yarny, socky goodness

I finished my first sock club socks (but not in sock club yarn)! Actually, I finished them last week, but didn't get around to taking photographs. (Also? Taking photographs of one's feet is kind of weird. I'll never get used to it.) They are Cookie A.'s Haleakala socks, in Handmaiden Casbah. (Handmaiden doesn't list their colourways on the label, sadly, so officially I have no idea, but I'm pretty sure it's "Glacier.") My usual go-to Addi 2.25mm metal DPNs. The actual socks are a little bit lighter, and more turquoise, than the picture. The dark turquoise vein in the skein didn't come through as much as I'd hoped, but I still love these. In fact, I am wearing them right now! They are soft and cushy.

A close-up of the cable pattern:


These were surprisingly quick to knit up, which is not what I can say for all of Cookie A.'s patterns. These took just under two weeks of reasonably-paced knitting (and I don't knit socks when I'm at home, ironically — I knit on the big blanket projects that don't travel well).

I'm knitting a lightweight spring cardigan right now, which should tide me over until the next sock club installment.

It's going to all small projects, all the time for the next little while. Due to the whole baby needing stuff (like, oh, furniture) thing, I am going to knit primarily from stash for the next little while — sock club, having been already paid for, counts as stash, damn it — and what I have in the stash is individual skeins of sock yarn. (Mostly because I never know how much yarn I will need for a given sweater, so I almost always buy yarn at the start of a sweater project. Sock yarn is much more transferable.) The exception, though, is this:


A good friend brought three skeins of gigantic wool back from Chile and gave it to me for my birthday a couple of years ago. I've put a skein of Socks That Rock lightweight next to it for comparison. It's really very lovely — so soft, and so thick that it's practically felted — but I have no idea what to do with it. I don't even know where to start. I mean, what size needles do I even try with this?


The labels don't have any gauge information. My own needle stash goes up to size #15 (10mm), and that's not going to be nearly enough. I think I used those for some superbulky yarn which, ironically, is about a quarter the width of this stuff. I really want to use this yarn, though. It's really soft, the perfect shade of grey — I think it would make a lovely throw. But how? And with what?