sock yarn on the left is by Caterpillargreen in the Concrete and Tulips colourway.
sock yarn on the right is by Turtlepurl yarn in the Trenchcoat colourway (previously known as Burberry I believe).
It would seem that I, along with every other sock knitter and knit blogger out there, have fallen hard for self striping sock yarns. Bonus points if the sock yarn has been hand dyed! I can't even imagine dyeing yarns this way. They are incredibly beautiful and lovely to knit with, but with every crisp colour shift I think to myself "my gawd! the work in this is off the charts!" Hats off to the clever and industrious hand dyers who are able to pull this off so beautifully, I don't think I have the precision for it. Which is totally cool by me because I'm happy to indulge in a little online yarn retail therapy once in a while and to support my fellow hand dyers!
Anyways, ok, so knitting with these yarns is so much fun. I've got several more skeins in my stash (I went on a bit of a tear a few months ago) and at the moment I intend to knit lots of simple striped socks. I'm knitting both of these pairs toe up. Though I usually prefer top down, I find it so much easier to plan colour placement and maximize yardage with toe up socks. But then there is that pesky heel! I turned the heel on the sock on the right first, and I opted to do the new Fish Lips Kiss Heel that I've been reading about all over. You can't see it in this photo, I'll show more detailed shots when the pair is finished, but I'm not crazy about it... It was easy and clever but for self striping sock yarn like this it leaves a weird line right across the center of the heel. Also, I definitely wish that I had worked the heel from the other end of my ball of yarn so as not to disrupt the perfect stripes that I had going on. Lesson learnt the hard way.
For the pair on the left I amended my heel knitting strategy and worked an afterthought heel so my stripes are absolutely perfect! Which really thrills me. I'm not usually so precise and have knit lots and lots of fraternal striped socks in the past and have lost absolutely no sleep over it, but for this pair I really wanted to aim high.
Isn't it funny how the sock on the right would be described as "mostly beige, white, black with a bit of red" and the sock on the left would be described as "multicoloured rainbow", yet it's the beige sock that stands out as the brighter and more vivid of the two? The rainbow stripes are so subtle and delicate. I love them both to pieces, though sadly, neither pair is for me.
Have you caught the self striping sock yarn bug?