Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Match This

I know a few knitters who will go to great lengths to get their socks to match up as perfectly as possible. They’ll measure color repeats down to the millimeter, weigh their yarn to the quarter-gram when dividing their skeins, cast on with infinite care, and knit with a ferocious attention to gauge which is, quite honestly, a little bit intimidating.

I am not that kind of sock knitter. I tend to take a bit more knit-and-let-live approach to them. I like mismatched socks. And clogs . They appeal to my inner six-year-old, and as long as they fit (somebody’s) feet I’m good with it.

A couple of years ago, I bought three skeins of Knit Picks Memories, a 4-ply 100% merino fingering yarn, which has since been discontinued. I had fallen in love with the felted bowls in one of their catalogs and decided to make some for my mother, my husband and myself. I made one of them, it was fun and the bowl is sitting on my husband’s bedside table. But second-bowl syndrome bit me, and the other two skeins got tossed in with the rest of the stash.

Enter the Random List Generator, which has become my most-favorite way to pick my socks. I give the generator my list of sock yarns and it tells me which one to knit with. Saves a lot of agonizing and dithering, let me tell you. When it put one of the skeins of Memories at the top of the list I did a little happy dance.

I looked at the ridiculous list of sock patterns I want to knit, and settled on Mockery by Katie Grady. Oh, look, she dyes yarn too!

I made a few alterations to the pattern due to gauge issues (there was no way I was going to get 10 stitches per inch with this yarn), and subbed in my favorite eye-of-partridge heel. This pattern’s a lot of fun, interesting enough to keep my attention and yet simple enough to memorize after a few repeats.

So here they are, socks that emphatically don’t match. Check out the way they pooled around the gussett and then went right back to orderly stripes!

Mockery-01

They fit well, and the yarn is cushy and warm. What’s not to love?

Mockery-02

Project Details:
Pattern: Mockery Socks by Katie Grady
Size: Women’s US 7.5
Yarn: Knit Picks Memories in Yukon (blue) and Fly Fishing (green)
Needles: US 1 ½ (2.5 mm)
Dates: 2-24 October

10 comments:

Chandler said...

I love the idea of warm, cozy, hand-knitted sock-covered feet up on your desk at the office. Rock on! The socks look delicious.

Rose Red said...

I'm very happy to wear non-matching socks too, and cannot be bothered matching up stripes! sometimes I'll knit two different (but complementary) patterns in the same yarn, so each sock matches but is different. So much more fun, I think!

KT said...

Love it. Love the mis-matching, love the pooling, love the slightly zig-zaggy stripes.

Anonymous said...

Yaawhooo! Dorrie socks live and are doing well in the Willamette Valley.
They look great - soft and warm and
different but the same. lovya, mum

Jodie said...

Love the socks. I totally agree with the " don't worry about matching approach." I have both socks that don't match pooling and near identical stripes. No pairs with different colors though. May have to try your random number generator though. If only I could get my stash into ravelry!

vanessa said...

Oh I do like your style! Your sang-froid, (don't know if I've spelled that right). The mismatching socks are tremendous statements! Love it!
Love Vanessa xxx (do you mind if i knit)

Anna said...

I love your random number generator idea! Your a better woman than me on the non-matching front though - knitting is where I let my inner anally-retentive-control-freak its full rein and it seriously couldn't cope with this! (Which is not to say that I don't like your non-matching socks - I love them and I wish I had your attitude!)

marycatharine said...

They look great! I have a matching sock obsession but even worse than that my socks need to be black ~ it's a problem :) I have a friend who not only wears mismatched socks all her shoes are mismatched, same style different colour.

Bells said...

i've never done matching stripes until my knee highs I'm working on now. I'm so not anal about these things but this time I offered myself a challenge. Never again. It's been fun once but I don't feel the need to repeat it.

essjay said...

You know to a color blind person they probably match perfectly! :) They look great and super comfy!