Tadpole Socks

I have finally finished a new project!  All of that travel time earlier this week certainly added up to a lot of knitting and ultimately, a beautiful new pair of socks!

The pattern is Tadpole by Jenna Swanson.  It was such a fun and quick pattern to knit.  I don't usually knit top-down socks because they frustrate me, but these pretty much flew by once I got to working on them.  The stitch pattern chart is only 10 rounds long and look so pretty (although not exactly like tadpoles).

The yarn is so beautiful and vibrant.  In fact, it is so vibrant that half the time I have tried to photograph it, it overwhelms my camera's sensors.  The red is particularly explosive as you can see above.  The yarn is Lang Yarns Jawoll Magic Degrade, a fingering weight 75% wool and 25% nylon.

My only huge complaints with the yarn is that it is a little too thin (not quite fingering) and single ply, making the resulting fabric a little thin.  It is also a little too scratchy for my tastes, at least for my feet.  Lastly, it was not designed to produce matching socks (not that I mind).

Aren't we so lucky to have access to such an amazing range of colors of yarn to choose from?

Speaking of color, the newest episode of Radiolab is about the science of color and it is one of their best episodes yet.  Did you know that butterflies see more colors than we do?  In fact, they see colors we cannot even imagine.  I won't ruin the surprise of which organism can see the most.

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend!

Lovely New Socks.

I have definitely been breaking my "only three projects at a time" rule lately.  I'm not sure why, but I have not had the attention span for the three half-finished sweaters hiding out in my closet and when I got some new yarn at Webs last week, I couldn't help it, I had to cast on for a new pair of socks.

Isn't it pretty? This is Lang Yarns Jawoll Magic Degrade, a 75% superwash wool, 25 nylon blend, fingering weight.  It is a lot like some of the other Lang Yarns products I have tried in the past, it is a little scratchy, the weight is a little funky, and the colors are simply delicious!  It will become more evident as I continue to knit up the socks and post more pictures, but this yarn has amazing long color repeats, and unlike in Noro yarns, all the colors actually match well.  This is actually how I've always imagined Knit Picks Chroma to be like (but perhaps Chroma is softer).

I picked out the pattern Tadpoles by Jenna Swanson, which is uncharacteristic for me because the pattern is a top-down construction.  But we all have to mix it up every once in a while to keep things exciting, right?