We are having an unusually cold and wet winter here in the Sunny South. Cold enough to have my family begging for hand knit wool socks. A few years back I made my husband a lovely pair of very long tweedy green wool socks out of commercial yarn of uncertain origin. Being a “person of color”, I found them incredibly boring to knit. My husband is very tall and slender, so I started the socks at the toe and dutifully worked up THE WHOLE BORING BALL of yarn (which is my excuse for no longer having the label). Don’t even ask about his sweaters! I’ve knit him a bunch, and he loves them, but he has an extra-long torso, very wide shoulders, a tiny waist, and gorilla arms. Thus his sweaters are triangular in shape, just like mine. Except mine are triangular with the wide dimension at the waist! But I digress…
These beautiful long tweedy green wool socks (of which only one and a half remains in the photo above) were gratefully received, but remained politely unworn in my husband’s sock drawer for about five years. I wasn’t too surprised that they stayed there for maybe a winter, or even two. This is the man who appreciates my knitting so much that he wears his hand knit slippers with socks so he won’t get them dirty! His sweaters typically stay “on display” in the closet for a year or two, and then only get pulled out for special occasions or those extra-cold winter days, and then only to church! But five years? And with all these extra-cold days? I finally had to ask him! He dutifully pulled out the socks, and struggled to put them on. And struggled, and struggled. After about ten minutes of wrestling, he proudly displayed one sock-clad foot! GAH!!!! Bless his heart, he was just too polite to tell me that the socks were way too narrow, and the sewn bindoff of the cuff would barely fit over his long heel bones!
I’ve learned a lot about making socks to fit in the past five years. Suffer no more, sweet husband! After five years, I could face these socks again. Begone, long skinny socks! I cut off the top of the cuff, began to unravel, and made shorter fatter traditional cuff-down socks out of the beautiful boring green tweedy yarn. Begone, cold feet!
This is the time of year when I get green-deprived anyway. Even for Charleston, things are especially grey, brown, and dreary this time of year. I lived in the northern Midwest for a few years, and green-deprivation was far worse there. But in late winter I love working with green yarns, not to mention making (brilliant, vibrant) green in the dye vat. Bright green is a rather tricky color to stick to both wool and cotton, and thus a somewhat rare color in commercial yarns. I am very pleased to provide it.
Click HERE for my free pattern for toe up socks.
Click HERE for my free pattern for cuff down socks.
Click HERE to purchase some lively spring green hand dyed crochet thread. You won't find this color at WalMart!!
HERE is some lovely Shamrock green cotton sock yarn.
CLICK HERE TO SHOP
Footnote: I am pretty sure we got my husband's sock off before gangrene set in.
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