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chocolatetrudi over at Knitting and Chocolate had a wonderful idea; the Bust out of the Box Sock Challenge!

This is exactly what I need. I have loads of sock yarn and loads of sock patterns, but I often find myself floundering in a welter of indecision over what to make with all these wonderful yarns. It’s as if I’m waiting for the absolute perfect pattern for each yarn, which is silly. So this challenge is just perfect for me. My books, and therefore my rules, are a little different to chocolatetrudi’s. Let’s see…

Over the next six months, I will knit at least one pattern from each of the following sources:

• Knitting Vintage Socks
• Knitting on the Road
• More Sensational Knitted Socks
• An issue of Interweave Knits magazine
• An issue of Yarn magazine
• An issue of Magknits
• An issue of Knitty

And I plan to knit one pattern containing each of the following elements:

• Lace
• Cables
• Colourwork (fair isle or mosaic)
• Textured stitch pattern
• Toe-up construction
• Top-down construction

And to help me with the adventure, I have just taken delivery of some serious yarn porn.

That’s my order from Rohrspatz und Wollmeise. Yes, it’s German yarn porn. Let’s check out the close-ups:

That’s Brombeere. It’s a beautiful deep claret, with some variations in and out of other wine-dark shades. Gorgeous.

And this one is Krauterbeet.

This one is Suzanne. Isn’t she beautiful? She’s my favourite.

I also ordered some samples of other colours.

Left to right, they are:  Rhabarber, Turkis und Karneol, Dornroschen, Poison nr 5, Pfauegnauge and Gewitterhimmel.

The samples are worsted weight (10-ply) wool, and they are gorgeously soft and squishy. The sock yarn is also soft and lovely, dyed with unusual and gorgeous depth and saturation, and in lovely big hanks so I can knit big socks!

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some winding to do

I’m also hoping to be at the Bendigo sheep show tomorrow, bar ice and snow