Time to get on with the August Socks! My Skinflint Sock Club socks of the month are Hermione’s Everyday Socks by Erica Lueder. Yes, I’ve knit them before, but they’re worth a repeat. When you knit them according to direction they make wonderful Lady Socks, and when you upsize them slightly to 72 sts around…
They make wonderful socks for a man. These ones are being knit in the Camouflage colourway from Lorna’s Laces. I find the colours compelling, as they’re not just a perky military-look (which isn’t my bag), but also vaguely reminiscent of the wonderful Canadian waterfowl known as the Duck. There are a few Mallard-y colours in there.
And we’re partial to waterfowl around here.
I wasn’t sure that I would like the way that the Camouflage colourway knit up, as I’d checked it out through Ravelry, admittedly a couple of years after the purchase, and wasn’t too keen on the way it stripes, but I’m getting used to it. I have a feeling that I’ll have a certain sense of fondness for them by the time they’re off the needles. The yarn itself is just plain and simple Lorna’s Laces awesomeness. It’s amazing how changing a knitting method will change one’s perspective on yarn. My first pair of socks were, if memory served, knit from Lorna’s Laces Girly Stripe, which was the same base yarn as this. I remember feeling like it was very string-like. Didn’t have a lot of qualities that would make it particularly outstanding. It felt nice in the skein, but didn’t necessarily have any more or less “squish” than any other woolen blend yarn. Now that I’m using more of a lever style with the yarn feeding through the middle & ring fingers on my right hand, I can definitely feel a difference. The yarn is softer than some of the ones I’ve used in the past year. It’s smoother. It’s not that it necessarily “squishes” in the skein, but when you’re motoring along at a really good clip, it doesn’t create any unnecessary drag or burn on your skin.
And that’s a good thing.
I’m still working on the stripey socks and the Soul Man design. They’ve just taken a bit of a back seat to the current challenge. Shouldn’t take too long, I’m already almost a third of the way through sock #1 of the camouflage Hermiones. The Striped socks are being changed to an afterthought heel after I miscalculated the gusset increases that might have led to a Fleegle Heel. After ripping that back a couple of times (first due to botched increases, the second time due to poor waste-yarn placement), I figured I’d just truck along as though the heel didn’t matter and just keep going. So that’s where those stand, looking stripey and tubular, and just sorta hanging out until I get finished the Hermiones.
Here’s hoping that I manage to finish something up soon…I finally managed to get around to blocking my Brandywine shawl, and there’s a part of me that’s almost tempted to cast on an Aestlight…. 😉
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