Fiber Fool

Remember this?

And this?

Well, if you are a subscriber to Spinning Daily and have an eagle eye you saw a more revealing look at this project in your inbox this week. I’ll share more as the newsstand date draws nearer. I have lots of detail shots of this one!

Thanks for the well wishes on my seemingly neverending health issues these days. So far, today has been pretty good. Not quite normal, but I’m able to concentrate and being a bit more productive today. How has your week been? We’re nearly at the weekend! Yippee!

It only just occurred to me that it is now Socktober! Since I’ve got my head down and working I didn’t get a chance to design something specifically for Socktober, but I’d still like to celebrate in some way. So, now that coupon codes and sales promotions are working in Ravelry shops I’m gonna test out all the ways to run them ;-)

For the remaining days in October you can save 20% on all my sock knitting patterns in my Ravelry shop. Just head to click here to activate the code, or enter SOCKTOBER in the “Use Coupon Code” field while shopping. It is a one time use per customer code. Feel free to share it with others and spread the word.

I’ve been having a blast kind of working in “tandem” with the knitters of the SKA Mystery Sock so far this month! And, it seems they are enjoying me as well and talked me into starting my own Designedly, Kristi group on Ravelry. I’ve been blown away by the response already!

One of the gals in the group, Cheryl aka peachesforever, has decided that Three of Diamonds is her next sock pattern she is going to work on. But she is subbing with a yarn that is a bit heavier (Jitterbug) than those used in the pattern and sure enough, Three of Diamonds is one of only a few of my sock patterns that is not a multi-gauge pattern. Because of the patterning in the gusset, adjusting for a different gauge is not as simple as it is for most sock patterns. She is also thinking of adapting it into knee highs! After some discussion I thought doing it as knee highs toe-up would probably be the easiest approach so the pattern is getting turned up side down as well!

So, if you’ve been eying Three of Diamonds and pairing it with a different gauge yarn in your head, you prefer toe-up patterns, or you always need to make gusset adjustments due to a high or low instep, pop on over to the Designedly, Kristi group and keep your eye on the Three of Diamonds thread where there will be a KAL of sorts. I’ll be checking in regularly to answer questions and to help you adapt the pattern for any or all of those various changes! If you want to knit it as is, feel free to join us there as well. We’d love to see what yarns you are using and watch your progress!

I must confess, that since I was designing a multi-gauge pattern for the mystery sock that I knit the first pair in a sport weight yarn. That was because I spent two weeks working on a design that looked good on paper, but not so much in real life. So, I decided there was enough bad juju with that idea (even though I was on the cusp of finding the solution) and tabled it for now. That meant starting over from scratch much closer to the deadline than I would have liked. I needed answers quickly. If I was going to run into more problems in a brand new design I needed to know about it as soon as possible - hence the sport weight yarn and smaller stitch count than normal.

Debi kindly hooked me up with a fantastic test knitter who worked the pattern up before March 1 in fingering weight yarn. But, I’m not one for overly heavy socks. Especially this year were it seems like winter was two weeks long and now we’re having four months of spring. So, I’m knitting along with everyone else on the mystery sock, but this time in fingering weight yarn.

I chose the “Denim” colorway of Pagewood Farm’s Chugiak yarn. It struck me the other day that I had 0 - yes, zero blue socks in my sock drawer. Teal? Yes! Purple? Yes! Green? Yes x 3! Pink? Oddly, this non-pink loving girl has several! Blue? None! Nadda! That’s just wrong for someone who lives half in denim and half in corduroy (well, when I’m not in my sock monkey PJs that is, LOL).

My sock has grown much since the above shot. I currently have all the clues and no additional US1 DPNs of a material I like to work with so no working the second sock in tandem. Since I can, I’ve progressed into Clue 3 which doesn’t come out until next Sunday and I can’t share with you where I am now ;-) I love how the sock is matching one of my favorite pairs of jeans and that my favorite DPNs (Crystal Palace Bamboo) match the stitching and I just had to share this pic with you all. No doubt you can guess what the FO post will look like :-)

I was honored to have Debi invite me to design the mystery sock for March for Sock Knitter’s Anonymous this year. The theme was lace, which is a fairly natural theme for me as I probably have a bit more lace socks in my design portfolio (Rav link) than anything else. I had a blast designing for it. Doing a mystery sock pattern sets a whole new set of criteria to be considered while designing - in particular, how do you mix up each clue so people can’t guess what the next step is going to entail? It was fun to have to work with a different set of constraints so to speak.

The first clue went live on Sunday at midnight eastern time and I am having a blast seeing everyone’s first clue take shape (Rav link). It might also become hard on my pocketbook as I’m finding more and more sock yarn that I would love to have living in my stash :-)

It’s not too late to take part. The next clue won’t be posted until this coming Sunday and there were people with clue 1 completed for both socks within ~24 hours of the clue going live. Posts with links to the clues and general chatter about the pattern and yarns being used etc. can be found in the Sockdown! March Mystery Socks thread at the SKA group on Ravelry. The pattern has 4 sizes and gauges from 6-9 sts/in to fit a wide range of sizes.

The little peek in the photo at the top of the post is my first test sock knit in Miss Babs Yummy Sport weight in Verdigris using the 56 sts pattern. One skein gave me two socks for US9.5 feet with a 3 repeat leg if I’m remembering correctly.