socky textures to inspire and beanies that probably don't!

I've been trying to catch up with all the blogs I read before I go away to my parents' place for Easter and get another five days behind.

Jan, you asked me for ideas [not that you need any with those gorgeous wristwarmers] so, for all participants of WoTK who may be looking for ideas for socks [or new blogs to visit], here are three ideas I found while blog-reading:

I came across these socks on Donna's blog. Gorgeous texture and what an amazing colour. I don't usually go for pink but this is really nice.


And over on Rose Red's blog, I found these socks - I have that magazine so I may have to knit a pair of Buried Treasure socks in the not-too-distant future. So, Rose Red, are you going to join in now? LOL

Knitting Linguist who has a passion for lace and socks is knitting these socks. The textured pattern works well even though the yarn is self striping.


And then there are my beanies. Not exciting, not from patterns, not written down as I went; but warm and hopefully soon to be gratefully received in a small town in fire-ravaged Victoria. I ended up sending one scarf [not knitted by me], three pairs of fingerless mitts and sixteen beanies [one knitted by mum oh-so-long-ago]. Here are some of the beanies you haven't seen:

Twisted Moss Stitch [in a very soft 50% tencel/acrylic blend] made by Yarn Bee [#087] and bought on sale at Spotlight. I made three beanies from this yarn, all with knit below stitch patterns, but this is the only one for which I managed to get a decent photo. I have a couple of balls left which is great - I like working with this very soft, thickish yarn.

Although this is knitted in the round, it has a pseudo seam up the back because the K1B occurs on the first stitch in the second row and the second stitch in the fourth row - thus setting up this seam-like effect. I tried to do away with it by knitting on an odd number of stitches but that required more concentration and I kept getting lost! [Remember I knit beanies for non-thinking knitting].

I also made three beanies in Moda Vera Caravella. After working with the tencel I found this 85% acrylic, 25% virgin wool harsh to work with but later found the finished beanies to be quite soft! Everything is relative, isn't it? Because this yarn had its own built-in texture in the form of the black thread running through it and the underspun bits that kept popping up [show as white stitches in this photo] I kept the beanies simple and made them in ribbing of various kinds.

Then there was this little slip stitched ribbed beanie; I knew I was going to run out of yarn - I was using ends of other projects and experimenting with slip stitching in rib: but WM thinks it's cute and some child will probably like it! Of course, being for a child it was too small for anyone to model - this photo is taken on my fist. I'm fairly confident the top won't pucker like that when on someone's head - it's knitted the same way I do a lot of other beanies so I'm sure it'll be okay!

And finally a cheat - a beanie made from a thick and thin yarn [40% wool/30& acrylic/30% ramie - Yarn Bee #072] that created its own texture. The yarn was also on special at Spotlight and I'm glad they only had one ball - I didn't like knitting it at all. Its redeeming feature: an adult sized beanie in about two hours! It was knitted flat on 7mm needles because it was too tight on 6mm [US size 10] which is the largest Knitpick Options I have. I thought I'd get away with it as my tension/gauge is usually loose but not this time! WM took this photo using a flash so the lustre from the ramie makes it look shiny - it wasn't but it did have different flecks of colour in the 'eggplant' shade.



So, C. are you happy? Two photo filled posts in two days - and many leading you off to other blogs to explore!! LOL