It's Christmas! Socks!

Now that Christmas has arrived, I can reveal - tada!- that I have been knitting more socks, as Christmas presents.  (The pair of fluffy socks that I wrote about here were also a Christmas present.)  I made one pair from the sock yarn that I dyed at the workshop I went to at Spun in November.  They are photographed straight off the needles and look rather weird without feet in them  I used plain stocking stitch for the foot part, to show off the colours of the yarn, but introduced four little cables into the double rib around the ankle, to make it more interesting.  I am very pleased with them.  The yarn is very soft , and should be hard-wearing too, as it's merino and nylon.  I have enough yarn left to make myself a pair of fingerless mitts, I think.  
 



I have also knitted another sock (only one so far) in Cygnet 4-ply yarn, in a lovely blue-purple colour. The pattern is a modification of Wendy Johnson's diagonal lace socks. 

I did at least manage to finish the first sock in time to show it to the recipient (by webcam) on Christmas Day.  I think I have mastered a good set of techniques for toe-up socks - magic cast on, short-row heel, 'surprisingly stretchy bind-off' - although I this was the first sock where I was happy with the look of the short-row heel.  So now I'm getting bored with knitting socks.  When I've finished the second diagonal lace sock, I'll knit something else for a while.


The hand-dyed socks were for my daughter, and we also sent her a Henderson's Relish t-shirt (black with an orange design, to match the labels on the bottles).  She has never tried Henderson's Relish, but she can relate to the slogan (Strong and Northern). 

By the way, we noticed Henderson's Relish on sale in Waitrose in Sheffield when we were there to buy Christmas food.  (For overseas readers, Waitrose is an upscale supermarket chain.)  According to the Henderson's web site, this is the only branch of Waitrose where you can buy Relish.  We were pleased to see that the locals had been stocking up on Henderson's for Christmas - the other sauces (Lea and Perrins, HP sauce and the rest) were untouched, but there was hardly any Henderson's left.