Men's Knitted Socks

A pair of men's socks I knitted this year in between many other project. I took these photos while we were at Pchelina lake in November, but put off publishing them, mostly for lack of time, until today.

For the socks I used again my usual sock recipe for toe up socks for men, with 64 sts, Judie's magic cast on, fish lips kiss heels and stretchy cast off. I used pre-striped sock yarn by Alize and my 2.5 loop needles. This is my first and one of only two knitted projects I finished this year, the other being a hat, I plan to post about soon - my knitting mojo is still away, mostly for lack of time - the year was super, super busy.

Pattern: Striped Socks (personal pattern)

Yarn: Alize Superwash, 70 g

Needle: 2.5 mm

Time to knit: unknown, between projects

I like how these came off and it was fun to knit them, but next time I use striped yarn, I think I'll make the heel an afterthought heel and keep the stripes, or add a solid color for the heel and toes.

Autumn Socks

I finished a new pair of socks for my husband - nothing fancy, just simple mindless stockinette knitting in the round while watching movies.

The yarn is my tried and true Alize Superwash, hand dyed. For the body of the socks I experimented with a new method for dyeing spots, using a dropper. I think I overdid the yellow in the end and the yarn came out too busy, but on the other hand there is definitely no pooling, which is an effect in hand dyed yarns I try to avoid at all costs, if possible.

As I initially only had 50 g of yarn, I started the socks with provisional cast on and afterthought toes and heels. I later bought a couple of new white skeins of Alize Superwash and dyed a 25 g ball in brown for the toes, heels and ribbing, to compliment the dotted body of the socks. I think the afterthought toes and heels worked well, but I prefer Judy's magic cast on, it gives a smoother form of the toes.

Pattern: Autumn Socks (personal recipe, 64 sts)

Yarn: Alize Superwash, 75 g, hand dyed

Needle: 2.5 mm circular needle

Time to knit: three weeks

Yellow socks

I knitted another pair of socks, with hand-dyed yarn, naturally :)
We took pictures of the socks yesterday, during our hike on Rila. I almost forgot about the photosession and the socks would have stayed tucked away in my backpack, which would have been a shame. Luckily, there were many lakes along our way and we had a very long hike, so almost any time it occurred to me to take pictures, there was a postcard scenery awaiting to be taken advantage of :)

I had 10 g sock-yarn remnants from another pair of hand-dyed socks. As I loved the yarn, I wanted to use it up and pair it with a matching hand-dyed yarn. I decided to play with the yellow in the tropical yarn, so I dyed a ball of white sock yarn in three shades of yellow-orange, using the low immersion twisted skein method. What this means - I prepared a dye bath first with a lemonade shade of yellow, twisted the presoaked skein and dipped it in the dye bath until the dye was exhausted. Then I took out the skein, untwisted it, let it cool and twisted it again. Dipped it in orange-yellow and let it soak the dye. And then again repeated the process with the last shade of color - orange. To make sure that the dye was well fixed, I then heated up again the dyed skein in the microwave for a total of 2+2 minutes.

As both of these yarns - the tropical 10 g and the white 35 g, were remnants from other socks, the resulting socks are short, with small cuffs, but I think the combination works really well and the socks were worth making. I used my favourite recipe for toe-up socks, 58 stitches, FLKH, Lory's twisted bind off.

Pattern: Yellow socks (personal pattern)
Yarn: Alize Superwash, hand-dyed, 45 g
Needle: 2.5 mm
Time to knit: 5 days

Peacock Socks

Yesterday I finished another pair of socks out of hand-dyed yarn. These are for my husband and they were such fun to knit.

The yarn is Alize Superwash, 75% wool, 25% nylon. I wound about 70 g, presoaked the yarn in warm water with citric acid, then squeezed most of the water out of the skein and hand painted the skein. A couple of pictures of the process of painting - first the lighter colors, then filling in with the darker colors.

For these socks I used a new blue food dye, which turned to be bright peacock blue. Frankly, I was a bit skeptical of the color combination, but it definitely grew on me in the knitting process.

Despite the fact that the skein was 4 m long and I tried to randomize the colors, I ended with them kind of pooling. It's not as drastic as with short skeins but still I would have preferred more dispersed color distribution, as in the wound skein above.
The pattern is my usual recipe, toe up, 64 sts, stockinette stitch with fish lips kiss heels.

Pattern: Peacock Socks (personal pattern)
Yarn: Alize Superwash, hand-dyed, 68 g
Needle: 2.5 mm
Time to knit: 9 days

Golden Lichen Socks

I just finished a new pair of socks and these are my new most favourite! Still enthused by the dye job I did for my mother's socks, I decided to mix the greens, oranges, yellows and browns into a new pair of socks for myself.

