One Pattern, Three Yarns

On a recent trip to Williamsburg, I stopped by my favorite yarn shop, the Knitting Sisters, to buy some yarn. The Knitting Sisters stock a large variety of yarns and it usually takes at least 30 minutes for Brittany and me to browse through the entire store and make my selection. My husband joined us to escape the afternoon heat and the Knitting Sisters invited him to sit in the comfy, over stuffed "husband chair" in the corner of the store. This chair was placed there so that men would have a place to sit while their wives shopped for yarn.

I found a copy of the newly released Sockupied by Anne Merrow. The book contains "20 Knit Projects to Satisfy your Sock Obsession" and after browsing through the book I wanted to knit most of them. Besides the patterns the book has a lot of useful information on sock construction-like stranded color knitting, cast-ons, and sock conversions and flipping stitch patterns when converting from toe-up to top-down knitting. My copy of Sockupied in hand, I went off searching for yarns. I found Crazy foot by Mountain Colors in Sun River color, Tosh Sock in Fathom (deep blue) and Vishnu (blue and purple), Malbrigo Sock in Impressionist Sky (deep blue similar to the blue in Van Gogh's Starry Night), String Theory Bluestocking Blue Faced Leicester in Laguna, and String Theory Caper Sock-a merino/cashmere blend in Cobalt.

 I couldn't wait to start knitting one of the patterns in Sockupied so I chose Cookie A.'s Passerine pattern and Dream In Color Smooshy in Dusky Aurora. The pattern is easy to knit and it knits up quickly even on size 1 needles. I really like the finished result. I like the three dimensional design and the way the sock fits, especially with my clogs. In fact I liked the pattern so much that I decided to knit two more pairs of socks in different yarns for Christmas gifts. The first pair was knit in Dream In Color Everlasting in Galaxy and Malbrigo Sock in Tinzano Red.

Bottom: Dream In Color Everlasting; Middle: Malbrigo Sock; Top: Dream In Color Smooshy

Passerine Pattern knit in Smooshy.

Close-up of Passerine Pattern.




So which yarn is my favorite? It's hard to pick one because each yarn has it's own attributes. Smooshy is thicker than the other two yarns and feels cushy. The thickness of the yarn shows off the three dimensional effect of the pattern. Everlasting is not as thick as Smooshy so the three dimensional effect of the stitches is more subtle. The variegated deep purples of the Galaxy color give the sock a rich sheen. The Malbrigo yarn is so soft and joy to work with. The yarn is thinner than the other two and the lace pattern of Passerine is more pronounced, when stretched on the foot.