Using Up The Scraps

I finished knitting  my Interlock Socks and am really happy with them.

And posted them on Ravelry.

And someone sent me a message saying they would love to test knit them. So I wrote up the pattern and posted it in the Free Pattern Testers forum. I now have half a dozen people testing my pattern and so far the feedback has been good :)

I went straight on to playing with my next idea. Colourwork socks with no stranding to use up those gorgeous scraps of sock yarn. I had great fun making up colour charts and decided to start with a relatively simple one as a test run to prove whether the technique works. And it does!

I wrote up the pattern after sock 1 and proof read/tested it on sock 2, incorporating the comments from my testers above where relevant.

I used Wollmeise Sockenwolle 80/20 Twin as my main colour for these, which is a relatively thick sock yarn and gave me a woman's M width (8") sock with the chosen test chart and needle size.

I am having another test run using thinner sock yarn and a different colourwork design to make a narrower sock.

I have just turned the heel on sock 1. I think I should have gone down a needle size too as I am a slightly loose knitter! These are coming out at about 7.5" width, which is fine for me but half an inch over size small. Once I have finished I will be able to work out the formula for the contrast colours yarn requirements fairly accurately and slot these in to my patterns.

My only problem now is that I am being tempted to break in to full skeins to get 'oddments' for the contrast colours :)