See these?
These are happy feet.
If it weren’t for the fact that they’re pointing skywards, then they’d probably be dancing. Badly. So be glad that they’re safely away from the ground.
The reason for their joy is no doubt obvious. It involves some splendidly colourful new sock yarn. You may have heard already, but a few months ago, Stylecraft launched a range of 4-ply sock yarn called Head Over Heels. It’s 75% superwash wool and 25% nylon, and it comes in six different marvellously mountain-monikered colourways (Eiger, Everest, Fuji, Kilimanjaro, Matterhorn, and Olympus, in case you were wondering). In the photo above, the completed sock is Eiger (my personal favourite), and the sock-in-progress is Fuji.
I was fortunate to be sent samples of both these shades earlier this year, but I held off posting about it because I wanted to thoroughly road-test the stuff before writing about it. The outcome? I like it. And so do my feet. I enjoyed the slow, leisurely shifts in colour.
I knitted these socks (four of them, two in each colourway) everywhere, walking to collect the twinnage from school, and on trains and buses, and in the village pub. Socks-in-progress using yarn that does its own colour-changing thing make perfect out-and-about projects, because they’re much more discreet and portable than – say – an afghan. I still looked like an oddball knitting as I wandered the village, but at least I was a semi-discreet oddball.
I brought the fourth-and-final sock to knit on the bus journey to collect my new car today (bye bye Stinkwagon!) This turned out to be a good thing, because the bus driver must have missed the bit of the training where they tell them to confine their driving mostly to the road, and instead he seemed to have just a little difficulty distinguishing between road and kerb/pavement/verge. The other project I’d brought with me was some complicated fair isle, which proved near-impossible on the top deck of a wildly-swaying double-decker bus. Top tip, people: don’t attempt complex knitting upstairs on a bus, especially when the driver is a bit reckless.
A basic sock is just fine, however. In fact, the sock was such a good distraction during the more unnerving parts of the journey that I accidentally overshot with the foot section and have thus created a sock that would be absolutely perfect for a rather elegant giant who is possessed of extremely long but slender feet. Know anyone who’s like that? Me neither. Time to rip back a few rounds, I guess.
That’s not the fault of the yarn, of course, so let’s get back to the review.
So as you can see, the stuff knits up nicely, and I didn’t come across a single knot. Yay! This is a personal thing, but I wish, wish, wish, that more lusciously variegated yarns would be made WITHOUT PINK! Why, why, why, does everything have to include blimmin’ pink?! Thank you for letting me get that off my chest. And yeah, I’m probably in the minority.
It’s reasonably soft, and being superwash, it’s pretty tolerant of your washing machine’s general grudge against all fabrics. As you can see from the images below, the length of the repeat varies between colourways, so you can find the yarn that best suits your project, whether you’re knitting socks or crocheting a shawl.
- Head Over Heels is available from major shops and online sellers, and comes in 100g balls. In the UK, it’s typically priced around £6.50-£7.00, so cheaper than many sock yarns.
- Needle recommendation: 2.25mm-3.25mm.
- 75% superwash wool, 25% nylon.
- 100g = 400m.
- Gauge: 28 stitches / 36 rows.
- No, it’s not hand-dyed by eunuchs under the light of a full moon, BUT it’s way more affordable than eunuch-yarn could ever hope to be. And it’s soft.
So what are you waiting for?
I think you just broke me. Those colours…the dinky (dare I say “cute”) circular needle (that would prevent me dropping lots of stitches off the end of at least one of the 4 pointy ones I would otherwise need to knit a sock) and absolutely everything about this post has made me 99% certain that after Christmas, I am going to knit socks. Until then it’s monsters, birds and farm animals all the way (hooky) but after Christmas I am going to give it the old college try. Be prepared for LOTS of (harassed sounding) questions Ms T.
I think you should combine the two, and knit MONSTER SOCKS!
Completely. I think that I am going to do just that.
Hmmm socks, circular needl, selglf striping soft yarn. Looks like my after Christmas project too. (with help!)
I find typing on the bus as difficult as knitting Fairfield!
You’re a far better knitter than I am. Just imagine it’s a piece of yarn-bombing which just happens to have a foot section at the bottom!
Yes to more pink. Please have a nice chat with those lovely Stylecraft people. The yarn looks glorious. Maybe next year I will be brave enough to knit socks.
Do it! Do it! There is no nicer feeling than perfectly-fitting hand-knitted socks on your feet.
Loved your socks, its just the kick I need to try making my own, can I ask what size your circular needles are as there is no way I think I could tackle the dpn’s but I might just be able to do this and my daughter could try making mittens for herself too, complete knitting home takeover this Christmas : )
Yay, go for it! The circulars I’m using are 3mm x 30cm. Enjoy. 🙂
Is that a knitted skirt you are wearing? Tell us more please! Looks lovely.
Yes! I’m slightly embarrassed by how many photos it appears in – I hadn’t realized that I wear it so much! I started knitting it from someone else’s pattern, but ended up going very much in my own direction. If you’re on Ravelry, you can see it here: http://www.ravelry.com/projects/Occles/jenna
Thanks very much – I’ll take a look.
You shouldn’t temp me to buy more sock yarn! I already have several balls in my stash. I do notice however that half the socks I’ve made don’t contain pink. https://rainbowjunkiecorner.files.wordpress.com/2016/11/photo-challenge1646-socks.jpg so maybe it’s worth looking at other sock yarns. I like Drops Fabel for cheaper sock yarn but Drops Delight is definitely not a delight. I found it a nightmare!
I LOVE all those beautiful socks in your picture. (And I share your love of rainbow colours.) So thank you.
Interesting what you say about the different Drops yarns, too.
If I hadn’t just bought a sack of wool, fully half of which was sock yarn, I would be so tempted to check out the Stylecraft website (“just to see”) and accidentally slip some wool into my cart (“just to check shipping”). At this stage, it will have to wait until I’ve knitted another twenty pairs of socks and thus run down my sock wool stash.
Then again, those variegated colours do look rather lovely…
Yup, I hear you: it’s always important to check that these yarn-selling websites are working properly, by just popping a few balls in your basket…
Oh my goodness. Why have I only just found your blog! I love it. I’m a hooker (okay, that doesn’t sound good does it as I hardly know you) lol but you know what I mean. I haven’t tried stylecrafts yarn for crochet socks yet but I need to now. I haven’t got a blog yet but I keep thinking about. Really glad I’ve found you Thanks gal from Karen from North Norfolk. x
Hi Karen, thank you for such a lovely, lovely comment! If you’re thinking of starting your own blog, (i) Do it, do it, do it! (ii) Be prepared for it to take over about 103% of your time. Enjoy! 🙂
what sock pattern do you use?
Ann Budd has a really useful book called ‘Getting Started Knitting Socks’. I tend to use that. For some reason, socks are the one type of knitting where I like to keep things simple!