Saturday, October 04, 2008

How Much Sock Yarn Does A Girl Need?

15,000 yards, that's how much!! I joined the Stash and Burn Ravelry Socktober challenge to find out how much sock yarn I actually have, and to say how much I will knit up this month. So last night I took a deep breath and pulled out all my sock yarn and added up the yardage. I found out that it wasn't actually quite as bad as I thought, although it is still a lot! I am going to try and knit three socks in October (around 600 yards) - the 2nd sock of the pair I am knitting for my dad, and the entire pair that I am planning on knitting for my dad's girlfriend. They are both Christmas presents. I took a picture of my stash (sock yarn only, let's be clear) for posterity:

As you can see, I have a fondness for Opal :} It looks like Trekking is coming in second, and I have a fair bit of Regia - although that black, gold & gray yarn I've had for probably 10 years. I can't remember what I was thinking when I bought that gold yarn, it is so not a color I would generally buy. Sorry the picture quality isn't so great - I did this last night after work, and I didn't want to leave it laying out all night. Who knows what my cats would have done to it!

Here is my dad's sock in progress - as you can see I am almost done with the first sock, hopefully I will finish it today. I ended up having to go buy a 2nd ball of yarn, since this sock is taking a lot more yarn than I realized it would. I'm knitting the Basketweave Rib from Sensational Knitted Socks on size one needles, and I casted on 80 stitches. My dad wears a size 9 shoe, so I think these will fit him pretty well. The only reason I will be able to get so much knitting done today is that my daughter is away on a choir retreat. I guess they are all "bonding" which will help them sing better together. I hope she is having fun. She loves being in this choir, so I'm sure she is having a great time. I have to go pick her up tomorrow morning, and they are about an hour away from here. Nothing like a Sunday morning drive! Due to traffic, the choir leaders decided to bus them all up together Friday night, thank goodness. But we, the parents, will be in for a mini-concert when we pick them up tomorrow, which will be fun.

In other news, I got my Harry Potter sock yarn from Simply Socks Yarn Company. I woke up one morning (Monday, maybe?) to find an email stating that the yarn was available to purchase. Before I was even dressed or had my coffee I had credit card in hand. Shipping was so fast - I had the yarn by Thursday. I totally love it, and can't wait to knit it. Unfortunately it will have to wait until after my Christmas knitting is done, which might be a while. But aren't these colors great? I ordered, from left to right: Hedwig, Tonks & Draco. I didn't much care for the other colors, but I thought these three were wonderful.

I have another pair of socks I want to knit for my daughter for Christmas, but I don't know if I can pull it off. They are the Eclipse Socks based on the 3rd book in the Twilight series. We both just read all these books, and loved them. I think I might be able to knit them while she is in choir practice - I have about an hour and a half of time twice a week. I don't even have the yarn yet or anything, so we'll just have to see. She would love them, though!

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