes have been much more intentional than how the Dilution Cowl design process went, and some of them have just been the kind where I start knitting and see where it takes me. I can’t say that I have a strong preference for one over the other, but the laissez faire type definitely seems magical.

If you love the texture and cables in the Dilution Cowl, check out the Concentration Shawl, the Solution Socks, and the Solvation Hat. I’m also in the process on working on a baby blanket version where the cables go all the way around the perimeter of the blanket, and let me tell you that figuring out how to do the corners and cables on that one was even more satisfying than finishing up the corner on the Dilution Cowl. (That one took about seven tries, and I ended up with a whole pile of swatches.)

Solution Socks
Concentration Shawl
Solvation Hat

What do you think? Do you ever start knitting a project with a yarn and realize that the yarn wants to be something else? In a way, I think this is very similar to an author whose characters start taking them in a different direction than the author originally intended. The yarn is a character, and sometimes it needs its own adventure!

by TechnicolorMom

No Scraps Left Behind

When I knit a pair of socks, I rarely use the entire skein. I almost always have 20 to 30 grams (80 to 120 yards) of yarn leftover. In the past, I’ve just stuffed these too-large-to-discard leftovers into a drawer, but lately, this drawer has been making me feel overwhelmed. Maybe it’s the chaos? The unknown? Not having a plan? The tangles don’t bother me too much.

There’s definitely a hesitancy to throw the leftovers away because what if I need them one day? What if I need to darn some socks? Let’s be real, I’ve never darned a pair of socks. I’m sure that I am capable and can figure it out, but I’d just rather knit a new pair of socks and enjoy some different yarn for a while. So the holey socks go into a drawer of their own. I’m sensing a pattern here.

One of my goals for this year is to leave no scraps behind, so I’ve got a plan for my leftovers! I’ve got two different types of sock yarns that I typically work with: two-ply yarns that are 400 yards/100 g and 80% superwash merino/20% nylon and four-ply yarns that are 463 yards/100 g and 75% superwash merino and 25% nylon. I’ll typically use the two-ply yarns for socks for my children and the four-ply yarns for myself, but once upon a time, I only bought two-ply sock yarns, so I’ve got tons of them around.

My most recent FO is a pair of Dragon Fairy Socks using Kim Dyes Yarn Sourdough Sock in the colorway Leaves.Drizzle.Fiber.Friends. The yarn was an exclusive colorway for Eat.Sleep.Knit back in October 2020, so this skein of yarn has been hanging out in my stash for quite a long time. The Dragon Fairy Socks pattern is one of my upcoming designs, so you’ll see a bit more about it over the next few weeks (check out the sneak peek in the photo below!). The design looks fantastic in any dye style. These socks are for my grandmother, who will be celebrating her 81st birthday next week. She wears a US Women’s 9, so I had about 72 yards of yarn leftover after finishing these socks.

To use up the rest of my yarn, I’ve got three projects going on. The first is a crochet Hygge Burst Hexie Blanket by Mallory Krall. I’m holding leftover two-ply sock yarn double for this, and I’ll make a starburst hexagon for each pair of socks that I make this year. As I’m feeling up for it, I’ll also fish a leftover skein out of the Chaos Drawer to turn into hexagons as well. Each of my hexagons uses just under 12 g or 48 yards of yarn. I think this will be a fun way to use up some leftovers and create a memory blanket using yarns that will primarily go into gift socks.

The second use of the yarn is to make crochet granny squares for my Battenburg Blanket by Sandra Paul. I’ve been making four squares for each color that I use, and I’ve got about 100 colorful squares done so far. I’ll need about 500 colorful squares total for this blanket. I started it in September 2020, so it’s been in progress for quite a while, and I’ve used mini skeins from past advent calendars and other leftovers for this project. Each square uses 6 to 7 yards of yarn, and I’m only using leftover two-ply sock yarns for this blanket.

