Stash Enhancement

My (stash enabling) knitter friend & neighbor emailed me that she added a new rule to her personal knit from your stash guidelines. If the yarn is new to you, you are allowed to buy it. (Don't know if that means you can buy one skein or a whole project's worth.) I liked that rule. For her, it meant she could buy Colinette's new Jitterbug sock yarn. For me, it meant that I could use my birthday money and order a whole squishy full of new to me sock yarns from Astrid in the Netherlands. (They arrived yesterday.)

I got some Opal Bamboo in grey stripes for DH's socks, some Trekking Pro Natura (wool/bamboo in solid colors), some pale blue Regia silk, some Opal wool/cotton in the Hundertwasser artist colorways (the Positive/Negative yellow color is just luscious), some Trekking in pink and charcoal (very 50's), also some of the tweed and an interesting speckled color, and a skein each of Fortissima Socka Colori, Opal Smoke and Gedifra, each in various different blue and grey self striping colorways. It's a good thing I like blue! Those three skeins were on sale, and blue and grey always works well for gift socks. Average price with shipping, $11.00 per pair of socks. Astrid also sent 5 free sock patterns and a bonus skein of white angora yarn, and I got some 6" long bamboo double points to try out. I think I might also get some Jitterbug yarn. After this, though, NO MORE SOCK YARN for me, unless I trade other sock yarn for it.

I swatched for a new pair of socks using the Opal Hundertwasser cotton/wool blend. After considering the Quill lace pattern from the Spring Knitty, plus a few other simple lace patterns, I think that the Vine lace stripe pattern from the Socks Socks Socks book is going to work out best for this yarn. It's a simple 4 round repeat, easily memorized, which isn't totally obscured by the pattern of the yarn.

Last year I got inspired to compile pattern conversions for some of the stitches in the 365 Stitches calendar and the Barbara Walker Treasuries to knit in the round, for socks and other circular items. I now have a big Word document complete with images and the stitch patterns all typed out, along with multiples and repeats. I've also added stitches and images from sock patterns as I find them. At this rate I won't need a new sock pattern ever again.