Turquoise is always a winning colour for me, and for socks. In this Koigu colourway it is joined by all its cousins in the blues and greens families, along with some other accent colours for punch.
This pair, Size Medium, gets the colours organize into stripes. Knit with the 72 cylinder and 36 ribber on the Verdun 47, using a 1×1 ribbed top and stockinette for the balance of the sock. I reinforced the heels and toes with a deep blue Wooly Nylon. I used two 50 g skeins.
When I last went to Koigu on a stash enhancement mission I had ‘a list’. On the ‘I don’t need more’ list was: green, as I have several bags of green already in the stash. But when I say P926 I was helpless to its cries of ‘take me home’.
The greens in this colourway are absolutely alive, vibrant, and stunning!
These socks are Size Small, knit with the 54 cylinder on the Legaré 400. I reinforced the heels and toes with Wooly Nylon.
For this pair I used the 36 slot ribber, using only every other slot so as to get a 2×1 rib (vs other pairs I’ve blogged on recently where I used a 27 slot ribber with the 54 cylinder to get a 1×1 rib).
My early efforts with a 2×1 rib used a different selvedge, created by raising on needle of each knit stitch pair, knitting around, then placing those needles back in work. This worked by I was never really happy with the finished edge with that method. Getting a 27 slot ribber allowed me to knit a 1×1 rib that was more pleasing to my eye.
But using the e-wrap cast on creates an instant selvedge, so there is no reason to use the method mentioned above with a standard cast on.
I like the look of this 2×1 rib topper. I can’t say that I like it more than the 1×1, but it is another choice of look, and I think for a smaller foot and fuller leg, the elasticity will be less tight with 18 purl stitches vs 27 in the circumference.
It was such a grey, rainy, snowy, windy dreary day yesterday. My antidote: Koigu KPPPM P872. If that don’t make the sun shine, nothing will!
100% Premium Merino fingering weight; recommended by Koigu to hand wash and dry flat. (I use the hand wash setting on my washing machine and dry flat.)
I knit this pair of Size Small socks with the 54 cylinder and 27 ribber on the Legaré 400, with an e-wrap selvedge, 1×1 rib topper and stockinette leg/foot. I reinforced the heels and toes with Wooly Nylon.
The colours in the photos are fairly true on my monitor. I’d describe them as mid-way between pastel and berry/jewel tones.
Bright and cheery socks for a grey day!
My only New Years Resolution – to not buy more sock yarn until I make a bigger dint in my stash – has already failed ;o(
I take comfort in knowing that most of you reading my blog have also failed in this goal.
Here’s a few things that I simply had to have:
A few bags of Koigu to replenish the gaping holes in my Koigu bins. Especially the multi-multi mixed colour skeins. (KPPPM – 100% Merino)
And this, a gift from Taiu at Koigu, is a sample of a buffalo yarn they are custom dyeing for Buffalo Gold. I don’t have the exact stats on it – butit is 50% Buffalo and 50% Mulberry Silk. Its a lace weight – I would compare weight to Cashmara Lace from Pat Fly.
Neither buffalo nor silk have much elasticity, so I’ll knit this up with a strand of lycra and see what happens!
And fresh from Alaska. and in the nick of time, some more Qiviut sock yarn to restash that empty shelf. (35% Qiviut 40% Superwash Merino 15% Bamboo 10% Nylon)
I haven’t knit a sock since a few days before Christmas. I hope I remember how.
My first project will be to knit this up:
I have a few bags of Lorna’s Laces Shepherd Sock in natural (un dyed) left over from a project a few years ago. I’ve dyed a bag in washfast acid dye Jet Black. (80% Superwash Merino 20% Nylon)
The Prochemical website suggests using Jet Black at 5% WOF which works out to about 4.5 teaspoons per pound. I find this way-y-y-y too strong. The last batch I dyed at that rate went in the garbage after 10 washes and rinses failed to get rid of the excess dye. I find 2 – 2.5% much more satisfactory – it gives me a good deep black plus rinse water that is almost clean.
And here’s a Happy New Year from Jesse (100% Superwash Dog). I got my self a new (to me, from EBay) zoom lens for my camera. Merry Christmas to me, from me. I don’t really need a zoom to photograph Jesse, but I hope to get some better closeups of the sheep, and maybe even the deer that so often graze my fields.
This is a reprise of my Koigu Rainbow Sox.
The colours of the rainbow, all in KPPPM hand painted 100% merino – from the left: P816, P603, P521, P819, P451 and P809.
Straddled across the top is P882 which Rhichard did up for me, incorporating all the colours contained in the other 6 colourways. This is for toppers, heels and toes.
Size Small
Size Medium
Size Large
I knit the Small (and X-Small not shown) with the 54 cylinder on the Legaré 400, and the Medium, Large (and XL not shown) with the 72 cylinder on the Verdun 47. My top photo doesn’t show it, but I also used Wooly Nylon in a pale blue to reinforce the heels and toes.
This is Koigu KPPPM 100% hand painted merino in colourway P155.
This one, when knit with 72 needle cylinder stripes, reliably, even with the different tension settings I use for Medium or Large socks.
Medium
Large
My photo colours are less reliable than the stripes! To my cameraless-eye the dominant colour is more of a royal purple, while the turquoise and orange are more muted.
My Koigu-thon continues with this – KPPPM in colourway P148.
This lively palette is just what the doctor ordered for Ginger fans (though in my photo the reddy-oranges are looking distinctly more red than orange.)
This pair is size Medium, knit with the 72 cylinder on the Verdun 47. The orange Wooly Nylon I used with the heels and toes returned an orange dominance to those areas.
Here’s another Koigu KPPPM colourway I’ve been knitting recently – P218
The deep purples and purpley-blues remind me of the old Ditto Copy Machine ink colour. Leaning Royal, these purples are. The accents of wine/burgandy/merlot family work well (for me anyway).
The Wooly Nylon thread, added in heels and toes makes a good match – you really can barely tell it’s there.
The sample pairs are size Medium, and below that, size Large. Both knit with 72 needle cylinder on the Verdun 47.
Ahhhh.
P706 has been my favourite Koigu colourway since forever. There is just so much going on in there, but in such small dabs, it mesmerized me as I knit to the extent that I just kept knitting and knitting until my cranking arm seized up.
This is the one I often call ‘Monet’ for all the fine specks of colour.
I used an olivey-brown Wooly Nylon to reinforce the heels and toes.
I presume the ‘D’ in the colour name means ‘dark’ as this dye lot is darker than other (many other) batches I’ve knit of this.
Here are a few sample pairs:
The top pair is size Medium, and the bottom pair is size Large; both knit with the 72 needle cylinder on the Verdun 47.
Koigu KPPPM is 100% merino, handpainted; ~1705 yds/ 50g
Here’s another batch of Koigu KPPPM 100% merino, in colour way P535. Check out all the different greens in this yarn, accented with bits of blue, yellow and even a dab of orange.
The spool of Wooly Nylon that I used with my heels and toes is a celery-ish green – you can barely see it once knit in.
Here are three sample pairs:
The top pair is size Medium, the middle pair is size Large, and the bottom pair is size XL.
All three are knit with the 72 cylinder on the Verdun 47.
It’s hard to tell with separate photos – but the difference in the sizes isn’t simply a matter of adding more length to the leg and foot. Each size is different in width, which is accomplished by varying the knitting tension according to size. Roughly speaking, with a fingering weight yarn, I knit each size 1/4 turn looser in tension than the size before it.