Knitting socks is one of life’s great pleasures.
I have to admit that I am a ‘mindless sock knitter’.
I knit plain socks that can just flow through my fingers without me having to pay attention to them except at critical points like heels and toes.
I use sock knitting as a way of soothing myself if I am feeling stressed,
or if I am in a situation where I have to pay attention to other people,
or if we are driving (my husband is driving, that is, and I am passenger-ing),
or if I am in waiting mode.
So, I tend to use self striping yarns …read more

Ugh… over the weekend, I had a scary thing happen… I had a  detachment in my left eye and a little hemorghage in the eye.
It was the pits, and has left me feeling very worn and frazzled.
When I was sitting in the doctor’s office, I was knitting a sock. There I was, with the erky drops in my eyes so they could do the tests- feeling freaked out from all the awfullizing I had been doing over being scared sideways by the weirdness going on with my eye -  and the best way to keep myself from falling completely apart …read more

A few years ago, I bought several balls of Bernat Sox yarn in wild colors because I wanted to
experiment with plain, unadorned sock yarn.
Why? I had just done a trade on a handspinning list on yahoo.
My trading partner had sent me  several cones of what looked to be a very vintage blending thread: Bucilla Silk Tweed.
That’s it in the pic, sitting just above the needles.   Oooh… yummy stuff!
I have used the Bucilla Silk Tweed thread in all kinds of projects and absolutely love it.
It’s a slubby, mostly super fine strand of quite lively thread that blends beautifully with any yarn …read more

One of the members of the Tatta-tat-tatters tatting group on Ravelry mentioned that she tatted edgings onto her daughter’s socks.
I was immediately inspired!
I have sewn lace edging to socks, but never tatted it on.
Last fall, when I was teaching workshops in Portland at the Knit and crochet conference, the goodie bag had sock yarn in it. So, I started these socks, and have picked away at them on and off all winter.
I finally finished them the other day, so now….
I get to have fun with them!
I am doing a super simple tatted flower edging on them, and I am really …read more

I went into Hobby Lobby the other day for some cotton dishcloth yarn. You really can’t beat the craft stores for inexpensive cotton yarn.
They were having a sale on some items and bargain-loving woman that I am, I decided to buy this yarn I’ve never tried before. I’ve used Lion Brand before and it’s a good workhorse type of yarn. I’ve never tried their sock yarn, however.
So far, so good. It’s not as luxurious as Lorna’s Laces or Claudia’s Handpainted, but it’s similar to Opal. It feels like a sturdy, dependable sort. Of course, I won’t have a full review …read more

Oh man!
I can’t believe how long it took me to knit this pair of socks!
I am calling them ‘the forever socks’

That’s how long it took to knit them.
Just plain ole, ‘let your yarn make your pattern’ socks for my darlin’. Because I loves him.
  And, everybody knows that handknitted socks beat the bejabbers off store bought ones, so of course, you want your beloved to wear sockies that you made for him with your own little paws, right?
Well….. life sometimes gets in the way of getting sockies done.  People who can ACTUALLY count their unfinished projects astonish me. I …read more