There's only two weeks til the latest Troubleshooters book by Suzanne Brockmann is published and my Troubleshooters sock project is way way way behind where I'd hoped I'd be by this time. When I first decided on the idea and started making the Wildcard
Monkey socks at the end of last year, I stupidly thought that by the time Force of Nature hit the shelves, I'd have myself a drawer full of wonderful Troubleshooter character themed socks. Oh how little I knew. Between a lot of overtime at work in the leadup to the end of the semester and my laziness since I started having to use up my leave and ended up with weeks off I got further and further behind with the project and only managed to complete three pairs in a year (Wilcard's Monkey socks, Izzy's Shadow Rib socks and Kelly's Classy Slip Up pair). I have to admit, I was feeling pretty damned ashamed of myself for getting so lax with it.
So with the start of my annual reread of the Troubleshooters series with Julia, I decided to get my butt in gear and really start work on the TS sock project too. Of course, any excuse to shop for yarn is a good one and I put in a good few days hunting for yarn wherever I could find an online shop that sold the stuff and got myself a big stack of yarn to start working on things. Yesterday, when most of it had arrived, I had a lot of fun photographing and winding everything up into neat little centre-pull balls with my new-ish ballwinder.
For Cosmo (the next pair that's going to be made) - Titanium (silver for his eyes and pale pink for his softer side) Blue-Faced-Leicester sock yarn from
Natural Dye Studios, which is going to be turned into a pair of
Eagle's Flight socks.
For Sophia -
Mata Hari socks in the amazingly soft Posh Yarn Emily sock yarn in the Mystique colourway.
For Diego Nash - This pair have been planned for months now and still haven't made a move on starting the socks. For Nash it's Posh Yarn Emily in the Brooding colourway and to reflect his roving eye pre-Tess, a pattern called Wild Oats. This is one I'm designing myself (hopefully), but still haven't sat down to work out the exact logistics of the pattern.
For Molly - More Posh Yarn Emily sock yarn, this time in the very tropical Polynesia colourway. Still haven't decided which design to use, but definitely something with a tropical theme to match the colour and Molly's life in Indonesia.
For Savannah - Emily again (can you sense my love of this yarn? Just can't avoid buying it on Sundays), in the Savoir Faire colourway. Again no design in mind yet, but probably something lacy and very ladylike.
For Alyssa - Posh Yarn yet again, but not in Emily this time, Lucia instead, a finer yarn but equally as soft and beautiful to touch. The colourway for Alyssa is Truce, something she's had to do again and again with Sam. No pattern in mind yet, really have to do some more research on those before I run out of the socks I'm ready to go with immediately.
Sam and Max. For two of the most important figures in the Troubleshooters books I decided to do a little something different. When I bought my spinning wheel weeks back now I had the idea in mind to do some spinning for the TS socks, but until I actually started casting around on the web for roving to buy, I didn't actually have a concrete plan in place to spin for this pair's socks. A visit to the
Crown Mountains Farm website had the ideas for their socks in mind instantly. For Max there couldn't have been anything more fitting in my mind, than the Secret Agent Man Sockhop roving and for Sam, the man with an addiction to chocolate, the Chocolate Bar pencil roving. OF course, then I had to try and improve on my spinning skills before I let the two lots of roving anywhere near the spinning wheel. Didn't want to ruin something that was so perfectly fitting for what I had in mind for those two. It was only a few days ago that I actually trusted myself enough to make a start on spinning up Secret Agent Man for Max. Eventually the Secret Agent Man yarn is going to become a pair of Trek's
Blue Suede Socks, very fitting for an Elvis fan.
Sam's Chocolate Bar roving is still sitting in my storage tubs, but as soon as the Secret Agent Man is off of the bobbins, I'll push on with the Chocolate Bar. Can't wait to see how the two different sorts of roving differ in the actual spinning process.
Still to come in the mail (when they finish their damn strike and deliver everything I'm waiting for), I'll come even more ready for TS socks projects - a beautiful handdyed sock yarn in a colourway called Earthen (lovely terracotta tones) for Ibraham, Hot Red Regia Solid Colour for a pair of
Clessida Stockings for Joan Da Costa, and from Crown Mountain Farms, some Brown Eyed Girl roving from the same SockHop range as Max's Secret Agent Man, to be made into Cookie A's Thelonius sock pattern.
It hasn't all been merely planning the last couple of weeks though, just last night I finally finished off the first of the
Pomatomous socks (another Cookie A.) design, in White Oak Studio's TV Yarn, colourway Gilligan's Island. The colours were far brighter than I normally go for, but when you get as apt a match as Gilligan's Island yarn for a man whose nickname is Gilligan, you can't help but snatch it up and cast on.
Had a little trouble with the pattern at first, managing to mess up everything from the yarn overs to simply reading the stitch chart, but by the time I hit the foot everything was flowing pretty well, that was until I started panicking about the amount of yarn left over. By the time I grafted the toe shut I had about 3 grams left from the 50 gram skein. At least now that the first sock is finished, I should manage to finish the pair up pretty quickly. The second one always seems to get raced through faster.
Hasn't been all Brockmann, all the time, since the last post. Before I went into the mad rush to get the TS socks done as quickly as possible, I did manage to get in a little other spinning, and some other pairs of socks completed. The first attempt at spun yarn went to Anne for being brave enough to stand in the spinning shop with me while I was shown how to use the Ashford Traditional I'd decided on, and then braved more shops when we went to Enfield Town for a bit of a shopping spree afterwards. It wasn't a brilliant attempt, but the yarn was pretty well balanced. Had to be named Marshmallow considering the rovings I used for it and the fact that it ended up all pink and white and pretty damn fluffy.
The second attempt faired better, some Rocky Start merino from
Veda Bliss on Etsy. It spun up beautifully, drafting really easily for me, into something actually resembling sock yarn. Woohoo! Only problem is that after nearly two weeks of coming off of the bobbins, it's still sitting on my desk waiting for its bath. Whoops.
Since the last blog entry three pairs of finished socks have come off of the needles. Most recently a plain stocking stitch pair in some Opal Tester yarn I got off of Ebay early this year, which I don't have photos of yet since they were in the wash when I went snap happy last night. Before that a pair of plain stocking stitch ankle socks, a birthday gift for my mom's friend Mary, in yarn I dyed myself (Trekking undyed, dyed on the stove in a variety of KoolAid colours. The kitchen smelled like burned sugar for two days afterwards) and a pair of
KnitSpot Smokin' Socks in Cherry Tree Hill Supersock Solids, Slate colourway. The minty socks were the last photo I actually took with my old camera before a little trip to the ground at the staff ball put an end to it.
With my guilty sock conscious eased, it's back to the Third Watch videos and the second Gilligan sock.
Gina's Brown Eyed Girl
Gibbs' Silver Fox
