2ply manly socks?

I'd love to make some manly socks in Touch Yarn 2ply in 190 It'd be brave to make 2ply man socks but the socks would be so dense and lovely I'm sure I could do it. I'd probably do a basic rib.

Freeform

I'd love to try freeform knitting one day, if I did I'd love to try  a kit to get me inspired, I like this Freeform Knitting Yarn Packs from Fab fibres:

I've never tried freeform but I have this work on my wall at work to remind me of my knittyness in the middle of the crazy

Blendy's NZ Yarn Sampler

I've never bought a knitting sampler but I'm keen to try this one: Blendy's NZ Yarn Sampler. The box will have 15 samples of yarn and embellishments. It has some of my faves in it Needlefood and Vintage Purls. Other ones I haven't heard of sound fun, like the Nut & Bee illustrations.

Grrrl Shaped Yarns

My friend Brooklynne has been working away at her online yarn shop for a while now. Creating her own yarn line, thinking about different options for selling other yarns and knitting items like needles. She's launched the shop today as Grrrl Shaped Yarns (GSY) with three fingering weight yarns and eight different Knit Picks fixed needles in sock sizes

In the top left we have Fire Island - 50/50 Merino Silk for NZ $25, top right Life On Mars - Superwash Merino $20 and Theresa - 50/50 Merino Silk $20 of which 50% of all proceed will be donated to UC Davis Cancer Research.

I love these yarns, they are well priced for hand dyed quality yarns which would look great in socks or shawls. I think Theresa would look gorgeous as soft colour changes in silk, lovely.

I wish Brooklynne good luck with her business and look forward to seeing the new yarns she dyes.

Needlefood Sock club shipment 1 [Spoiler]

Here's the first shipment of Needlefood's second sock club:

I really love the thematic colours of this sock club pack, very clever. Items included are a 100g skein in the club colour 'For the Girls', a semi-solid pink, chocolate fudge, floral Soak, a 2.5mm crochet hook for picking up dropped sts, a floral brooch and four st markers.

Here's the yarn 'For the Girls', 100g of 80% merino, 20% nylon fingering weight yarn with 352m per skein. It's a semi sold with quite a strong contrast between the dark pink and the light pink.

I couldn't decide what to make with this yarn, I considered Monkey, Pomatomus, Love Struck Hearts and Oblique Openwork before deciding on Nanners.

I think Love Struck Hearts looked really nice but I decided I wanted a repeating pattern with distorting angling sts like Monkey.

So here's the Nanners:

I really like the fish scale like look of these, one day I'm hoping to do Pomatomus which is sort of an advanced version of this.

I'm glad to be doing a Wendy Johnson pattern, her blog is great and I'd love to buy her book Socks from the Toe Up. I love toe ups so Wendy patterns are perfect for me.

Rationally knitting socks for the toe up

I've learnt a painful lesson, cutting a 100g skein of yarn in half does not equal two balls of the same yardage. I knitted on yarn over cable sock doing 39 repeats of the 4rw pattern from the heel and cast off. I knit the second to 36 repeats of the 4rw pattern and didn't have enough to cast off. I attempted to spit splice with the small amount of yarn left from the other sock but it didn't work, perhaps because the yarn is superwash. So then I tried a knot and kept knitting and it looked ugly. So I gave up and undid both, ended up with 33 repeats of the 4rw pattern which are still lovely long socks and actually fit better too.

& So I am left with a nub of yarn. Now I used to think that avoiding this was the whole point of knitting from the toe up. However the stress of trying to get equally long right to the last tiny bit of yarn socks is just too much. Next time I should just pick a length, know I'll end up with two nubs of yarn. Pick something from 653 patterns to knit with 1-285 yards and have fun. Long live the nubs.

No hole Monkey or No Yarn Over Monkey

I love the Los Monos Locos version of the classic and much loved Monkey pattern by Cookie A. I have done one pair in a beautiful 'Odd Ball' (limited edition) variegated yarn called Martinborough Vines by New Zealand dyer Needle Food. I did a twisted rib cuff for only a few rounds and should probably do more next time as they fall done a bit.

I would love to try the pattern without yarn overs, to make a moving rib but not lacey sock. The options I've seen are:

Cayenne's MonkeyToes

She removed holes by replacing YOs with M1L/M1R (as appropriate) increases in the following round, for similar reasons

MyYarn's Toe Up Monkey Mods

She eliminated the lacy holes by knitting the yarn overs through the back loop

Jauping's Sedate Monkeys

She used a “lifted increase”…for each pattern repeat, using a right lifted increase (knitting the right leg of the stitch, then the stitch) in place of the first yarn over and a left lifted increase in place of the second yarn over (knitting the stitch, then the left leg of that original stitch). [Thanks to Jauping for messaging me this detail]

I know that M1L and M1R would drive me crazy, I'm using M1 for Vinnland and I don't love it. I quite like the idea of knitting through the back loops of yarn overs and using the right and left lifted increases. From the description it sounds like Jauping used LLinc LRinc which I use for toe increases, I think I'll try both out.