so I have to be honest and admit straight up that Craig and I have been semi-fighting over this particular sock yarn! we both really really love it and wanted it for ourselves so in the end we went online and hunted down another ball of this wool… #secrettoasuccessfulmarriage
Of course there is a story… I saw this yarn in Japan -of course! Japan has the coolest stuff, I’m telling you… Craig was in the store with me and picking up and admiring various sock yarns too; and because he was being so patient while I browsed sock yarn endlessly I promised that I would knit a pair of socks for him if he just picked some yarn. I mean, that seems fair, right? a pair of socks in exchange for a trip to Japan?! yeah I thought so too… hehe… anyway! I had chosen all the yarn I wanted and I went up and bought it. A little later, and I’ve started knitting it up, and Craig goes, those are my socks, aren’t they? and I go, um, nooooooo? and he goes, but that’s the yarn I wanted for my socks! and I go, well I wanted it too, and I tooooold you to put some yarn to the basket if you wanted any! and he goes well I thought THAT one was for me, and I go, no it’s for me! and then he looked quite crestfallen and so did I because I DID really want to knit a pair of socks for him, that he loved. And so then in an exceptionally generous gesture I thought, because I too really really love this yarn I said oh, ok you can have them, then he said, no it’s ok, you can have them, and I’m like, no I want you to have them, and he’s like, no, it’s ok… well you get the picture. So in the end, yeah; we went online and found some more, so very soon we’re going to have matching feet … you know when you’re young and newly in love, and there’s a stage where you dress like each other?? well it’s been a while, and actually I’m not even sure we ever ever went through that stage! but looks like we are going to go through it after all…
So this yarn is the legendary Opal yarn, that it seems you can buy everywhere in the world except Australia, grrr… the label reads KFS Kesennuma, colour Forest, or KFS108. and is a really beautiful, verdant array of deep teal, bottle free, olive green, bluey-grey green, and through to a springy leaf green and pure ivory… I love the way it knits up to mimic a fair isle design, the repeat is just like the yoke of a Scottish or Scandinavian jumper. It’s my favourite colourway out of all the self-striping sock yarns I bought, because of that clean “evergreen trees in a snowy wintery wonderland” vibe. I can almost smell the pine needles!
I used my old Patons tried and true basic sock pattern, and carefully arranged the colours to have the heel in all the darks, and cut and spliced so as to have a mostly pure white toe, though just a tiny spray of green at the very end snuck in there too… so pretty!!
the updated box of socks… and I reckon I should have started with a bigger basket!
Yeah, they look so cool. Well done for the white toe and colored heel, that takes some planning for sure. I just started a pair of socks with the famous Burberry inspired Turtlepurl yarns (the Trenchcoat colorway) and I can’t wait to see how they turn up. You will need another basket, or squeeze your socks really tight. This one is good for six months it seems, not a whole year 😉
Unbelievable. That’s my tnt sock pattern. (^:
What a lovely knitting story! So sweet! And I love how you made the pair of socks identical. It wants a little effort to get it equal like this!
I love a good sock post! When I knitted my first sock it was such a challenge that when I finished it I was looking for a one-footed person as I really didn’t think I’d ever knit the second one of the pair! But circular needles changed my life and now I’m a sock-knitting addict, and have 2 pair on the go at the moment – one in 8ply and one in sock yarn.
It’s great how you got the socks to match with the stripes – I have to admit to embracing the “oddness” of however the socks end up when just going with the flow of the yarn 🙂
Thank you so much for your entertaining and inspiring posts!
If I lived in your house I would have been fighting over it too, it brings out a lovely pattern. Jo xxx
Aww you two are adorable. Something similar happened here once, although I was not as polite in my “MINE!!!!” moment. 😉 Just like you did, I went online and bought a second skein so that we could have his-n-hers socks (and an ongoing marriage)! The one downside is that I have trouble figuring out whose pair is whose on wash day…
Your note about arranging the colors so the heel was dark hit close to home: my most recent pair of self-striping socks contained a large band of speckled white, and I didn’t even think about where in the repeat my toes began versus where the heel would end up. You can see where this is going, right? The bottoms of the heels, the dirt-grabbiest part of the socks, are ENTIRELY white. D’oh!
These look lovely. I can understand why you love them and also why Craig loves them too. Look forward to seeing what else you come up with for the rest of the month socks. Best regards from a sunny Basel Anita