Some random questions popped into my inbox this week. I try to answer:

You said you knit a lot of socks, and the colorful bits on the booties are leftovers. Leftovers from what? What are your favorite sock yarns?

I like the Euro-style classic finish hard twist wool/nylon blend sock yarns best (I don't care for either wearing or knitting cotton socks). My short list includes Socka/Fortissima, Regia, Meilenweit, and the like. I'm slightly less fond of Reynold's sock yarns, finding them a bit coarser than I like. I knit with Opal once, the yarn's texture was nice and the colors were interesting, but not so much that I'd pay a premium to find more. I've also tried Kroy 4 ply (aka Kroy Sock), Special Blauband, and Brown Sheep Wildfoote. I'm not as fond of those. Brown Sheep is too thin, splitty and flabby. Special Blauband is also thin compared to my usual (their Blauband Ringel yarns though are more comparable to the Socka type). Kroy is a bit less densely spun than the Euro yarns, but it's economical and is stocked in solid colors. Once it was difficult to find multicolor sock yarn, now it's tough to find solids. I use solids for contrast, so I was very happy to find Kroy.

I've also tried some of the higher priced yarns, like Koigu and Lorna's Laces. In truth, though the Koigu colors were fantastic, I was less pleased with its performance in a sock than most. I found it too thick to make socks I can wear in most of my shoes, plus even under careful hand-wash, I found it fuzzed and lost that surface sheen that makes the colors pop. The socks are wearing well, but they've lost that special something that the yarn had in the skein. I'd use Koigu again in a heartbeat - but not for socks. The Lorna's Laces yarn was a bit loftier than my usual hard twist stuff, but worked up nicely. It's wearing quite well.

I've also tried a salad of other sock yarns - Alpine, Marathon, Happy Strumpf, Trekking - whatever wandered into my local yarn store that looked interesting. While all made suitable socks, none stood out as things I'd want to seek out for repeat use. Alpine was a Euro style yarn - good texture, boring colors; the others were heavier than I prefer.

I haven't tried the less expensive sock yarns from KnitPicks or Elann. I tend not to buy yarn via the Web if I can get the equivalent locally, and I live in a very sock yarn rich region. (Actually touching yarn before I buy it is a requirement.)

The links above just go to one representative of larger, similarly named sock lines. If you need more info on sock yarns, try wiseNeedle. Go to the search page and look up a sock yarn by name, or select "sock" from the drop down list of yarn types. About 135 are currently listed - 85% with at least one review. You can also find a chart showing some repeat lengths of common sock yarn self stripers here.

Still working on the scarf?



I like it better when you write about little stuff. The big projects are boring. What little stuff are you planning?

Unfortunately, I don't plan my knitting to fuel this blog. I knit wherever I want to wander, and the blog gets pulled along behind. That being said, I have to finish this latest crop of booties plus the Harvey Kombu, then rescue Elder Daughter's Rogue before returning to my large blanket. Plus the holidays are coming. I've promised a ton of socks, plus there are some other special gifts that I really should make. You'll see quite a few quickies over the coming two months, I guarantee.

Late breaking addition:? Ooooh. Mittens!? Haven't done full patterend mittens yet. Thank you , Wendy!