VACATION!

We recently spent a week full of wonderful weather with some good friends at Rehoboth Beach, Delaware.


As I was packing, I made sure I had plenty of sock yarn and patterns to keep me busy. Did I touch any of it? NO! I had my face buried in a book all week. I spent every spare minute reading the first book and half of the second book in the thrilling Stieg Larsson trilogy.

Even though I didn't get any new stitching accomplished, some of my past projects made an appearance at the beach:


I had the opportunity to visit the local yarn store called Kitschy Stitch where I spent a considerable amount of time browsing at all the beautiful yarns. I gave up buying ice cream for myself all week so I could treat myself to some Plymouth Encore Colorspun yarn in the grey/blue colors of the beach.


I'm still not sure what I'll do with this yarn, maybe it'll become a new shrug or maybe a lacy cardigan. Regardless of what shape this new yarn takes it'll be much more becoming than what a week's worth of ice cream would have done to MY shape!

Addicted to Sock Yarn

Hi, my name is Olive. I am addicted to buying sock yarn. In the past two weeks I have bought embarrassing amounts of sock yarn. All kinds of pretty, pretty sock yarn. See for yourself:

Aren't those colors lovely? With the Patons yarn below I plan to make the toe, heel and cuff with the greyish color in the center and the foot and ankle sections with the heathery-blue yarn.

I read about something called "monster socks" where you alternate rows of your funky colored leftover sock yarns along with a main solid color yarn. That's what led me to buy the basic black yarn on the left in the picture below. Why did I buy the rest of the yarn in the picture? So I could get free shipping. And because I have an addiction to buying sock yarn.

I even have the pattern picked out for my next pair of socks. The pattern is called Ravissant Socks by Robyn Chachula and I plan to use a fingering weight spring green tonal colored yarn.

But first, I should finish my current project. The pattern below is called Step By Step Socks. I have one sock completed so far.

I really like the linked double crochet stitches used to create the sole of the sock. It makes a very sturdy fabric. The top of the foot and ankle sections are made up of alternating rows of a v-stitch and a dc ch 1 stitch. I modified the original pattern slightly. Instead of using 16 rows of single crochet to construct the after-thought heel, I continued with 8 rows of linked dc. I also made the ankle section longer, but I shortened the length of the cuff from 9 stitches to 5. Another thing I like about making this pattern is that counting your rows is very easy, so I'll be sure to make another sock in exactly the same length.

The kids have put me on a yarn diet. And I can't say that I totally disagree with them. I mean, yes, I may have blown my grocery money on sock yarn this month, but who needs groceries? At least I'll have warm, pretty socks to wear this winter!