It's fair to say, things are a little topsy-turvy for me at the moment. I've been dealing with an eye problem called Recurrent Corneal Erosion for a while now. It's the main reason I had to take a long break from dyeing and have numerous days and nights in lots of pain.
I had a recent attack which took all of vision from my left eye, and left me in agony. Daylight irritated it more, so I spent a week holed up in a dark room with the radio, podcasts and audiobooks for company while I healed. What has this got to do with knitting you ask?
Well, I was originally knitting these beautiful Christmassy socks to be part of the lovely Amy's festive sockalong. But sadly, due to my injury I missed the deadline, by a day. GRR!
But I'd worked like crazy on them before the injury, so my sock mojo was high to get them finished. Because I wanted so much to be able to wear them on Christmas day.
I only have one other pair of Christmas socks and the yarn bled so much the first time I knitted them that the once festive red, white and green stripes are now all a muddy shade of purple.
I knew as soon as I saw this pattern I wanted to make these socks, despite the fact that they are cuff down and my preference has always been toe-up. I have really defined (read: chubby) calves, so I like to be able to make a very, very stretchy bind-off and I've found even the stretchiest cast-on isn't as loose as a bind-off. I'd seen a few pairs on Instagram in gorgeous dark, foresty greens so I scouted out the yarn shops for a lovely deep green. I was pretty surprised that Malabrigo (my go-to commercial yarn) didn't have anything suitable. But after a bit of poking around I found some deep, emeraldy Fyberspates that looked perfect. I also picked up some new sock needles, some Knit Pro Zings in a lovely festive red colour - just right for this knit!
I cast-on the day they arrived, but soon ended up feeling pretty disappointed. I know really vivid colours have a tendency to bleed in the wash, so I was prepped to block the living daylights out of them. But nothing at all could have prepared me for the fact this yarn was going to dye my hands, my nails and my project bag a very Grinch-colour green. In addition to that the yarn was incredibly flawed with lots of splits and knots. I'll definitely not be using Fyberspates again, which is a shame because the colour is beautiful. As a dyer I know colour transfer can happen, and that's pretty forgivable but the flaws in the yarn were incredibly disappointing and the two paired together wasn't the happiest knitting experience.
That said, the pattern was an absolute pleasure to knit. I started with a twisted German cast-on to add some stretch and after the cuff it just seemed to fly by! It's such a clear, well thought out pattern. I'm very impressed and almost a convert to cuff down. Almost.
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