It all started because my boyfriend and I both have a thing for watermelons. Almost two years ago, I bought some superwash fiber in a very clever configuration, where you could split it down the middle and have two identical pieces of roving.. Yes, you read that right, this is a post that was years in the making. And somehow, I feel like I need to do it justice, (which means I’m completely tongue-tied, naturally.) Anyway. Heather, the lovely genius behind Mad Color Fiber Arts, dyes beautiful roving that looks like other things. (she had some in all the colors of a Blue Tang that still occasionally keeps me up at night.) But the one that immediately stole my heart was one that looked like a yummy slice of watermelon translated into wool. I snatched it up like a greedy child stealing sweets. Also, she was super nice and sweet, and that’s one of the easiest ways to get me to buy things from you. So I turned that into yarn..
Two skeins of nearly matching chain plied sock yarn, but then they just had to sit for a while. I don’t like to use my handspun yarn right away. It makes me nervous. I like to set it on a shelf and walk by and smoosh it occasionally, until I figure out what it wants to be. I feel like I’m not alone in this, handspun is too precious to waste on any project other than the perfect one. So they went into hibernation. Greg also may have threatened to steal the socks I made even if they didn’t fit him, but I told him that he’d have to pry them out of my cold, dead hands.
A good long while afterwards, I was engaged in one of my hobbies. I call this one “trying to convince Greg that knitting is actually cool.” He likes to tease me by begging me to just accept that I am extremely dorky. I accepted that long since, but his counterpoint when I say knitting is cool is that doing anything as much as I knit makes you a geek. Even if it’s. breakdancing or flying fighter jets. Anyway, I was once again engaged in this most noble of pursuits, and this time I was showing him the yarny stylings of Yarn Enabler. Her stuff is way cool, her biggest claim to fame being that she makes sock yarn that knits up to look like other stuff. Like blue ones with rainbow toes, strawberries.. or watermelons. When Greg saw those, he lost his freaking mind. He had to have them. He made grabby hands at the screen. Any yarn thing that produces that kind of reaction in Greg (who is knit friendly but definitely in no way obsessed) is sure to be a present for him sooner rather than later. So I sneakily ordered the yarn (as well as some for myself too. If you’re paying for postage from Canada anyway..)
Those socks were my traveling companions for months. They were just way too fun. The yarn itself was gorgeous, smooshy and soft and tightly plied, and I knit on them constantly. On the subway, on the bus, during my lunch break, these socks really got around! They were finished pretty quickly too. Greg has smallish feet, and he doesn’t like his socks super tall. So before long they were finished. (we will ignore the part where I let them sit around for several weeks when all they needed was a bind-off, because I hate doing stretchy bind-offs.)
And then, well, I started feeling envious. Greg’s watermelon socks were super cool.. So I started knitting some of my own! My handspun sock yarn was considerably thicker than the commercial yarn for his socks, more like a sport/DK weight. so I cast on..
And I had a finished pair of socks in nine days!!! It would’ve been a week if I hadn’t made them way too big at first and needed to rip back. They’re still by far the fastest pair of socks I’ve ever made. It felt like they took longer to dry after blocking than to knit. So now? Finished semi-matching socks!
I know that there’s a completely gratuitous number of pictures in this post, but I’m really quite proud of these. That’s a lot of time and effort wrapped up in those two pairs of socks!
And maybe the best part? I asked Greg if we could take a picture of our feet next to each other in their matching socks, and he thought it was a great idea! He’s usually anti matching because it’s too cutesy, (although we do both have purple jeans that we sometimes accidentally wear on the same day) but matching watermelon socks are so seriously awesome that they’re immune to his hate of matching. Woooo! He loves them and I love mine too. One pair closer to wearing only hand knit socks during the winter.
