Saturday, February 14, 2015

Valentine's Day and Socks

Temperatures are supposed to plummet this weekend (below zero for highs) with wind chill in the negative.  The weather forecast mentioned maybe and inch or two of new snow so imagine my surprise this morning when I woke to a steady stream of snow.  So much on the ground and so much more this morning!

This was first thing this morning, the snow is almost up to the top of the patio table. This is not drifted snow but actual snowfall that has been adding inch after inch of  snow each day without any thaws since the beginning of January.

Same view a bit ago with the snow up to the table top.  Amazing!  We are safe and sound (so far) inside with a pantry full since we did our shopping yesterday.  Nowhere to go since I had planned a nice Valentine's Dinner for two at home.  I really dislike going out on holidays like Valentine's or Mother's Day.  Too many people, too rushed servers to really enjoy.  So we are having fillet and shrimp with baked potatoes and sour cream with our Valentine's candy (Orange chocolate sponge candy) for dessert.
I have declared an extended moratorium on yarn purchasing after I caved and bought a striped Christmas sock skein.  I have declared 2015 the year of  "52 Socks in 52 weeks".  One sock a week in between other knitting seems a little nutty but something I can attempt.  

Saturday will be my day to mark my progress.

So far I have completed and gifted four pair of socks.  That is correct, not one for myself.  A pair for Chiara for her birthday, a pair I gave to Amy and a pair for Collin that I have been meaning to make for about 4 years.  I finished another pair for Steph but haven't been able to give it to her yet. 

Four complete pair, eight socks.  Since this is the seventh week of the year, I am doing great, so far.

I have another pair for hubby about half finished.
It is Paton's Kroy sock yarn that I have had in my stash for awhile.  I am knitting it even though I had horrible results from a Kroy yarn I used last year. It was a stripe that had a long repeat which made it very difficult and needed quite a bit of finagling to get both socks to match.  I was a little leery when I started on the pair I made for Amy, but it turned out beautifully, pretty colors no problems matching the socks.  I was tempted to pick up a few more skeins the last time I went to Jo-Ann's but remembering my resolve to not buy any more yarn for a while, I resisted.  Good thing!

The hubby socks are a very pretty blue and brown marle and I was very happy with it until I got to a knot; a knot that threw the repeats of the first sock off so much that I didn't have enough yarn to finish. That is finish with the correct color repeats.  I am about a toe and an inch short.  I started the second skein for the second sock hoping there won't be a problem with that skein.  Right now I am at the heel flap.  If there are no problems with this skein, I will see what I have left and try to piece together the yarn to match.

So here is my resolve: it is not worth the aggravation and time to make socks with a yarn that may be cheap, but gives less than perfect results.  No more Kroy yarn.  
I have tried Opal and love the way it holds up and it is not terribly expensive so that may be my go-to sock yarn.

I like all the hand dyed striped yarn, but most of it is $25 and up and is just too expensive for my budget.  I am sure the artisans who make these yarns are charging what their time is worth but it may be a luxury I can indulge in on rare occasions.

Besides, I have an entire storage bin of sock yarn to knit through before I need to replenish.