I Guess That's Why They Call It the Blues

 My annual summer blues have been pretty intense this year and, as always, I am eagerly looking forward to some good sleep. I need a chilly (or even cold) room and a few blankets. The other morning I was standing at the open kitchen window and felt the hint of a sharp edge to the wind that blew in. It made me smile. Now that we're almost 2 months past solstice, the nights are lengthening. Yesterday was our last post-9 pm sunset of the year. This led to more smiling. I'm starting to feel less glum as we move closer to my happy time of year. As I await the change of season, I continue to do the things that bring me joy in the midst of extreme tiredness and deep blues, relying on books and yarn to lift my spirits. Today I finished a blue project.

All of our socks are handmade by me, some of them made many years ago. Bill needed some new ones as some of his older ones are starting to show lots of wear. Since we have no local yarn shop and sock yarn isn't something I find in charity shops, I went to the website of Springwools in Dublin and emailed him some possibilities. He looked through these and made his selections, deciding on a blue variegated and a dark denim blue. The skein of variegated (which is showing more green in the photo--it's blue IRL) is large enough for a pair of socks with lots left over. The dark denim blue is enough for one sock with some left. I started with the large skein and made a pair. Then I made a pair of fraternal twins using the rest of that and most of the smaller skein. I finished that pair this afternoon.

He likes a plain foot, so that's what I did. 

There's more blue in my future, but first I'm diving into some purple. Last week a friend gifted me two skeins of sock yarn--one in a purple colorway so I can make myself a pair, and one in a dark blue/light blue/light purple colorway so I can make Bill a pair.

I've never used this particular sock yarn before and I'm really looking forward to it. It looks like it's self-patterning, so it's dyed in such a way that as one knits, it creates patterns automatically. It will be fun to watch this happen as I knit.

For any sock knitters out there, here's the sock info:

The blue variegated is King Cole Zig Zag, which comes in 420m skeins. I love this yarn. Great colors. I've used it several times in the past for both knitted and crocheted socks. It's lovely to work with, wears well, and the resulting socks are great. Last autumn, I got a skein in a Christmas colorway, knitted myself a pair of socks and had enough left to crochet another pair, using scrap balls in a plain cream for toes and heels. Highly recommend this yarn.

The dark denim color is Lang Jawoll Sock. It's 210m and comes with a 5g spool of reinforcement yarn. I've never used this yarn before, so I don't know how well it will wear. I did use the reinforcement yarn on the heel flap and turn.

They're just plain top-down socks. I use 2x2 rib on US size 1 needles over 68 stitches for the cuffs, change to US size 0, then do a heel flap, heel turn, gusset to start the foot. I decrease the gusset stitches every other round until I have 72 stitches left and work the foot until the toe decreases. I use a star toe. 

I will probably do the same on the socks I make with my new purple yarn. I sometimes do some sort of pattern on the top of the foot, but in this case, I want to knit plain so I can see how the patterns unfold.

Whatever it is that brings you joy, I hope you get to do a lot of it as this season starts to wind down.

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