Sockpocalypse Summer, part 3 – Hot Tiki Flamingo Ribs

It’s been a very gloomy and rainy day over here in New Orleans, so I feel the need to warn you to put on some sunglasses to protect yourself from these fabulous socks.

Hot damn, that’s pretty.

In this, the third installment of my Sockpocalypse Summer (missed parts 1 and 2?), I made some crazy colorful socks for my equally colorful and joyful friend, Lui.

Lui and I went to high school together, did drama club together, and have even worked together in our adult lives at the same hospital for a few years (he as a doctor with impeccable penmanship, which was invaluable back in the day of paper charting, and which I still appreciate even now). He is kind and caring, bubbly and fun, with a real zest for the good things in life. He has an Instagram where he posts about all the best food in New Orleans (@luieats!). He radiates positivity, and I honestly think he doesn’t realize how his presence, despite it mostly just being on social media, brightens my life.

When he chose this skein of sock yarn for his custom socks during the Sockpocalypse, I just knew it was meant to be. No other human that I know could rock anything with quite this much insane color with the same flair as Lui can.

Speaking of the yarn, this is the first time in history where I knitted an entire project with completely unknown yarn. It came as a freebie during a big yarn sale, and it either was missing a tag at the time, or the tag got lost over the years. All I know is that is a big crazy riotous rainbow mess, and I love it.

It took a few false starts, trying out ribbing patterns (because no other stitch pattern would be able to show up in all that rainbow insanity) with different stitch counts, to get something that didn’t look like complete clown barf or a pooling/flashing nightmare.

The pattern that I went with was my absolute favorite for bare-bones basics, A Good, Plain Sock by the Yarn Harlot herself, Stephanie Pearl-McPhee, from her amazing book Knitting Rules!. I have made socks from this pattern at least eleventy-billion times (8, actually), and this book is just an integral part of a knitter’s arsenal, especially if they want to get into pattern writing or enjoy following advanced patterns or deciphering patterns that weren’t originally written in English. It’s just full of good things.

Knitting these socks up was just nothing but fun. Nearly every single row looked like this wondrous rainbow gradient on my needles.

Those spiral stripes are just too good.

One thing that I did notice that was really interesting was the fact that the spirals moved in two different speeds on the tops of the two socks. The one on the left was the first sock that I knit, with yarn that was presumably from the center of the skein as it was dyed. The sock on the right was knit second, with the yarn that was on the outside of the skein. That 1.5″ worth of difference in the dying process led to a sizable difference in the final appearance, although happily not enough to change the overall effect.

For Lui’s US men’s size 11 feet, I settled on 68 stitches with a 2×2 rib pattern and a simple slip-stitch heel. I love the way that the colors pop up differently in the slip stitch, almost looking pastel as they rise above the background colors.

It was hard for me to send them over to their rightful owner today, but I knew it had to be done. I just don’t have the chutzpah to rock this hot rainbow mess every day.

Oh, but we all can dream right?

Sockpocalypse Summer, part 2 – Go with the Flow Socks

Today, I sent off a lovely pair of lacy socks to a really lovely friend.

Let’s talk about Bonnie. You may remember her from this adorable baby blanket and elephant combo that I made her a few years ago, when she was expecting her first baby.

Bonnie is just the sweetest person out there, and I am so grateful that we have managed to stay in touch after nursing school. She is compassionate and kind and encouraging, an amazing nurse, and honestly one of the highlights of my day is seeing her adorable family pictures. You can imagine how delighted I was to see her name pop up on my Facebook post requesting this beautiful yarn. (Confused? Read all about the Sockpocalypse origins here.)

Bonnie picked this gorgeous skein of Knit Picks Stroll Tonal in Foraged, which is also crazily discontinued! Am I ever going to knit with a yarn that people can actually attain ever again?!

It’s a really subtle mix of grays, with both light and dark shades of both cool and warm values. It’s really hard to catch on camera, but you get the idea.