Finally, if I have enough leftover after this, I’ll wind up about 4 g of yarn into a tiny ball to save for December this year. Instead of purchasing an advent calendar of yarn minis, my plan is to save tiny balls of yarn leftover from socks that I make this year to craft tiny socks as holiday ornaments. This will be a great way to remember and revisit all of the socks that I’ve made throughout the year, even if they’ve been gifted away or so well loved that they end up in the Darning Drawer of Doom.

What do you think? Do you have a Chaos Drawer like the one I shared? What do you do to manage leftovers? Let me know in the comments!

by TechnicolorMom

Aspiring Professional Knitter

Concentration Shawl

A few years ago, I taught a first year college seminar class to help introduce students majoring in chemistry and biochemistry to some essential skills for succeeding in college. One of our major units focused on career exploration, and I tasked the students with thinking about three career paths:

  • The career path they were on, if everything went according to plan.
  • An alternative career path, if things did not go according to plan.
  • Their path if they were unbound from societal and family pressures.

The first two paths were pretty typical for students, with many students focused on healthcare, pharmaceuticals, and chemical industry. The third path was always the most interesting, with students choosing anything from “food blogger” to “freelance artist” to “baker.” This was how I really got to know my students and what their interests were, and it was so cool to learn all of their unbound plans.

Of course, I always shared how I would have answered those questions. The career path that I was on in college was to be a college chemistry professor and involved earning not only a bachelor’s degree but also a doctorate. Following graduation with my Ph.D. in organic chemistry, I enjoyed working in that career path for almost a decade. My alternative career path, as I answered when I was starting college, was to go into banking because I loved math. Now, of course, my answer would be to work at my LYS (local yarn store).

My “choose anything” career path is to be a professional knitter, so I always say that I am an “aspiring professional knitter,” even back when I was introducing myself to my organic chemistry students.

These days, I am a very lucky stay-at-home-mom to a 7-year-old and a 3-year-old and wife to the incredibly talented TechnicoolDad, and I couldn’t be happier. I am still an “aspiring professional knitter,” and I spend just about every free moment knitting (or reading, sometimes both at the same time!). The car line to pick up my daughter from school is one of my favorite places to knit, where I’ve got about half an hour of quiet time when I can really focus on my projects. My spouse makes it a priority to be home when possible so that I can attend my local knit night and spend THREE WHOLE HOURS knitting and chatting with my friends, making me feel spoiled and refreshed.

Sometimes, inspiration strikes, and I design my own patterns. I love this creative outlet, and in 2023, I managed to design, knit, write, and publish SEVEN new patterns, including four pairs of socks, a cowl, a shawl, and a hat. I have a few designs lingering from last year and on the needles that I hope to finish up soon and get published as well, but my family is my top priority and I am a “mood knitter,” so my design process can be somewhat sporadic. All of my paid designs are professionally tech edited to ensure maximum clarity and minimum confusion, and each pattern is tested by generous fellow knitters to catch anything that my editor and I have missed.

I’m planning a series of posts to discuss the origin of each of the ideas for these designs. The design featured at the top of this post is my Concentration Shawl (yes, it’s a chemistry thing) pattern that I absolutely adored knitting and designing, so look for a post about it soon!

by TechnicolorMom

All the KALs!

I’ve been pushing off writing this post since I wanted to finish up my February Hippo socks first. But…February 28 came and went, and I was about an hour and a toe short of finishing the socks, and I had resolved myself to just write the post without the socks, but…I finished them! I used Lolodidit’s Hippo for Valentine’s (2018) and Amazed colorways.

These are an original design, and I’ll be writing and publishing the pattern after a few modifications. These were my #HippoForHolidays2018KAL entry for February, but alas, I missed the deadline. I think they’ll fit in for March, but I’ll not have entered every month this year. Oh well, I’ve got a million things I want to knit!

 

I don’t think I shared the photos of these previously, but I also finished my January Hippo socks using the colorways Hippo for Hanakkuh and Elba Island.

