Another sock-filled post

There has been a bit of a sock-knitting binge lately here at Hedgehog Knits. I tend to go through moods with socks. Sometimes I find them incredibly tedious and boring, and I let second-sock syndrome take over. I can let them languish unfinished for months on end. And then at other times, I have three or four pairs on the go at once and want to knit nothing but socks. I think it has a lot to do with having a fun pattern and a nice yarn. When I get that perfect combination, I just don't want to put them down.

This pair, just completed, is a rather simple, quick gift for a friend:

Basic 3X1 rib socks with stockinette foot. 68 stitches on 2.25 mm bamboo dpns, in Garnstudio's Fabel Superwash.

This is the first time I have knit with Garn's yarn and it's a really nice sock yarn - very soft and fairly squishy, and for a reasonable price. I really wish that it came in more solid colours, because like many people, I really have gotten over the jacquard patterns by now. The company's website only shows three solids, in beige, brown, and grey, amongst a wide range of jacquards. I will definitely check out their other yarns in future. This particular pair of socks is going to be delivered to my friend D who is spending the summer doing field work in the mountains of British Columbia. When I was doing bush work, I always loved to get letters from home delivered by the helicopter pilot, and a care package of little luxuries was the most exciting thing ever. I'm sending the two things you can never have enough of in any field camp - wool socks and chocolate!

And then there's this odd pair. I suppose I should get to work and make another pair just like it.

Bayerishe (left) and Brigit (pdf; right).

Peg mentioned in the comments that I seem to be buying a lot of solid yarns lately and wondered if I was tiring of handpainted yarns. I can't say that I'm tired of them really, since I haven't actually knit with a lot of handpainted. Partly that's because my LYS's don't really carry much in the way of handpainted options, except for the locally made Apple Laine, which as I've discussed before, I'm not particularly happy with. I know that there are plenty of mail-order options out there, but the other factor is price. Most of the beautiful handpainted sock yarns that I really covet, I find on US e-tailers' sites, where of course I would have to deal with exchange rate, international shipping rates, and the possibility of paying duty at the border. And then there's the fact that I like to knit socks with complex cabled and textured patterns, and though I see a lot of people knitting such patterns with bright variegated yarns, I really think they show up better in solid or semi-solid colours. Ditto for lace shawls. I think that I'll probably try dyeing my own sock yarn sometime soon. I like the idea of graduated shades of a single colour.