Soft

The weather's been fairly soft lately. Soft rain, soft breezes and it's turning everything in the house (from cookies, to books, to hard wood) just as soft. Usually in Germany I can leave cookies out overnight for a couple of days and they might actually loose moisture. But last night I forgot the Swedish oat cookies on the counter and was faced this morning with IKEA's version of breakfast oatmeal with chocolate stripes.....


So it only seems appropriate that I grab the softest sock yarn known to man. I needed to break the sock curse that has haunted me for the past couple of months. First I tried 3 different socks in Neatby's book and none of them suited my style or taste of any yarn I could find and then I started a sock 3 times and knit forever each time to find out it didn't fit the size 12 foot I was knitting for. I'm blaming the yarn on that one.....

A couple of weeks back (when it was roaring hot and there was no rain in sight) I discovered that Regia started making its silk sock yarn with self-striping yarn. Yipppeeee!!!! I had like 3 seconds to pick a colour and I'm not sure I came out with the prettiest - means I have to go shopping again :) but I am in no way complaining. I cast this baby on yesterday and am already knitting the heel. I think that's a personal best. I got a Regia Silk leaflet with the sock ( I think it was a frequent-shopper freebie) and a cool new sock pattern. It goes something like this:
Row 1: K3, P1, K4
Row 2: K1, Cable 1 back, P1, K4
Row 3: K3, P1, K4
Row 2: K3, P1, Cable 1 back, K2

I like the way it gets the colours a bit mottled up and you still get the white spots mxed in, but it doesn't look like the conventional K1 white, K1 coloured which always looks weird when I knit it. We're giving it a 2 thumbs up (that's the royal "we", hehe) and can't wait to try it on my other striped yarns :)