Olympia Socks

Please note! Below the knitting content there is a picture of the January Rockin' Sock Club shipment, if you don't want to be spoiled scroll slowly and stop after the sock recap!

Last night after posting I went out to a craft night with a new group. I had a blast, met a lot of neat new people, and got some good progress done on my Olympia socks. When I got home I was pretty tired but it is beyond my ability to leave socks when they're in the toe decreases so I had to stay up and finish them - not too late though.



Pattern: my own in-my-head stockinette sock
Yarn: Panda Cotton in Bleeberries - Grapes ~ no idea what a bleeberry is ;)
Needles: size 1 (2.25mm)
Started: 12/31/07
Finished: 1/25/08

I got this yarn on a trip to Canvas Works in Olympia, WA over the holidays. I was in dire need of a darning needle to finish my Central Air socks and made my friend drive me to the yarn store. He was surprisingly nice about it but did want to get out of there quickly. While I was there I saw the Panda Cotton which I haven't seen locally (ok, I saw it once and didn't like the colors) so I picked up a couple of balls.

This yarn is pretty splitty - the cast on ends had unravelled into little threads by the time I finished the socks and went to weave them in, and I did have a few sections of the yarn do the same while I was knitting. I really liked the yarn despite this, it's very soft and the finished socks are lovely. As I was putting them on this morning I was struck by how much less stretchy they are than wool socks. It's to be expected from a cotton and bamboo yarn, and the elastic does help. Personally I prefer wool, but this yarn would be GREAT for a vegan or wool-sensitive person. And I'm sure I'll be changing my mind in the summer when these socks will be on my feet while the wool ones hang out in the back of the drawer.

WARNING! Spoilers beyond this point!

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I arrived home tonight to find the first package from the '08 Rockin' Sock Club! I must say that I agree with Tina's sentiments on red - it is one of my least favorite colors for some unknown reason. My mom likes it too but thankfully I did not grow up in an all red house. However, I like this yarn.



I've also made the decision to try to keep up with the club this year. (I know, what a novel idea!) I think I probably had that idea way back in '06 which was quickly derailed by my hatred of the very first sock club yarn - Rainforest Jasper - when I saw it in the skein. However, once I finally got around to finishing those socks (in August '06 at the Gorge right before seeing Tool!) I loved them. They are probably my favorite Rockin' Sock Club socks that I've knit to date.

The problem being that I decided I would continue knitting the socks in order. After my pitiful performance on the Cedar Creek socks, I proceeded almost immediately to Rock and Weave and completed them in a reasonable amount of time. Then came my 14,000 pattern modifications on Hippy Crunchy which I believe took me all the way into 2007. I finally finished Central Air in December after starting them in May. I'm way behind, about to start Marble Arches from the '06 club. But hey, only two more pairs and I'm done with '06!

See the pretty yarn all wound up:



In any case, maybe I'll try to finish a pair of RSC socks a month this year - that way I can catch up on some of the older patterns while still staying current.

Listening to: Passenger ~ Deftones, In Motion Part II ~ The Gathering, Lomo ~ Klimt 1918