Birdsong Socks

I am determined to blog about the projects I completed but forgot to write about.  As if that should be a problem!

I have not taken nice enough photos of some projects, those will have to wait.  But I do have good enough pictures of other projects.

So here goes, another project I really like:

I call them my birdsong socks.

I saw the pattern and just had to get it.  it is available on Ravelry and called Nightingale by Vintage Purls.

I would have liked a variegated blue for the pattern and either solid-ish black or dark brown for the background.

I was too keen to start so I bought what went well together.  The yarn is Drops Fabel by Garnstudio.  I bought it from Nest in North London.

It is nicely sturdy yarn.

The pattern at the back is a nice thistle design. I wish I would have realised that I could have started it a few rows higher up.  Never mind, this is good enough.

I also saw this pattern used in a waistcoat - that looked extremely wonderful too. Which is something I'll keep in mind (!).

At first I found the 'one stitch in pink, one stitch in grey' pattern used on the sole, the gussets, the back of the heel and the top of the socks to be rather annoying to knit.

I eventually worked out a rhythm where I held the grey yarn (I knit continentally) and pulled up the pink when needed.  I should have paid attention to that but because I thought it would look the same whichever yarn you hold, I switched on one of the cuffs and held the pink instead and brought the grey up.  You can see the difference in the above photo.

I guess this could make for interesting patterns - but I wouldn't want to have to try and produce different tension by trying to do this on purpose.  That sounds rather tricky.

Since finishing these I have heard of a Scandinavian knitting technique called Stickning that I thought involves this same thing: alternating knitting one stitch in two colours.  But now I think that Stickning refers to knitting in general - although this stripey knitting does feature heavily in the Scandinavian knitting that I just found.

I don't know if this kind of pattern has its own name but I know one thing about it: knitting with two colours in every round makes your socks extremely warm and cosy!

I love wearing them at home for walking about in, in flip flop like shoes.  So toasty.  Love!