Pattern: Popped by Hunter Hammersen (I’ll let ya’ll know when the pattern is out.)

This pattern is not super stretchy, so you’ll want to try a sock on after one leg chart repeat to make sure you can get it over your heel. Don’t try it on after just the cuff ribbing. That’s a rookie mistake…that I totally made.

Yarn: Knit Picks Stroll Tonal

These are mostly wool; I can block more room into them. (Please don’t point out that “That’ll block out.” is NOT the voice of reason)

Colorway: Spring

I’m not a huge fan of how this yarn feels, given that I like my socks on the softer side, but the colorway got A LOT of compliments and I do love it when people admire my knitting.

Needles: Started with 2.25mm Sig. Arts DPN’s but the yarn was 1% splitty, and the cuff was kind of big, so I switched to 2.0mm wooden needles.


This is where you realize why I don’t sound more worried. I have a plan.

I know a knitter who is the Jackie Chan of blocking. I knit fine looking socks, and sometimes they go off for a wee vacation and come back looking like movie stars…and if her blocking magic doesn’t fix these puppies, they’ll be sacrificed on the alter of the 100 sock challenge without a second thought because as I said, several people were admiring them.

Ya’ll know I love a Plan B.

While knitting green socks for Hunter Hammersen, there was a moment I fracking hated them. Not because the pattern is poorly written, but because I could NOT for the life of me remember the difference between a make one left and a make one right.

I see a \ on a chart and I immediately think ssk (you can draw an S out of a \). I see a / and immediately k2tog (you can draw a K out of a /, kind of).

I could not, for the life of me, see a y or a flipped y and think anything other than “crap, I have to look up the make ones again”…..and to be clear, I wasn’t having to look it up once a row. I was having to look it up for every. single. make one.

Finally, almost to the heel of the second sock I thought, “this is bat guano, there has to be a way to remember this” and I stopped knitting until I figured out the backwards y looks kind of like a B which tells me to pick up the ladder from the Back and knit through the front. (This is a M1R because the little line is off to the right.)


The y looks like a backwards F so I need to pick up the ladder from the Front and knit through the back. (This is a M1L because the little line is off to the left)

Then, I knit happily ever after.

I forced this yarn to stripe/bend to my will and I’m terribly pleased with these socks. But, they no longer make me think of Muppets and Rainbow Connections. Now, they make me think of lessons learned, how happy I am that the person they’re going to LOVES them, and the one time in my life people compared me to a saint.


Pattern: Vanessa antiopa Socks by Hunter Hammersen

Size: Medium

Yarn: Lorna’s Laces Solemate
When I hand washed/blocked these socks, they sank like rocks in water. I was surprised by this as my wool socks float. It seems that this yarn (55% superwash merino, 15% nylon, 30% viscose (rayon) fiber that interacts with your body’s microclimate to moderate temperature from being too hot or too cold) does not seem to have the water repelling properties of wool.
Colorway: Rainbow

Mods: The toes should have been all purled, but the giftee and I agreed that we prefer ribbed toes, so the toes match the cuff ribbing.

Needles: 2.5mm for the leg, 2.25mm for the foot


To see what other folks have finished, check out Tami’s Amis, Wisdom begins in Wonder, and Natural Suburbia.