The Knitting Goddess Sock Club (2018)

As I have mentioned previously, last year I signed up to a sock club with one of my favourite yarn dyers, The Knitting Goddess.  Joy is based in Yorkshire, not far from me, and I just love what she does with local wool.  By signing up to the sock club I received a skein of yarn in the colour theme of rocks and a sock pattern written by Clare Devine at Knit Share Love every other month.  My intention was to knit one sock per month and have six pairs of gorgeous socks at the end of the year.

But then last year happened!  2018 was a bit of a year for me personally and while I did do some knitting, things were all over the place and I also sorely neglected this blog.  I did manage to knit four of the six pairs last year but only blogged one of them.

I am ecstatic to share that I have now finished (and photographed!) all twelve of the socks and have finally completed my Sock Club knitting.

Here they all are!  I love all of the colours very much and really enjoy the way the work together as a cohesive collection.  This is exactly what I hoped too achieve when signing up for a sock club.  All of the yarn is the same base, British Blue Faced Leicester with nylon added for strength and they are all so soft and squishy.  You can’t see them very well stacked up like this so I’ll share each pair on its own too.

First up, way back in January, was Bend & Fold.  As you can see the socks don’t match.  This is a key feature of these patterns, they are all similar but not the same and named by Clare Devine as The Correlative Sock Collection.  I did write a post about these ones last year with more photos and you can find it here.

In March there was a pretty lace pattern, that’s a horror to photograph, called Leaf & Bloom.  I love these socks and have worn them a lot but I am sorely tempted to use this pattern again on a paler, more pastel coloured yarn.

May’s socks were so much fun to knit.  No cables or lace just a clever combination of knit and purl stitches to create this really tactile textured pattern.  These ones are called Dots & Lines.  They were also instrumental in helping me to be able to knit from a chart as the written instructions are so lengthy it really benefitted me to learn how to read charted patterns.

It was back to the lace in July with this summery little ankle sock in a vibrant pinky purple.  The pattern is Ebb & Flow with waving patterns reminiscent of the sea.  This was the last pair I actually managed to complete last year and was the first toe-up pair of socks I ever made.

The club pattern for September was Twist & Turn with it’s thick cables.  I only finished these very recently and they have a blog post of their own here.

The final pair, from November and knitted by me this summer is Short & Sweet with its eyelet pattern.  My pair of these socks have more than a couple of ‘unique design features’ where I went off pattern and made a mistake but you can’t see them when I arrange the socks just so!

Twelve patterns, six pairs of socks, knit over a period of eighteen months.  I am thrilled by what this pile of yarny loveliness represents.  I learned new skills, improved at those I already had and have so much functional beauty to show for the journey.  I am so pleased that I decided to use a sock club to push me in this manner and the one I chose was just perfect.

Sock Club – Twist and Turn

Last year I signed up to a sock club with one of my favourite yarn dyers, The Knitting Goddess.  Joy is based in Yorkshire, not far from me, and I just love what she does with local wool.  By signing up to the sock club I received a skein of yarn in the colour theme of rocks and a sock pattern written by Clare Devine at Knit Share Love.  My intention was to knit one sock per month and have six pairs of gorgeous socks at the end of the year.

But then last year happened!  2018 was a bit of a year for me personally and while I did do some knitting, things were all over the place and I also sorely neglected this blog.  I did manage to knit four of the six pairs last year but only wrote one of them up.  You can find that post here (Sock Club – Bend & Fold).

I am happy to say that this year has been far less turbulent and so I am working hard to catch up.  I finished the pair of socks I’m about to share with you a couple of weeks ago and am now close to the end of sock one from the last pair.  I am hopeful I’ll be able to pull together all of the sock club loveliness into one mammoth post before too long.

On to this pair!  These were the September 2018 instalment of The Knitting Goddess Sock Club.  The pattern is Twist and Turn by Clare Devine and like all the socks from this particular club is for a non matching pair.  A pair of fraternal twins, similar but not the same, which is brilliant for people,  like me, who suffer from second sock syndrome!

The yarn is a blend of lovely sheepy Blue Faced Leicester and nylon and the colour is called Chert and is a sort of greyish, purple tinged brownish rock colour.  With all of the yarn colours from this club I’ve found it difficult to be able to articulate the palette but have really enjoyed the colours.

Both socks have the same foot design but the cables on the legs vary from sock one to sock two.

I also love the way that the heel construction forms a shape on the back of the sock.

Very lovely socks.  Its just a shame that its cool enough to wear them in June!

 

Sock Club – Bend & Fold

This year I decided to organise a couple of crafting goals rather than just allowing myself to meander along between whatever projects catch my eye.  Not that I mean I’m going to stop choosing projects on impulse based on something cool I see on Instagram or Facebook or Ravelry or an idea that just happens to pop into my head but that I am going to do those things alongside the things I plan!  I have already posted about my Temperature Blanket , an ongoing crochet project that will take all year and for my knitting goal I am going to make myself 6 pairs of socks.

It seemed to me that the best way to achieve this knitty goal would be to sign up to a sock club.  A large number of the wonderful independent yarn dyers I follow run clubs but I felt myself drawn to The Knitting Goddess, I have bought yarn from Joy each time I have visited Yarndale and love her ethos of keeping it local, with all of her yarns being British and some being from Yorkshire.  It also doesn’t hurt that I also love the colours she uses!

Sock Club dispatches every 2 months with a skein of yarn delivered to my home and a pattern from the truly fabulous Clare Devine @ Knit Share Love arriving in my inbox and Ravelry library. This gives me a month to knit each sock and hopefully time to work those impulse makes in around them!

This is the yarn for January. Its a blend of wool from Bluefaced Leicester sheep to make it soft and squishy and a little bit sheepy and nylon to make it strong enough for socks.  The colour is called Lepidolite which wikipedia tells me is:

Lepidolite is a lilac-gray or rose-colored member of the mica group of minerals with formula K(Li,Al,Rb)₂(Al,Si)₄O₁₀(F,OH)₂.^[1][2] It is the most abundant lithium-bearing mineral^[3] and is a secondary source of this metal. It is a phyllosilicate mineral^[4] and a member of the polylithionite-trilithionite series

The theme for the sock club yarn is rocks and I am really looking forward to a drawer full of these earthy muted tones.

So to the pattern!  Clare has named this series of patterns Correlative Twins.  Each pair of socks contains two patterns for socks with similar but different patterns.  I have never been an odd sock wearer but the draw of learning more techniques and avoiding second sock syndrome was strong enough for me to overcome this barrier and knit one of each sock with my yarn to make the non matching pair.  You can find the pattern here on Ravelry.

Sock one had these beautiful twisty cables made with twisted stitches and lots of knitting through the back loop.  I found the amount of counting needed to put my cables in the right places to be quite challenging and had to be careful to choose good times to knit these (not while watching my favourite TV shows!).

Sock two had the same triangular panel containing the design but instead of twisty cables this one has a blocky arrow design.  I was feeling more confident by the second sock, found it knit up quicker and I think I like this one best.

Together the detail on both socks looks like this –

And the full socks like this –

The heels look a little funny on my sock blockers but are a detail on the socks which I really love.  On my feet they look much better!

This is my first time shaping the gusset decreases beneath the foot but I find the little detail so pleasing I think it may become my go to heel shape in future.

I am thrilled with these socks and am really looking forward to pushing myself with new designs throughout the year.