Socks on Ice

It's been a cold, wet weekend, well suited to being inside, knitting. The second glacier sock is past the ribbing and going quickly. It's been a long time since I knit a mostly stockinette sock and it's zipping along.

The pattern is the Gentleman's Plain Winter Sock from Knitting Vintage Socks. I really like the pattern. The Dutch heel isn't one I've used very much and the single purl stitch making the faux seam at the back is charming.

I am slightly concerned about the fit. The sockee has fairly wide feet, so I did fewer gusset decreases and worked a 66 stitch foot. They'll be snug, but I hope they'll work.

Happily I'm loving the yarn so much that I won't mind if I have to frog them and start again. It's Trekking Pro Natura, which is a wool/bamboo blend. The colour is a blueish gray, shifting between the two depending on the light. I'm not sure yet if there is a true repeat in the colour shift. I'm guessing that it's yarn dyed, unlike Trekking XXL which is dyed before it is plied and doesn't really repeat. However they do it, I lurve it. The colour shift is subtle in spots and quite sharp in others. It makes the most of the plain stockinette sections.

The glacier sock is another of my projects that seems to have named itself. I cast on for the first sock in the car between Edmonton and Jasper National Park on holiday earlier this month. I worked some early rounds near the foot of the Colombia Ice Field and photographed it on a chunk of ice below the Angel Glacier. Yes, that photo was taken in July.

I started another small project this weekend. The first in what I suspect will become a series of baby projects in the next few months as a whole bunch of our friends are expecting or have recently had babies. The hat you see here is a mash-up of a couple of patterns from Itty-Bitty Hats. Actually the hat you see here is the second attempt - the first one having been frogged owing to the double whammy of a gauge "hiccup" and my apparent inability to read simple instructions correctly. The yarn is Classic Wool and the red defies accurate photography. The mindless round and round soothes the mind. All good.