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My entry for the Eat.Sleep.Knit Hue Shift Afghan KAL is going along swimmingly. Maybe too swimmingly. Jaina has taken a liking to my afghan, and I thought how cute it would be to make a matching blanket for her! Hers will be exactly the same as mine, except I’m starting the squares with fewer stitches, so it will just be smaller. Both are looking awesome! We made a trip to FL for my sister’s wedding, so I made great progress on my afghan.

ESK also recently hosted an FKAL (Flash Knit-along) for the Song of the Sea cowl, and I finished mine with four days to spare! Woohoo!

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In April, I’m planning to continue working on my Hue Shift Afghans and maybe get started on an afghan for my new niece and a hat for me. I had postponed knitting the hat since it was supposed to be warmer outside, but as my husband said (or read somewhere?), “Georgia’s free trial of spring has expired.” Also I need to finish his Droids socks! I’m also hoping to finish a pair of socks or two for ESK’s Q2 KAL: Summer of Socks!

by TechnicolorMom

Knitting Plans…with Spreadsheets!

I’m not really good at New Year’s Resolutions, but I’ve got one this year that should be fairly easy to do: knit more yarn than I buy. So far I’ve bought 11 skeins, so I’ve got a ways to go.

I’ve made a spreadsheet to track how many skeins I’ve bought versus how many I’ve used, and I’ve got another spreadsheet to track my KAL goals and deadlines.

This last year, I started watching some knitting podcasts, and they are just so much fun! They’re also pretty inspiring. I find new yarns to try, new patterns to try, and it really just makes the knitting world seem just a little smaller and like the podcasters are my friends. Anyone else get that feeling? A couple of my favorites are the Yarnhoarder and the Grocery Girls. Unfortunately (fortunately?), they have also introduced me to new yarn dyers, which is not helping my resolutions knitting goals.

So here are my plans!

Eat.Sleep.Knit Yarnathon

  • Hue Shift Afghan Year-long KAL: 14 skeins fingering weight yarn, 13 of which are from stash. I’ll be making 196 squares, so ~16-17 squares/month at least. I should probably do 17-18 squares/month and then leave December for the border.

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  • Q1 TinCanKnits KAL: at least 2 skeins DK weight yarn, both from stash. I’ll be making matching hats for myself and Jaina. Jaina’s will be in Hedgehog Merino DK Pucker (a skein she keeps pulling out of my yarn stash because it.is.the.best.colorway.) and mine in Juniper. Bonus! Little baby hats are super quick knits, and ta da! First hat done! Now, of course, that led into needing matching mittens to go along with her hat, so I’m working on those now. Deadline: March 31, 2018.

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  • Q2 Summer of Socks KAL: at least 3 skeins fingering weight yarn, likely from stash (unless, you know, I find something I really need to have before then, which is likely). Patterns are a mystery! Potential for double-dipping here.
  • Q3 Exclusively Exclusive KAL: I’ll need to use some of their exclusive colorways for this, so likely more socks! I’ve got several exclusive colorways so far, so I’ll have a bunch to choose from, plus they always have new colorways each month.
  • Q4 Charted Waters KAL: Something! Hopefully from stash! I’ve got a few sweater quantities that need to be knit up, so I’ll plan to dive into those.
  • Badges: I’ll try to double-dip with some of the other KALs for some of the badges this year.

Lolodidit #HipposForHolidays2018

  • The KAL is to knit something using the Holiday Hippo colorways each month. And there’s a special prize if you have one for each month. So, I’ll plan for 12 pairs of socks, one pair to be completed each month. My first pair is using the Hippo for Hanukkah 2017 colorway. Up next, I’ve got Hippo for New Year’s 2018 and Hippo for Valentine’s 2018.
  • These do not double-dip with the ESK KALs.
  • I’m starting out with Vanilla socks so I can try to find the best sock fit for me. It turns out I’ve been making all of my socks too big for ever.

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Grocery Girls Sock Bash 2018

  • Knit a pair of socks each month, or as many socks as I can knit! For this one, I can double-dip all of the other socks I’m making!