Bonnie requested something lacy, and this pattern delivered. The pattern is Go With the Flow Socks by Evelyn A. Clark, also from the fantastic Interweave Favorite Socks book. Evelyn just makes a great sock, you know.

It features a very open, lacy stitch pattern with pleasing vertical lines, especially when you make the tops really long and slouchable. I’m especially enamored of that little border lace panel at the top with the doubled yarnover pickup. It’s good stuff.

Now, since I made Bonnie that original blanket, she had two babies, and her feet underwent some…changes. I was up for the challenge that size 12 feet presented me. Bring it.

I’m happy to say that knitting this pattern with no changes other than sizing up the needles (up to a US size 3, if you’re curious), combined with the natural stretchiness of the lace pattern, makes this sock a comfortable fit for a lady with feet on the larger side. I’m pretty sure we got up to a US women’s size 12 foot with room for comfort. However, my feet are much shorter than that and my cedar sock blockers were made for me, so I can only estimate with my measuring tape. Just wanted to include the detail so that you guys (all 5 of you who read this and know what I’m talking about) know that the sizing-up trick works without creating a loose or floppy fabric. You can actually barely tell at all, which is great, plus you’ll have more than enough yarn with the extra-large Knit Picks Tonal skein. I like having this new tool in my sock-knitting arsenal.

These socks got sent off today, with a substantial portion of my love as well, to grace this feet of a truly wonderful, warm, welcoming human that I am so glad to have in my life. Put your feet up, my dearest Bonnie. You deserve it.

Sockpocalypse Summer, part 1 – Waving Lace Socks

When I was finished my Stacy Pullover, I felt like I needed another project right away. I needed to keep busy. So, into the stash I went.

And when I did, I turned up 10 skeins of sock yarn just sitting there and begging for my attention. Two of these were special ones that I had picked out just for me, but the other 8 were sort of a mish-mash of free stuff and presents and parts of multi-packs that I bought to get a specific color. Gorgeous stuff, but not things that I desperately needed to have on my particular feet.

Here they are! Pretty, right?

So, I got to thinking, I may not need 10 new pairs of socks, but surely I know 8 people who need some handknit sock love in their lives right now, right? So I posted that picture above on Facebook and told my friends that the first 8 people to pick their favorite skein would get a new pair of handknit socks from me, custom-made to their size and style preferences. I figured that some people, mostly knitting friends would be into it, and that the replies would trickle out over the afternoon and evening.

It only took 35 minutes.

Eight lovely people, scattered out all over the country and from a million different times in my life, all so deserving of sock love, jumped right on the bandwagon. Hell yeah. That’s all of my summer knitting ready to go! Stash-busting and spreading love through the glory of handknit socks all summer long.

So, of course, to start, I had to make a pair for myself. Just to get the sock mojo flowing.

Ugh. So pretty.

This yarn was one of those special purchases just for me because this colorway of Knit Picks Stroll Handpainted was just calling out to me and forced me to buy it. It’s called Coffee Shop, and it now appears to be discontinued for some insane reason (seriously, can we stop getting rid of all of the beautiful colors, commercial yarn makers?). This makes zero sense to me.

I mean, look at that! Shades of brown and gray and then these gorgeous pops of sky blue and purple!? What kind of monster discontinues this color?

Any knitter can tell you that part of the true joy of knitting with variegated yarns is awaiting the moment that the color that you have arbitrarily chosen as the “best” one comes up, even if it’s only for like 2 stitches. It makes you stupid happy for no goddamn reason. And this yarn had 2 (two!) of those showstoppers. So good.

The pattern is Waving Lace Socks by Evelyn A. Clark, part of the amazing Interweave Favorite Socks book. The stitch pattern is super simple, just decreases and yarnovers, but it makes this undulating wave that looks rich and complex.

