Flickr Favorites - Sock Yarn

1. Clothilde modeled 1, 2. Child's First Socks, 3. Swallowtail 7, 4. ishbel

When I first started knitting I couldn't imagine using sock yarn and the tiny needles that went with it. I was happiest with super bulky yarn, or at the very least, bulky. At that time tiny needles only equated to a seemingly tedious project in my eyes.

As time went on I got over the super bulky phase of my early knitting days (none to soon either) and fell comfortably in with the DK and Worsted weight yarns. But still, I thought about all those knitters out there who seemed to be in love with sock yarn, sock knitting, and yes, there seemed to be people out there who enjoyed knitting with lace weight yarn too!

During a sunny September day 2.5 years ago my grandmother (and only fellow family knitter) and I decided to go to a local Fiber Festival, and see what yarns were around. To our surprise the majority of yarns for sale were the dreaded fingering weight yarns. She had I had talked before about the possibility of knitting a pair of socks, just to see what all the fuss was about, and at that moment it seemed like a great idea to buy some sock yarn. In the end we each purchased about 4 skeins of yarn and regretted it by the time we got home.

The yarn lay untouched until the following spring when I declared that she and I were going to have a "Summer - of - Sockathon" whether she liked it or not! I picked out some patterns on ravelry and off we went. It was a simple cuff down pattern, and both of us were mildly interested enough to continue. Not being able to wrap our heads around toe-up socks (and for the record, I still can't) we searched high and low for fun looking cuff down sock patterns to fill our spring and summer knitting.

I quickly got bored with socks though, as I am not one to want to knit the same thing twice. (proof of this lies in my special basket of single knit socks) I looked around for alternative uses for sock yarn, and that is when I discovered shawls.

Oh how I love to knit shawls!

The lacier the better in my opinion. At the top of my list of favorite knits are the Swallowtail, Ishbel, and Forest Canopy Shawls. At the moment I am working on the Clothilde and Arabella shawls with plans to make another Swallowtail down the road.

Next up on my list of things to learn?

Garment knitting. (eek)

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