More Socks, Easy Greyhounds and Some Charity Makes

I love knitting socks - not sure if you are aware, but there you go!  I've almost finished my third pair of the year - which is pretty good considering how much sewing I do, so here is the second pair.

The pattern is my own 'go to' pattern, Billy Basic (free here on Ravelry).  Nice plain socks, 64st cast on, I can knit these in my sleep.  The pattern is not the story here though, it is the yarn, Regia Pairfect.

As far as texture is concerned, this is not the softest yarn I have knitted with, but that usually doesn't really mean much when it comes to comfort.  I have used Regia yarn before and it is lovely to wear and very hardwearing.  But look at those stripes!  I love knitting with self patterning/striping yarn, nice plain socks and let the yarn do all the talking.  I don't care whether the pattern matches up . . . . but I do with this.  The yarn is a 100gm ball with a yard or two of yellow yarn then the blue starts.  About halfway through the ball is more yellow yarn and then the blue again.  So the idea is that you cast on just after the yellow starts, rib the blue yarn, then start stocking stitch with the stripes.  As soon as the stripes run out you start the heel and finish off.  And voila - two matching socks with NO effort at all!

I love them.  It's not going to stop me knitting my usual mismatched socks - but I'll be buying more of this yarn, for sure!  More details here in my Ravelry project page.

I also fancied making something different, so I knit a lovely scarf/shawl out of some yarn that was dyed for me by Sockbunny as part of a swap a couple of years ago.  I said that as I live in land-locked Alberta I missed the sea (I was born on the coast) and I had two greyhounds, so the gorgeous colours that you see below were incorporated together to make this beautiful skein.

The pattern is called Easy and knits up very quickly.  It took me less than a week - evening knitting only, and what looks like a fold in the scarf above is actually part of the pattern and looks like you are knitting in a different direction!  It is actually crescent shaped so drapes beautifully around your shoulders.  More details here in my Ravelry project page.

Just to finish off I wanted to share some goodies that I made for Galgos Del Sol.  They work to rescue and re-home galgo dogs - Spanish racing dogs.  If you are interested, take a look at our Facebook page!

Phew, glad I'm getting all caught up!  That's the second bus just come along.  One more I think!