So, now that I’ve got my own feet covered, stay tuned for the next sock pair in our Sockpocalypse. That is a really hard word to type, and spell check refuses to help me with my stupid pun. Here’s hoping I don’t fuck it up a billion times before this is over.

Knitting Through – the Stacy Pullover

At the start of the new year, I realized that it had been 10 (ten!) years since I had last knitted a full-body garment for myself. Sure, I had made approximately eighty million hats and pairs of socks, but nothing to cover the top half of me since we moved from Boulder.

I’ll be honest, part of this is because I am not such a huge fan of the top half of my body. I am a big girl with short legs and broad shoulders, not exactly the ideal for the body-hugging fabric that knitting produces. Knitting smaller things for myself was always more acceptable because I didn’t have to take a bust or waist measurement to make them.

At the start of 2020, before the madness began, I said to myself, screw that. It’s the last semester of school, you’re coasting right to the finish line. You need a simple stress reliever project that you can feel good about! You scored a decent amount of this lovely worsted yarn during a clearance sale that is begging to become something lovely. You’ve got this!

Well, I was right about the yarn, and wrong about pretty much everything else.

My last semester of DNP school turned out to be anything but a coast to the finish line. I got a whole new faculty chair, who had a whole lot of things to say about my project that forced me to do a crazy amount of work in a short amount of time. The pandemic shut down school, shut down clinicals, and shut down our DNP project defense presentations. Instead, we did everything online, and I tried to boil down years of crazy hard work into a 25 minute slideshow where I talked way too fast but miraculously passed.

I didn’t get to finish clinicals or get a graduation. I got an award, but my family didn’t get to see me receive it. I rarely get to work at all, because my PRN status means that I get cancelled a lot to save money for the hospital. I gained even more weight because of…well because of everything. I tried to stay calm and bake and try to cook new things and knit, but inside I’m a simmering pot of anxiety. Never have I ever felt that I have less to be proud of, even though my brain knows better.

However, through it all, I made this sweater.

This sweater kept me looking forward.

This sweater gave me concrete goals.

This sweater made me really care about matching up the gradient on the sleeves, and then matching it to the front panels, which is no small feat, I must say.

This sweater made me happy when nothing else could, and I am thankful that the person I was in January gave me the gift of being able to finish it now.

Now, enough mushiness, let’s hear about the knitting!

The yarn is Cascade Tangier in the sadly discontinued colorway Lakeside. It’s a very strange blend of silk, acrylic, rayon, and cotton that resembles a slubby wool blend like Noro Kureyon, but with better stitch definition and a smoother drape. Some of the rayon sheds while you’re working with it and mine inexplicably had some random tiny bits of gold sparkly stuff in it, but otherwise it was very nice to work with.

The pattern is the Stacy Pullover from Big Girl Knits, designed by Terri Shea.

I have owned this book for so long and never knit anything out of it. Not sure why, as it is the perfect book for analyzing the fundamentals of knitted objects and how to make them work best for your body. Every pattern is labelled with the body feature that it is best suited for, plus there are a ton of helpful notes on how to modify things to your specific tastes.

The Stacy Pullover is specifically designed for people with a lot of boobs and butt to spare, so there was very little I needed to do to make it work for me. The only modification that I made was giving the ribbing an extra two inches, as I can’t stand it when sweaters are too short.

I didn’t even try to match striping on the front and back, because nobody has that kind of time and gradient yarns always manage to have knots in inopportune areas. However, I knit both of the sleeves at the same time, and made sure to make those match each other and line up with the armscye from the front, just to keep it from looking like too much of a circus.

I’m in love with the detached keyhole neck detail as well. That, combined with the fact that the transition from honeycomb to ribbing makes it look like a tailored waist, man that’s some good stuff.

As soon as the world calms down and the weather drops below 80 degrees everyday, this sweater will be joining me frequently, reminding me that I have something to be proud of despite all of the insanity. I have a doctorate. And I have a sweater. It’s all going to be okay.