Pink silky socks

I think hand knitted socks are the best. They fit beautifully, they keep your feet warm and they have no seam, what's not to love! But quite often when I talk about woollen socks people look at me in horror and ask me: "Aren't woollen socks really scratchy?".

Well let me tell you this: no they aren't! Of course the question comes mostly from non-knitters who don't necessarily know that there are many different yarns out there, many of which are anything but scratchy. Think of cotton, bamboo or silk for example. But even wool can be lovely and soft and in my experience, sock wool is often blended with polyamide to give it a bit of stretch, reducing the potential for scratchiness at the same time. 

 I have just knitted myself a pair in Sublime's Cashmere Merino Silk DK. I've been working with this yarn on my rose jumper (which is still in progress!) and I have fallen in love with it. It is so lush and it has this gorgeous sheen to it. I had to stop myself from buying an endless stock of it for my stash.

I ordered the Jolley Hockey Socks pattern from Sublime as I'd never knitted socks in this weight of yarn before but I was really disappointed when it arrived as they recommend knitting the socks on the flat. To me that is just sacrilege! As mentioned above, one of the key advantages of hand knitted socks is that there is no seam but if you knit them on the flat, you end up with one big seam across the whole length of the sock. So I put my maths head on and worked out from the pattern how many stitches I needed at every stage to knit the socks in the round. And they turned out great!

If I ever win the lottery, I AM going to buy kilos of this yarn!