CostumeSandy #HusbandSocksKAL2018

  • The goal here is to knit one pair of socks/two months for my awesome husband, who supports my yarn addiction and loves to wear the socks I make him. Now, if only I could make myself weave in the ends on the socks I made for the Tour de Sock last year, he’d have another pair already! (Those don’t count for this KAL, of course.)
  • I’m going to start with a vanilla sock with a heel flap using Lolodidit’s Droids colorway. I’d really like to find a good sock fit for him.

That’s it so far! I’m sure I’ll jump on some more KAL trains as we go. What are your plans for the year?

by TechnicolorMom

Competition Pushes us Forward

Not just in business and innovation, but also in…you guessed it! KNITTING. Since July 15th, I’ve been participating in a community knit-along competition/fundraiser called Tour-de-Sock. Styled after the Tour de France, this competition sets teams of knitters in a speed sock-knitting race. There are six stages that are nine days each, and for each stage, you and the other racers knit one pair of socks. All entry fees for the race go to Doctors without Borders, and the group has raised $32k since it started a few years ago!

The first pair of socks didn’t go so well for me — I finished in the 366th spot (out of approx. 1700 knitters), and my socks ended up not fitting. This is most likely my fault — I decided to make these for my husband, so they are super long, and I even added extra room for the heel, but I ended up making the leg too tight in an effort to have a smaller number of stitches on the needle (so I could finish faster). So for the second sock, I made the smallest allowable measurements. So I’ve got one long and one short sock. *facepalm*

Anyway…for the next stage, which starts today, I’m hoping that the socks are knit top-down. Then I could throw a lifeline in just before the toe, and I could go back later and make them as long as I want.

I’m still waffling on color choices, but as I’ve learned from quilt making, it really doesn’t matter, since things end up looking pretty good in the end. Hopefully these turn out better than the last pair and I will actually feel confident enough to share a photo. I’m thinking I’ll use the Madelinetosh Tosh Sock in Astrid Gray as the main color, and either Esoteric (the dark teal) and Hosta Blue (the light teal) with a splash of Pop Rocks (the pink) or the Astrid Gray with Ink (the dark blue) and Liquid Gold. I’ll go with the first option if it is a more feminine pattern and the second option if it’s a more masculine pattern.

In other news, I am diligently working on Joel’s Forest Moon of Endor socks. I showed him pictures of a bunch of different patterns, but for that pair, I included the name of the pattern. And of course he chose that one for me to make! I’m using Western Sky Knits Magnolia Sock (an incredibly soft 80% merino, 10% nylon, 10% cashmere blend) in the colorway “Creeper.” (This is a Minecraft reference for those of you who don’t know.) I’ve used this yarn before and have even accidentally run the socks through the washing machine, and it has held up wonderfully and is soooooo soft! I’ve got one sock finished and have finished the leg on the second one. This is a super easy pattern, so it’s perfect for when I’m stuck in traffic and stopped at red lights.

I’m also starting a knit-along with my BFF (for 20+ years so far!), who is making her first pair of socks! We are making Please and Thank You Socks. I love the simple elegance of these socks, and I envision making several pairs of these! The pattern also comes with instructions for making them starting at the cuff AND for starting at the toe. My friend is using Nerd Girl Yarns Bounce & Stomp in the Blue Box Exploding colorway, and I am using Madelinetosh Twist Light in Tern. I am stepping out of my comfort zone with these and trying to knit using 9″ circulars. We’ll see how it goes! So far, so good. I’ll definitely have to get my hands used to working on such small needles.

Also, my daughter is almost walking. She has an elephant toy that she walks behind as she pushes it around the house. Knitting time has definitely decreased now that she is mobile. I can knit about three stitches before she gets to the fireplace and tries to open the glass panels (after she crawls over to it, turns around to look at me, shakes her head “no” with a big grin, then turns back to the fireplace). SHE IS SO FAST. And AMAZING. I marvel every day at how awesome she is. Also, she likes to help me knit. 😀