A recent car trip allowed me to finish the gusset heel on my first 2023 Christmas Eve Cast On socks. Added some color to the rather brown and bland landscape of winter in Kansas.
I will plan to weigh my sock and my ball of yarn to find the total weight. I will pull out the yarn to find halfway and make two (hopefully) equal socks by weight. I don’t use this weight of yarn to make anything scrappy so using all of the yarn is preferable.
Goals: Finish this first sock by week end! Happy Knitting!!
I kinda forgot how fast sport weight yarn will go after working so many socks in fingering weight. I have already completed the first foot of my 2023 Christmas Eve Cast On Socks!
Bonus points for them matching my softest and most comfy emotional support leggings. For the socks I need to take some official measurements and then start working my go to gusset heel from Wendy B Johnson. Her patterns/blog are no longer available but you can find them using the Wayback internet thingy.
I don’t know who these socks will be for. They are thicker yarn and more like a boot sock but I am also making them to my measurements. Just flowing with the knitting and I will work out the rest later.
Happy Knitting!!
Continuing my New Year’s parade of FO, I humbly present my 2023 CozyKnitter Advent Socks!
Pattern: My own 72 stitch toe up vanilla sock “recipe” with afterthought heel
Yarn: CozyKnitter Bliss Sock in the 2023 Advent Skein
Needles: US 1s
Mods: I upped my stitch count to 72 from my usual 68 and that works great for the foot and leg. But my heels are baggy and I should have reduced their size by 4 stitches.
I used about 88 grams of yarn or 300 yards of yarn for these including the contrast and stripe. So these go farther up my leg than my KirbyWirby socks. I really enjoyed these socks as this dyer never disappoints. I will admit my old eyes had some problems with these subtle color changes.
I definitely have enough of this yarn for a full color repeat for a second pair of socks. I won’t use a contrast toe this time and I want to incorporate some sort of slipped stitch or contrast stitch in between the colors. And I fully understand that I may have trouble detecting those color changes in some cases. I really want to try but I may hate it and rip it back out. I reserve that right!
Happy Knitting!!
May I present my 2023 KirbyWirby Friends Advent Socks as a delightful FO! They are toasty my tootsies by a roaring fire.
Pattern: My own 72 stitch toe up vanilla sock “recipe” with afterthought heel
Yarn: KirbyWirby Old Faithful Sock in 2023 Friends Advent
Needles: US1s
Mods: I upped my stitch count from 68 to 72 and probably didn’t need to. There is very little negative ease and the heels came out loose/big. But they are serviceable enough.
These came out as ankle socks instead of calf high socks. Which is fine as it adds variety to my sock drawer. The finished object used 62 grams or 280 yards of this yarn kit. That is for both contrast color and self striping. I completely used up the contrast but I may 1.5 repeats of the stripes left? With how I wound my original skeins to be able to start with the same color I am left with one large-ish ball and two small balls.
I don’t think I will attempt to make another matching pair of socks. They would be VERY short. I might think about putting these in my scrap blanket or maybe a pair of mitts? I’ll let that idea marinate for awhile. For now I’m going to snuggle with my new socks!
Happy Knitting!!
I made it to Christmas Eve and all 24 stripes on each of my advent socks. I was smart and worked ahead and added the heels a few days before Christmas. Now they just need cuffs!
The KirbyWirby Friends Advent is on the left. I had the teensiest ball of the teal contrast left. So I unwound it, found both ends and doubled it over to find the middle. I wanted to take what scraps I had left and split them evenly across the two socks. The stripes on this dyer are smaller therefore resulted in shorter socks
The CozyKnitter 2023 advent is on the right. These produced much taller socks and more normal for my sock drawer. I have plenty of the cream contrast so I don’t need to split the remainder.
Due to how I chose to construct these, I will have a ton of ends to weave in. I’ll have to muster up a glass of wine and plow through those when my cuffs are done….
Happy Knitting!!
My Emotional Support Socks are finished and ready to be all cozy for Christmas!
Pattern: My own 68 stitch toe up vanilla sock “recipe”
Yarn: Agirlandherwool BFL Sock. This is the full skein that came with my 2020 advent calendar
Needles: US 2 (Flexi Flips)
Mods: None! Just cruised on the socks until I used up all the yarn
These socks fit like cozy gloves. I have been making my socks with 68 stitches for years now. I think between my feet changing and my gauge changing….I might be cruising for a 68 stitch toe and then a 72 stitch foot and leg. It’s a fine line as I still want negative ease but I also want the finished objects to wear well.
These socks are reasonably tall and used 90 grams of yarn which is 360 yards. It felt great to get this stash completely used up and out of my stash! Now I need to game plan my next pair of sock. I am thinking they will be for my Christmas Eve cast on…..
Happy Knitting!!
A little toasty update to my 2023 advent socks!
The pair on the left are my Cozy Knitter advent and are for sure coming out in a rainbow. Its beyond gorgeous but sometimes late in the evening the subtle fade is hard to detect. Still so happy with it and wouldn’t change a thing!
The pair on the right are my KirbyWirby advent and its Friends themed. These stripes are random but still cohesive. These stripes are smaller than the other advent and will result in shorter socks. And that’s okay, I’m fine with executing the dyers vision
I will try to sneak in one more update before Christmas on these. I’m so stoked to have two new socks for the season!
I am making decent enough progress on my purse knitting, which is my Emotional Support Socks. I was working on them and set them down to grab some water. Only to come back to find Duke using them as a pillow. I didn’t have the heart to move him.
I have this goal of getting these socks finished before the Christmas holiday. I am just ready to move on to another skein of pretty yarn. Maybe even something in a heavier weight like sport or DK?
But that probably means I need to keep the pup off them and they would get done faster! Happy Knitting!!
This photo is a few days old but I wanted to show off this gorgeous advent yarn. I think this is day 5? I have also increased both sets of socks from my standard 68 stitches to 72 stiches as my gauge has tightened a bit this year.
The pair on the left is the 2023 KirbyWirby advent skein that is Friends themed. Each day comes with a quote from a character that lines up with the shade. I find them exceptionally fun and its nice to have a chuckle every evening.
The pair on the right is the 2023 Coxy Knitter advent skein. This one has slightly thicker stripes even though I am using the same stitch count and the same size needles. I am betting these will be taller socks. The back to back greens did get my old eyes. I knit these at night and it can be hard to see when the new color starts. But I LOVE the project they are making.
Happy Knitting!!
Advent season is almost upon on us and it’s time to prep. After several years of trying different advents I have found that the 24 stripe sock skeins work best for me. I LOVE the mini skein advents but I struggle to use them and I have still have two full sets sitting in my stash.
This is KirbyWirby’s 2023 advent self striping sock. She chose a Friends theme this year and each stripe comes with a coordinating quote from a Friends character. I also opted to buy the coordinating mini for toes and heels.
I am working toe up vanilla socks with an afterthought heel. I got two heels knit up and on my 9 inch circulars. Now come December 1st, I am ready to work the first stripe. The dyer was super organized and marked where my skeins started in the sequence. I am starting on Day 11 instead of Day 1. No matter to me as I will still work all 24 stripes.
I wound up the yarn into two balls so I can work both socks. The smaller ball has two full repeats in it. The larger one must have an extra repeat? We will see when we get there!
P.S……I have two sock advents this year! Whoops 🙂
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