A Fibre & Colour Challenge

At the Langley Weavers and Spinners Guild Annual Artisan Sale I sold my Candygram socks to a fellow artisan. Similarly inspired by the colours in the socks she bought, she asked me if I ever worked on commission.

My answer, "It depends. What are you looking for? Tell me more."

So she showed me this photo of Turkey Tail Fungus that caught her attention.

It's pretty amazing stuff in terms of colors and shapes. So I agreed to try to recreate this look and feel into a pair of socks. Crazy challenge in some ways, but so weird and wonderful why not try?

I have a few strategies at hand.

Plan A: easiest one is to over dye a pair a pair of socks that I have on hand. They are pink, orange and yellow - with an over dye of indigo they may just give me the look I'm after.

Plan B: spin a braid of  Sweet Georgia Yarns "Bourbon" but add some burgundy and white bits. Lots of work to spin, ply and knit. But will certainly do the trick.

Plan C: . . . hasn't been thought through yet. That will involve space dyeing a skein of sock yarn that will do wonderful striping. But that's Plan C. And we hardly ever get to Plan C right?

But then as I write this and think it through, there is also the wonderful curly element that needs to be considered. I must hit the pattern books to find the right way to describe this. I may even need a Plan D for this project.

Thanks Dawn for the challenge!

The Candygram Socks

Sometime back in March 2013 (was it really that long ago?) I spun up the February Fibre club yarn called Candygram. It is lovely stuff with just a wee bit of sparkle - not enough to make it tacky, but enough to make it special. Recovering from a spinning-inspired knee injury, I spun this 100 grams on my drop spindles. You can find all the info about this fibre and the spinning in this blog post.

Once it was spun up I stared at the yarn for a long time. I just didn't like it. I didn't like the purples and lime greens together and thought they'd look muddy when knit up.

Well I was wrong. Really wrong. This was a case of ugly yarn, lovely result. The yarn actually striped up when it was knit, and even those rare times when the greens and purples collided, it was actually okay.

So here they are, a pair of socks. Just my basic "mindless-knitting" sock pattern. They aren't exactly the same, but they surely are a pair.

Flash off.

 Flash on.

Just to make sure I didn't get SSS (second-sock syndrome) I knit them mostly together. Cuff on #1, cuff on #2. heel flap on #1, heel flap on #2, and so on right down to the decreases at the toe. I recommend doing socks this way -- it's easy to remember the pattern when you are doing on piece following another. And for me, I know that once I saw the result of the yarn, the mystery was over and I could easy be left with just one sock. Nope, not now. I now have a lovely pair of socks to show off at the next fibre event!

Indian Wedding Socks: Complete

Here they are -- and I never struggled with SSS (second-sock syndrome).  They were fun and easy to knit.  I like the way the yarn striped throughout.  I couldn't have planned it better if I had wanted to.

The yarn is from the July 2011 Fibre Club -- called Indian Wedding.  I not longer have the tag which describes the fibre content, but it's merino, silk and bamboo -- I think.  It's amazingly soft, strong and has a terrific sheen.  I blogged about them in earlier posts.  That's was when I had finished spinning the yarn.  And here's the post where I started the socks themselves.  Here's the first one in progress:

And here they are finished:

I like everything about these socks.  The only thing I'd do differently is I'd make them a bit longer.  I had a enough yarn left over, that I could have added another 1 inch on the cuff.  That's why I am learning how to make socks from the toe-up -- so I can be a better judge of how much yarn is left.

They certainly aren't identical, but they definitely are a matching pair.

July Fibre Club Socks in progress

The last post featured the overspun skein of wool/silk blend from Sweet Georgia Yarns fibre club.  It is proving to be wonderful yarn for knitting up socks.  Here they are.  On 2.5 needles with 54 stitches.

I like the way the colour ways are doing a bit of striping and no pooling.  It's going to be a terrific pair, hope to have them done in time for FibresWest so I can show them to Felicia Lo myself.

Must stay focused and not fall victim to SSS -- second sock syndrome. 

There's a steady rain outside and since I'm averse to housework, there's nothing to do indoors 'cept knit, spin and play with fibre.  It's going to be a good weekend.