of socks and tantrums

I have been knitting socks this autumn and I enjoyed it. I fell out of love with sock knitting after my year of socks in 2014 when I designed and knitted a pair of socks for every month of the year. I knitted the odd pair in the intervening years but never with much enthusiasm. Now though all my hand knitted socks are getting to a point where darning is no longer an option. I must have particularly rough feet because none of my knitted socks lasts very long. Maybe it is the permanently sticky floors that contribute to wear and tear. I don't wear slippers or shoes in the house (an odd British thing to do by the way, wearing shoes inside).

While procrastinating over some long overdue work, I perused yarn selling websites and discovered a new yarn, Rico Superba Vintage 4 ply. It is a beautiful yarn with a proper sheep wool smell, which I really love. I don't have a habit of sniffing socks but I do like to bury my nose in a ball of yarn. I bought two colour ways, pink mix and multicolour. I think the multicolour is my favourite.

I wanted a simple stitch pattern, and one that does not get lost in the busy yarn. I chose two sock patterns, both of which I had seen knitted up on a blog. If only I could remember which blog, then I could say thank you. The patterns are available on Ravelry and you can find them here and here. The names of the patterns are Vanilla Latte and Sugar Frost respectively. Neither stitch patterns are difficult to knit. A tired mind likes to be told when to knit and when to purl. It was plain sailing and on the whole, the socks came together quickly. The simple stitch pattern made it soothing but not dead boring. The trickiest part was the Kitchener stitch to close the toe bit. I cannot ever remember how to do this and need to follow an illustrated tutorial. I managed to get a PhD but I am unable to memorise a simple darning stitch. It is weird how our minds work, isn't it? 

The December light is not very good for indoor photos (gloomy, very gloomy, dark, repeat) but going outside to take photos is not appealing either.... the good news is that we can enjoy twinkly Christmas lights all the more when it is gloomy outside. On that note, I finally put a tree up in our living room. It is tall and slim, rather nice actually. This will come as a surprise to the children. I had a tantrum earlier in the week because they kept on badgering me about getting a tree and on Monday, I stormed off saying that I wouldn't get one. Of course I went out to buy one straightaway. I left it in the back garden and didn't tell the offspring because I  am mean-spirited woman. The offspring meanwhile setup a cheesy white tinsel Christmas tree on the living room windowsill, in silent protest. It is hideous. There was no mention of a tree for a few days but today, our Christmas tree stand-off is coming to an end. A Christmas truce of sorts. 

With that, I'll sign off for the day. Thanks for visiting. Have a good weekend x

P.S. Of course the tree lights are only partially working but Richard went to task with his soldering iron and fixed the thin copper wire. It may not last. A replacement is on the way. Until then, we are holding off decorating the tree.