Summer's had a few last kicks at the can, and the last few days have been warm and sunny, but there have also been a few where the temperature has dipped, and the chill in the air makes me want to reach for wooly warm-ness.
About this time last year I was stash diving and pulled out some brightly coloured clearance sock yarn that I'd picked up I don't remember where (Micheal's I think) or when (Boxing Day sale a few years ago maybe?). The colour way was Crayon, and it sure lived up to its name. I wanted a small project that I could carry around that would be easy to just pick up whenever I found a few spare minutes - so onto the needles it went to become just plain old socks.
Cute eh? And yes, the are fraternal sock-mates. I don't have the patience to try and get self striping sock yarn to make identical twins.
Knitting away in the lunch room at work, one of the other ladies was just enthralled with the colours. Obsessed even. Like the yarn, she's beautiful with a bright sunny outlook on everything. I didn't really have a plan for the socks once they were done, other than to toss them in the last-minute-gift box. And they suited her so perfectly. And coincidentally they were even in her size.
So as soon as they were finished they landed quietly on her desk carefully wrapped with a care instructions sticker (horray for machine washable yarns!). Imagine the hug that I got when she came back in from her break! And she even offered to pay for them. Silly sunshine :)
Fast forward to August and she stops by my desk one morning. She loves her socks and was super grateful for them that particular morning with the threats of early fall frost. Turns out, that her daughter loves her socks too, and keeps stealing them... And would I mind knitting another pair if she dropped off some yarn? Said daughter's birthday was in a month, and she'd just love her own pair. Only if it wouldn't been any trouble, and only if I had time.
Now, free yarn to knit socks with and a whole month to do it? Yeah man! Never mind that I could never say no to sunshine.
A few days later a ball of bright pink yarn appeared on my desk. While I had originally been thinking that these socks were going to be plain socks from self striping yarn like the previous, this yarn was more painted looking. Mostly pink with shots of purple and green. The second I saw it, I knew. This yarn wasn't going to be plain old boring socks. It was the absolute PERFECT colour way for Fruit Loop from knitty.
And look how awesome they turned out!
While shopping for goodie bag stuff for a baby shower a while back, I discovered that the local dollar store had the most perfect sock gift bags. Brightly coloured and three for a buck. And available in pink. So off these little treasures were packed, and dropped off with sunshine almost a week before my deadline.
I love seeing finished projects, and I admit to oogling these fellas for about 5 minutes. Then the empty needles beckoned me back.
Here's how I spent my weekend evenings. That's sock number one of SlipStream, also from Knitty knit with Lorna's Laces in a colour way I'll have to find the tag to identify. Size medium.
I love fall!
.JPG)