My inspiration were the golden lichen on the oak trees we noticed during our hike to Pchelina lake at the beginning of the month.

For these socks I used the direct painting method - it is the most slow of all, but provides the best control over the painting process. I spread the skein of yarn, soaked in water with citric acid, on a sheet of stretch foil and gradually painted it all in various hues of earth colors.

Then I wrapped the foil and fixed the dye in the microwave oven.

I'm absolutely loving the result - so warm and balanced, these are definitely my colors!

I divided the skein in two and knitted the socks, following my usual recipe - toe up, Judy's magic cast on, 58 sts, stockinette stitch, fish lips kiss heel, 1x1 rib, Lori's twisty bind off.

Pattern: Golden Lichen (personal pattern), 58 stitches
Yarn: Alize Superwash 52 g, hand dyed
Needle: 2.5 mm
Time to knit: 10 days

Although these are almost the same colors as in these socks, the different method of distribution of the colors results in a distinctly more balanced and pleasing texture, without color pooling.

Christmas Socks

This year I decided to knit socks for my family and closest friends as Christmas presents.
I started early - Ravelry tells me that I cast on my first pair in March and finished it in April. There were periods when I felt like knitting socks and long months when my socks in progress were left untouched. The intended recipients of the finished socks also changed - as Christmas approached I realized that I neither had the time nor the inclination to knit all the socks I had planned, so my immediate family members - husband and children, were crossed off the list, as they receive socks knitted by me regularly during the year. And I'll definitely knit them more socks in 2019.

I love this picture, sent by a friend who truly appreciated her socks:

All of the socks I knitted this year were made out of sock yarn, hand dyed by me:

I've blogged about most of the socks in my Christmas pile, but the last two pairs. The latest is this gradient cherry color pair out of my recent sock yarn dyeing session.

Pattern: Flying North by Maria Montzka, 58 sts
Yarn: Alize Superwash, hand dyed, 60 g
Needle: 2.5 mm
Time to knit: 5 days

I like how these turned out and I believe the unobtrusive design compliments the gradient color transitions.

And a pair of men's socks, 64 stitches, my own design, afterthought heel. I dyed the yarn in a long skein, dipping it in denim blue (dark blue + black). To spice the stripes I added some light ribbing texture:

Pattern: Denim Socks (personal pattern)
Yarn: Alize Superwash, 75 g, hand dyed
Needle: 2.5 mm
Time to knit: unknown

For striping socks I prefer the afterthought heel, as it best preserves the nature of the stripes and mirrors the toes of the socks.

Speckled Space Socks

I'm having trouble with my Wisteria Sweater (more about this in another blog post) and in order to cleanse my palate, so to speak, I knitted a pair of socks. Socks are those small mindless knits that can totally recover one's passion for knitting and are such an instant gratification. Even in  this case, when I utilized a yarn I had dyed about two months ago not very successfully.

The yarn was my second attempt at rainbow speckled yarn - I soaked the yarn in warm water and citric acid, then placed it on wrap foil and sprinkled it with dry dye powder - red, yellow and blue. The theory is that the speckles of dry dye would stick to the yarn and where they combine all the colors of the rainbow would appear. However first I did not manage to sprinkle the dye evenly and then I made a very bad mistake - I was too impatient and I after I had microwaved it I brought the yarn to the sink to wash it before it had cooled down. As a result the dye residue, which is usually substantial when using dry dye, stuck to the still warm and acid yarn and made it look dirty instead of white with colorful speckles.

For more than a month the yarn just sat in my project bag, rejected and unloved. I knit a small sample, hoping that when knitted it would look better - but nope, it was still grey dirty. So eventually I overdyed it with yellow and then with orange. I thought I had played enough with it, so I finally cast on the socks I had planned for it - the Speckled Space Socks, a free pattern on Ravelry.

But I still didn't like the color of the socks, they looked like unappetizing mish-mash. Half-way through my first sock I had a mini crisis, wondering whether this wretched yarn was worth all that trouble. In the end I decided to finish the socks (which turned out a bit short because of the limited quantity of yarn) and then to glaze them or eventually overdye them. I dipped the finished soaked socks into hot and very acid red dye bath and let them absorb the dye. Now I finally love them - the darker speckles were preserved and the color turned layered and interesting. My husband liked them so much that he wants a pair of the same color for him too :)

Pattern: Speckled Space Socks by Amanda Stephens
Yarn: Alize Superwash 50 g, 210 m
Needle: 2.5 mm
Time to knit: 6 days