Socktober: Pair #1: Watermelon striped socks

Earlier this year I posted my friend Amy and I were having a text conversation about sock yarn and she sent me a picture of some watermelon striped socks, but was sad that she couldn't find the details of the dyer to get some for herself. So when I saw a photo on Facebook of indie dyer Young Yarns knitting a pair of watermelon striped socks I immediately emailed her to ask where she had got it from, who said it was from Hand Dyed by Kate, an indie dyer based in Wales. A few weeks later Amy received a ball of self-striping watermelon yarn for her birthday, which she rapidly turned into a pair of socks.



Amy's watermelon striped socks. Image copyright Amy H.

Adult socks don't generally take an entire ball of yarn (unless your feet are as large as my husband's, in which case a ball of yarn doesn't make a whole pair of socks), and most people who knit socks have a bag of oddments somewhere in their house. I've seen lots of projects that use sock yarn leftovers: mitred square blankets, linen stitch wraps, beekeepers quilts. But Amy went for sending the leftovers of the watermelon yarn back to me, so that I could make some super-cute watermelon striped socks for my daughter.

I cast the socks on enthusiastically while on a train journey, and rapidly reached the heel, then got distracted by other things. Last week in honour of Socktober I finally got back to them and finished the first one off in an hour or so - baby socks are quick! I made the leg a bit longer than I usually would so the 'seeds' didn't fall in the ribbing, but that should make the socks last a little bit longer. Annoyingly my first cast off round ate slightly into the next pink stripe, so I had to unravel the cast off and pull back a row before casting off again. But once done it looked lovely with its matching ball of yarn.

The second sock was much quicker, as I was determined not to abandon these socks this time, and I finished them on Saturday evening. I did have to do the heel a couple of times, and even in the final version it's still a row higher than the first one, but c'est le vie. Now my daughter has a lovely pair of stripy socks, and I'm very much looking forward to showing them off!

These watermelon socks are the first pair of several I hope to get finished during Socktober, and if there's time I'm going to try and knit a pair of Caoua Coffee's Leonore or Athos socks so I can join in with the Sock Knitters Anonymous group on Ravelry's challenge for October*, but we shall have to wait and see whether I actually get that far! Does anyone else have any Socktober plans?

*You have to be logged into Ravelry for this link to work. Joining is free and it is an excellent knitting and crocheting resource.