Onopordum May Safely Graze

The Onoprodum socks have been completed! I am so pleased. I talked and talked about making them. So much, in fact, that when I started them, no one at my knit group needed to ask what the pattern was. 

I had agonized (and probably driven everybody nuts) over the color choice. In the end, I'm satisfied. All the yarn came out of my stash. And I think having a dark and light purple with a dark and light green worked really well.

Thanks for taking the pictures, Connor

Meanwhile, I also managed to finish one Sheep May Safely Graze sock. It's a miracle. Four whites and several rippings had severely tested my patients. I've started the second one and am into the second row of sheep. Hopefully the second sock goes without a hitch.

Concrete And Tulips And Misbehaving Socks

New yarn has arrived! I've been wanting a skein of Caterpillar Green Yarns' Concrete and Tulips color way for some time, but kept putting it off. When I saw that they only seemed to be accepting preorders and that preorders only seem to show up monthly, I jumped. And I am happy I did. I think I'll have to knit these socks toe-up, which I haven't done in a while. But in the case of this yarn, every last bit needs to be used up.

Meanwhile, my Sheep May Safely Graze sock has still been giving me troubles. I finally I have the right white for the job, but I spent this week knitting all the way to the foot only to find that I needed to decrease the gusset more than I thought. (The foot will have 56 stitches when I am done. I guess my handspun is more of a sport weight.) After ripping and reaching the foot again, I realized that the ankle was too baggy for my slim ankles. So I ripped back even further and took a repeat out of the fence. I am on the heel again. Will this sock ever get knit up?!? 

While all this sock drama has gone on, the Onoprodum sock has saved my sanity. I knit up the rest of the foot and just have the toe of the second sock left. Hurrah! Of course my US size 0 needles are taken up by the other two socks, so I have put Onopordum on hold for the moment. I'm just happy that the hardest part of this sock was choosing the colors.

The Monkey sock is also at the heel flap. I am not in a real rush to finish it since it is my car knitting project. It is behaving itself for the time being.

Four Whites To Rule Them All

I'm on my fourth cuff for this silly sock. I had bought Baah! La Jolla in La Perla, sight unseen, thinking it would be thicker. The thought was based on the purple skein of La Jolla that I'm using in my Onoprodum socks, which is thicker. This skein was the same thickness as the Koigu. Baah!!! So last night I bought a skein of Rosy Green Wool's Cheeky Merino Joy. It is a sport weight yarn. I probably should have just gotten a sport weight yarn the begin with when I started having the trouble. 

Clockwise from the top left corner is: Cheeky Merino Joy, La Jolla, Tosh Sock, and Koigu

The good news is that because the Sheep May Safely Graze socks have been giving me so much trouble, I've stayed focused on the Onopordum socks. I have turned the heel and started the gusset on the second sock. They are looking great, they are fitting great, and I am not running out of yarn. I am happy.

My car knitting at the moment is a Monkey Sock. I know I might have a rough time matching stripes. I'm going to try anyways. It's a fun pattern and I like how it looks in the Sugarbush color way from White Birch Fiber Arts .

I hope I'm not alone in this, but who has bough multiple skeins for a project in order to get just the right one? Can anyone beat four different skeins?

Which White Is Right

Much knitting has been occurring as of late. Drogue is practically knitting itself. I was making the Captain size, but have come to realize that I will run out of the main color a few rows short of the edging, so I will probably do the Boatswain edging instead.

Onopordum is making great strides too. Although like every other sock I have ever knitted, I had a rip a little out. I'm doing the color work portions on US size 1 needles and the plain bits on US size 0 needles. Guess who forgot to switch to the smaller needles when knitting the heel.

I'm looking into what my next project will be and honestly, I still desire color work socks. I've decided on Sheep May Safely Graze with my handspun Enchanted. The question is, which white do I go with? On the left side is plain white Koigu, which has a slightly cooler tone. On the right is a skein of Tosh Sock in the Filtered Light color way that is a warmer cream with speckles. Since I don't have enough handspun, I'm planning to do the cuff, her, and toe out of the white.

Is Filtered Light too busy for the already busy handspun? Or is the plain white too plain for such large areas of knitting. And before someone suggests to use both, I'd rather use one or the other. Opinions would be greatly appreciated.

The Mojo Returneth

And the winner is... Onopordum. I agonized over the color possibilities. I knew that I wanted my thistles to have purple flowers and light green leaves. But what to put around it all?

Searching every website imaginable to find a skein of Anzula Squishy in a grey that would match the black I had was a Sisyphean task. Things were too brown or too dark to have good contrast. I eventually determined that I wanted Onyx in Squishy. I also wanted to cast on immediately. So I did what I should have done to begin with: I dug into my stash. And I emerged with Baah! La Jolla in Grape Vine, Anzula Squishy in both Boysenberry and Spruce, and some leftover, now discontinued Miss Babs Windsor Sock in Vergris.

I'm pretty sure I love it. There is good contrast. The thistles look just the way I want. But I keep wondering if the dark green is a good choice. Does it have too much contrast? Or do I just need to knit more?

Of course it is completely unreasonable to have only 1 thing on the needles, especially a rather complicated color work sock. (I've just recently completed my Seadragonus socks and my Skews. Pictures to blogged in a bit.) So I cast on a second thing! This is the beginning of Drogue by Tygerknits. 

I knew that my knitting mojo had waned for quite some time, but I didn't realize how much until I started Drogue. I've regained that knitting compulsion. That feeling where you spend parts of your day dreaming about sitting down and knitting a specific pattern. That is Drogue for me.