Regina Socks

Over the last little while I’ve been busy with a few different projects. Just before Christmas I whipped up another Oxbow cardigan for my niece to match the one I made for my daughter in the fall.

After that, I patched up my Dad’s favourite merino wool hat he had gotten over 30 years ago in New Zealand. It had started to fray around the edges and was in desperate need of fixing so I said I would give it a go. It turned out to be a total can of worms and took much longer than I had anticipated. I used a couple different techniques including grafting but first had to weed out frayed and broken fibres which felt never ending. The more I would weed out the more would appear. Eventually, when I felt like the area wasn’t in terrible shape I reinforced the stitches around it, picked up the lower stitches and knit up until the hole was covered. Using Kitchener Stitch I grafted the old knitting and new knitting together. I grafted in a few other areas that were also in need of reinforcement. What a mess! I was able to patch it up best I could but let him know that the fibres were so brittle it might be best to say goodbye to his favourite hat.

Before starting the patch project I had purchased some Merino wool that looked similar to his hat with the intention of making him a new one if it went really down hill. Turns out he had already bought himself a new hat (before I’d started patching) so I decided to keep the yarn for myself and use it for a sock project instead.

I settled on the Regina Sock pattern by Cheryl Till on Ravelry. So far I’ve been really happy with this pattern and the way it’s working up. It’s a beautiful winding cable down the middle with wiggles on each side. I’ve played with cables before but never committed to a full cable project. I felt like socks was a good introduction and way to practice before getting myself into a much larger project.

The yarn I’m using is called Etrofil, Baby Marino (super fine), a 100% Organic Merino Superwash wool in a natural oaty colour with flecks of greyish purple. I purchased two skeins which is ideal for my pivot to socks since I like to knit two up when I can. So far I’ve really loved using this yarn but I’ve run into something I really don’t love with hand dyed yarn; one sock is nicely speckled and the other has tiger stripes.

To be honest, I’ve put a pause on this project (at turning the heel) because I really don’t love how the colour working up. I love the speckle sock but the tiger stripes… ugh. I don’t think there is any way to get around that unfortunately. If you have encountered this issue with hand dyed yarn and have a solution I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments!

For now I’ve set down this project and have started another WIP that I’ve been very excited to start and have loved working on so far. Stay tuned for that.

I’ll get back to these socks eventually and likely find beauty in the sister socks that have their own sense of identity!