June Sock Yarn Review (yes, again)

Still Lorna's, but a different colour. Franklin's Panopticon is the first in Lorna's Color Commentary Series. These aren't colours I'd necessarily choose myself (good thing we're all different), but so far I'm liking this one.

I've done a Toffee Sock in Lorna's earlier, so I chose another simple sock - a Butterscotch Sock to show off the yarn. The Butterscotch Sock has a 2x1 rib for the leg, then five rounds of plain before an Eye of Peacock heel flap. The 2x1 rib is good and stretchy, with a little less purling than a straight 2x2.



You can see from the finished sock that it's easy to see how the yarn will work up, even on the ribbed leg.

The best laid plans

I had planned to do Red Rover, but because I have already made a Toffee Sock in Lorna's, thought I'd do something different.

This is as far as I got before I decided it wasn't going to work.



It's a seed stitch rib - nice enough and I liked the leg, but thought it was getting a bit more complicated than I like for a review - I want the yarn to show itself off, not the design. And then, I made the mistake of forgetting I was working over 72 stitches, so by the time I did a heel flap over 40, I was too far gone to change my mind. Stubborn isn't my middle name for nothing. (My friends used to say that I should use the word "determined", not stubborn. I believe my kid's version was "pig-headed".

So this is what I did instead. I changed colours to Franklin's Panopticon. I like the colours - maybe not my favourites, but so far, the yarn hasn't let me down. Soft, no knots - perhaps a little finer than I would prefer, but it knits like a dream.



Hard to go wrong with Lorna's. The only thing I don't like is there are simply too many colours.


The Red Rover was too complicated, so this is a plain 2 x 1 rib sock - not quite vanilla - that's why it's butterscotch.

June Sock Yarn Review

I'm not finished reporting on May's socks (they're done - they're just not photographed), but here is June's yarn for review - one of my old favourites - Lorna's Laces. I know already this is a tried and true yarn - the colours are good, the yarn is very high quality, and I have never had a pair of socks turn out bad.



I almost put it back in the box when I pulled it, but then changed my mind. When I started doing this, the idea was that I would pull from my yarn box with my eyes closed - the only time I would put back a yarn would be if I had already reviewed it. I have knit with Lorna's before, but I haven't reviewed it, so this will be the month.

Lorna's, don't let me down.

Progress - almost done

Almost done. Almost done. Knit, Knit, Knit. We'll get there yet.

May disappeared. I am certain that yesterday was Mother's Day and here we are, halfway to Christmas. Well, perhaps I exaggerate - halfway to winter and I'm not even out of my winter clothes from last season. We had one hot dry spell and now we have had nothing but rain and more rain. I refuse to complain, however: we could be in Louisiana, watching our livelihoods disappear before the onslaught of oil.

This is progress to date:



It's not quite the easiest set of socks to see. The kettle-dying process Nancy uses creates a very mottled look - I quite like it, as it gives a lot of dimension to a pretty ordinary sock. This won't work for lace or cables, because the pattern will be lost.

Fireweed Dyeworks - first sock done

I can't believe it's the long weekend already !! And, because it's May long, it's raining - no - make that pouring. Anyone who has dreams of getting the bedding plants in might as well have stayed in bed.

This is the first sock from Fireweed Dyeworks Kettle Dyed Fingering in Northern Lights:



The sock itself looks a little off - that's because I have learned the hard way that when I rotate photos, the program compresses them. The leg isn't quite that fat.

The yarn, however, is plump and very easy to work. No knots, no slubby bits, no ply tears. The dye pattern creates what I call a mosaic look - variegated without striping at all. Some parts of the dye are saturated, some not so, but this is a look I like, so I am very pleased.

A slight change in plans

It's Fireweed Dyeworks, but not the same yarn. This is alaskannancy's superwash merino in Northern Lights.



This is Nancy's Kettle-dyed Sock Yarn and yes, it's on the needles, and no, I'm not quite as slow a knitter as I am a blogger.



What I am very slow at is taking photographs. This is the cast-on post. I predict that magically, within a day or two, this first sock will be finished.

May Sock Yarn Review - Fireweed Dyeworks

I said I was going to do Francis Patrick's yarn, but I can't find anywhere that the vendor is still active, so it seems, not pointless, but perhaps not what I had intended when I decided to blog about a sock yarn of the month.

Fireweed Dyworks is very much still in business.



On Ravelry she's Alaskannancy, and that's how you find her on Etsy. The yarn base is Cherry Tree Hill's Supersock Select.