Knit|tinK: A Witch’s House Socks
It took me quite a while to figure out what I wanted to knit with all the yarn samples I dyed on Dye Day #1, but it finally came to me in a semi-blinding flash: house socks. But not just any house socks. I wanted to knit a pair of house socks like I imagine Tiffany Aching or Nanny Ogg wearing—thick and warm, functional yet quirky. If you aren’t familiar with Tiffany Aching or Nanny Ogg, they are two characters from one of my favourite series of books ever in the history of the history: The Wee Free Men, A Hat Full of Sky, Wintersmith, and I Shall Wear Midnight—all by the amazing author Terry Pratchett. I will not wax on about the books here, but suffice it to say that they have depths, and although I do not call myself “witch”, if I were to be a witch, I’d want to be Tiffany Aching.
So. Socks. Here they are.
Knit toe-up using my trusty go-to sock knitting formula: Turkish cast-on, my super-easy-super-rounded toe, Cat Bordhi’s Sweet Tomato Heel, Techknitting’s ribbing transition row, and Elizabeth Zimmermann’s sewn bind off. I meant to do jogless stripes on these, but I totally forgot. Lol.
I went for a thicker stripe on these—8 rows. It not only had the look I wanted, but it meant weaving in fewer ends. I love stripes, but, man, I always forget how much I hate weaving in all those ends. I call this “stripe amnesia”. It gets me every time. 48 ends per pair, not including the toe and cuff. Oy!
But I really like how all of the hand dyed colours went together. I especially like how much greener the red onion yarn looks next to some of the other colours. Here’s the line-up:
Starting at the toe—
- Birch bark overdyed with yellow onion skins
- Osage orange FAIL overdyed with eucalyptus exhaust
- Annatto seed
- Eucalyptus
- Alkanet root
- Red onion skins
- Safflower exhaust
- Yellow onion skins
- Red onion skins exhaust
- Alkanet root
- Walnut creme overdyed with annatto
- Birch bark overdyed with yellow onion skins
- Eucalyptus
- Yellow onion skins
- Annatto seed
- Red onion skins
- Elm bark
- Safflower exhaust
- Red onion exhaust
- Osage orange FAIL overdyed with eucalyptus
- Alkanet root
- Eucalyptus
- Walnut creme overdyed with alkanet
- Birch bark overdyed with yellow onion skins
- Red onion skins
When I was knitting these, I thought that I would stitch felted soles on so that I could pad around the house without worrying about wearing holes in them. But when all was said and done, I decided that I’d like to be able to wear them in shoes, too. So I left the felted soles off for now. We’ll see if I change my mind. I loved knitting worsted weight socks. I love wearing them, too. Super ridiculously cozy and warm. Perfect for this cold weather. Glad I got them done before spring!
Live happy, dye happy! And knit happy, too!