January – where I live that means it’s pretty much the middle of winter. It’s cold. It snows. It still gets dark early in the evening and the sun doesn’t come up super early either. Everything around here seems to only come in one of two colours – white (that would be the snow) or grey. Today is a fairly bright day. Here’s a picture I took just a few minutes ago out my back door.
Pretty inspiring, right? And no, I didn’t cut off the right hand corner – that’s the roof of my garage. Covered in snow. Bleh.
Fortunately, as a knitter, you have the ability to combat the grey. A bit of nice bright yarn does wonders on a day (or month) such as this. And if you have read any of this blog at all you know that bright around here means pretty eye-searing, especially when it comes to sock yarns. Sarah, my intrepid knitting co-hort likes a good bright pair of socks too (of course she does, you don’t think I’d be hanging around with someone who only wears beige did you?) so back in September we each bought a good bright skein at our local Knitter’s Fair. Somehow we agreed that we would keep them until just this time of year, and then have ourselves a little Bright Yarn Knit Along.
Here’s what we’re knitting:
a href=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/77601462@N00/4979708365/” title=”Studioloo Bootsie by heatheratjoeyshouse, on Flickr”>
This is my yarn – Studioloo’s Bootsie Sock yarn in the inspired-by-safety-wear colour Phoenix Irie. This is nice stuff, soft and smooth.
Sarah’s yarn:
Sweet Georgia Yarns Tough Love sock in the fabulous Snapdragon colourway. Yum.
Sarah is knitting Shur’tugal, a pattern that is free on Ravelry. I want to knit this one too, but I just didn’t think it went with my yarn. I don’t have a pic of Sarah’s, not have I seen it as winter circumstances kept us from our usual knitting night. Maybe next week.
I started out with a rib pattern I am working on, but my rather busy yarn totally took over and you couldn’t really see it. Now, I know what you’re thinking – busy yarn? Looks orange to me. Yup, looked orange to me too. Wee bits of red and yellow, the odd dot of green, but pretty much just orange right? Uh, no.
That’s the other fun thing about this yarn – who knew it would knit up like that? My pattern is Double Basket Socks from Little Box of Socks, which I just purchased last week. I like a good number of the socks in the box (yes, with a fox! Sorry.) but I must admit, this pattern didn’t jump out at me at first. The picture on the pattern card shows a plain blue pair of socks. The yarns shows off the basket weave pattern really well, but they are still pretty boring looking. But when I went looking for a stronger pattern to go with my busy yarn I wondered if it wouldn’t work. A quick look at the project gallery on Rav assured me that it would, and I must admit I love the results! Also, it’s a total chip pattern – you know, just one more block! Just one more! I knit that whole leg yesterday, which is a lot for me in one day, I just couldn’t put it down. Wanna see a close up?
So, got the January blahs? Wanna knit something bright? Come join us – we like bright!
[...] yarn. As you know if you’ve been by here in the winter before, I have a raging need to knit something bright come January/February. If I want grey I’ll just look outside thanks. Yep, even the project [...]