Hi friends, and happy Thursday!
My Hermione Socks have been completely neglected these last two weeks. But last night, the sewn cast off on the body of my Asagi (!!) was making me super drowsy, so I decided a change of pace was in order. I picked up my second Hermione Sock and got the heel turned, gusset stitches picked up, and the gusset decreases underway before bed. It felt good to finally make some progress on them!
With the end of these finally in sight, I’m thinking about my next pair of socks. I’m hoping to get them cast on before my flight back to the East Coast Monday morning (mega sad face). I don’t want to have all that travel time without a pair of socks to keep me company.
As I naively mentioned about a month ago, when I thought I would be done with my Hermione Socks in no time (silly Katherine!), I’m planning on making Susan Anderson’s wildly popular Smooth Operator Socks in Trailing Clouds “Mind the Gap” BFL sock yarn. I’ve been thinking a lot about how I’m going to make them. While I really enjoyed the portability of my one-at-a-time Hermione Socks, the end has been a bit of a slog for me …. much more so than when I do two-at-a-time socks. And since the yarn I’m using is self striping, I feel like TAAT will be good for trying to get the stripes on each pair all matchy-matchy! It does mean though I need to get my bum in gear and finish Hermione, so I can get the Trailing Clouds yarn wound (by hand, as my beloved winder is in Philly – boohoo! – if you have any hand winding tips for neat balls, I’d love to hear them!) and the socks begun before Monday morning.
There’s a group of us who write about socks on Thursdays. Many are on break at the moment for various reasons, but you should still go check out their lovely blogs:
- Alex at Alexand Knits
- Paula at Spin a Yarn
- Hannah at unsophisticated + jejeune
- Jennifer at A Creative Yarn
- Maggie at Project(s) in Progress
If you’d like to join, feel free to link up and let us know!
Thanks, as always, for stopping by! If you want to keep up to date on what’s going around these here parts, you can sign up on the sidebar for email updates or follow me over on Bloglovin’ 🙂
fiber and sustenance 
They are looking good, Katherine! I love that they match your cookies. Might the yarn be some type of confetti yarn? I swear I’ve seen the color before; however I need to remember where. The Smooth Operator Socks are the perfect take along project because of all the stockinette. Just don’t forget to bring some waste yarn with you…in case you get to that part while travelling 🙂
My trick for hand winding is to use a toilet paper or paper towel roll. I know it sounds weird; however before I purchased my ball winder, that’s how I used to wind my yarn. If you google it, you’ll find youtube videos and step by steps. Also, my dear friend Maggie has rejoined us in our Thursday Sock series (as of last week). Here’s her blog! https://projectaccomplished.wordpress.com/
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Thank you, Paula! I’ve spent a bit of time trolling through Ravelry stashes of sock yarn to try to figure out what this yarn is (that’s completely normal, right?) I’ve searched for colorways like confetti and birthday cake (I have a vague memory that maybe the colorway was something to do with confetti cake!) but I need to do some more looking. I know it’s an indie dyer, and geez I bought it … maybe five years ago. If you think of a place you’ve seen something similar, I’d love to know!
It’s so funny you mentioned the toilet paper roll … that’s what I thought I might try … I made sure to save the last empty we had. I’m glad you’ve found it works well!!
I’ll go add Maggie to the post right now – yay Thursday socks! Hope you’re inching closer to being able to knit 😀
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That is totally normal! Are you kidding me? I’ve been doing it myself for a couple of months trying to identify an unknown yarn myself. I tried looking for that yarn and can’t find it yet…I know I saw it on a podcast, it’s just remembering which episode it was on. They have a lot of yarn on Etsy called Confetti Cake or Birthday Cake; however I haven’t seen one yet that matches yours.
I tried to knit on my socks yesterday; however I should have waited. I’m going to create a post now that let’s everyone know where I am 🙂
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Oh no, I’m sorry your try at knitting wasn’t successful! Sending you lots of healing thoughts!
I’ve found something pretty similar in Ravelry stash from a place called Wool Barn … I thought I might email them and ask how long they’ve been dyeing to see if it’s possible it’s their yarn!
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For the longest time, I’ve seen that yarn and wanted some cookies and now I know why! 😀
Seriously though, that picture is perfect. Your socks look super cozy and go perfectly with a warm beverage and cookies. I bow to your speed and two-at-a-time skillz.
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Thank you so much, Maggie! I have felt like a real slow poke on these socks, but I’m glad the end is nigh! Two-at-a-time for me is really just because I’m often too lazy to finish my second sock! And much easier to do than you might think!
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Lol! Two-at-a-time is the next frontier for me – or at least once I’ve gotten a bit more savvy knitting socks. This is only my second pair, so I still get excited by the little things: “Will the next sock’s stripes match up? Tune in next time!” But I figure I should really get two-at-a-time down since I need to be ready for when I need a pair of socks STAT! 🙂
Personally, I think you’re blasting through these socks considering that they aren’t the only thing you’re working on and all the knitting excitement going on this month 🙂
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I love that about sock knitting … all the excitement! I’ve been knitting socks, on and off, for awhile, and I still feel that … what’s going to happen when I pick up the needles this time! There’s something so magical about each step of sock knitting, I think!
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Exactly! I can’t believe I haven’t been knitting socks this whole time! It’s such a blast – I’m so glad it doesn’t get old but then again when you’re knitting with such awesome people, I don’t think it can 😀
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Seeing these made me smile. I dropped out of Susan’s Smooth Operator KAL but will give it a third go after I get the Christmas socks done.
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I’m at the same point on my current pair of socks! It goes to quickly once you turn the heel and pick up the gusset.
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Agreed! Picking up gusset stitches is not my favorite (I don’t know why, whenever I do it it’s not bad, really!), so I often end up stalling at that point. I’m glad I’m over that hurdle!
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