New sock for September
Geeky Girls Knit
5th podiversary

Last week, I finished my most recent socks. The ends have not yet been woven in and I have not yet taken a picture so that will have to wait for another day.  But I picked my new sock project and got it started.  As it’s been awhile since I’ve mentioned here what I do, I’ll go into detail as to what I’ve done.  For the last 2-3 years, around October or November I sit down and pull all the sock patterns and single skein sock yarn, match them up together and kit them up.  The very first year, I pulled all my knit picks Felici. I was part of Knitting Expat’s Sock Clubs (she had 2 that year). So it was easy, every month she had a new sock pattern and I would pick one of my knit picks felici yarn and start knitting.  I still have Felici yarn in my stash. Then that October/November, I printed all my sock patterns that I hadn’t knitted, chose yarn to go with the pattern and stuck them in a project bag with a number.  That first year, I had 15.  At that point I had been purchasing or getting free downloads of sock patterns I loved and I wanted to knit them. It was a shame to keep them in my Ravelry library and never actually knit them. So I made my own little club.  Every month, I would ask Siri to pick a number from 1-15 and I would knit whatever it chose. I do not remember how many socks I knitted that year. While part of the Knitting Expat sock club, I challenged myself to knit each pair within the month so that I could stay on track with each pattern as they were released.  Most of the time I was able to stay on track. Every once in awhile I slipped.  But as long as I knit a few rows (at least 5 sometimes more) every day, then I was able to get the pair done each month.  When I started my own mini club I tried to stay within the monthly challenge. This ended fairly quickly mainly because I now have a ton of socks and not enough drawer space. I even sent a lot with my daughter when she went away to college.  Anyway, I don’t need 12 socks every year so I do not push myself to knit a pair a month.  I think 6 weeks is a good time frame. Any longer and I get bored.  At the end of that first year, I think I had 5 projects remaining from the 15.  Then last November I did the same thing, I still had the 5 projects from the previous year and somehow I had more patterns.  So I kitted up more and I started 2020 with 13 kitted sock projects.  Now I have 5 in my project bin. So I’ve got the 1 I started for September, the 1 I still have to weave the ends in so I must have finished 6. I’m pretty sure I didn’t take pictures of all of them and post it.  I will try to do that one of these days.

I’m currently formulating my plan for next year but I do not have as many sock patterns to knit in Ravelry like I’ve had in the past.  My LYS closed this year and I helped buy all their remaining sock books.  I am thinking about picking one of those books and working my way through it and I’ll probably do that until I’ve gone through all the books.  I’ll let you know what I end up deciding. The end of 2020 can’t come soon enough. I’m done with it. I’m hoping for a better end to the year along with a great 2021.

The socks I started last week are from the Geeky Girls Knit podcast. I haven’t watched it in awhile so I’m out of date with them. But when I was watching, they were a mother-daughter team. They were based in Edinburgh when I started watching them but then moved to the Pacific North West.  It’s been a few years since I got this kit and it was sitting waiting for me to get to it.  One of the reasons why I love doing my socks this way is because it means that I will knit the things I want to knit, even when I forget about it.

~Happy knitting to my knitter friends out there.

Melanie