Tuesday 19 June 2012

Sock yarn leftovers


I knit a lot of these! Whoever invented self striping yarn deserves a medal.  Sock yarn is (usually) 95% wool and 5% acrylic. It comes in 4ply or 6ply.  The 4ply is harder wearing. It washes well in a machine and some people even tumble dry their hand knitted socks (I don't tumble mine)


The teenager loves my socks but now he's a size 9 it takes much longer to knit him a pair.


These are my all time favourites.  I think they're about 3 years old now and still going strong.


A pair of adult socks takes about 80g of 4ply yarn (maybe more or maybe less depending on size) and comes in 50g or 100g balls depending on the brand.  So you can be left with a lot of wee balls with just a small amount of yarn.  I never throw out yarn so have a large bag of leftovers.


So I started knitting squares.  I cast on 28 stitches and in basket stitch (K4 P4) created reversible squares.  I stitch them together in 4s to make a larger square and then stitch together the larger squares.



This is the result so far.  When knitty people know you're using up sock yarn they give you their leftovers (knitters hate throwing out yarn!!)  And I've swapped a few as well just to get a variety of colours.  It's very satisfying knitting the wee squares as they can be done very quickly, they're portable so I take them on trains, in waiting rooms etc.  I've learned from past experience to finish off the ends as I'm going along and not wait until the end.  So far I've made around 80 squares and I'd guess the blanket is about 1/4 done.

But the best bit is that it's free to make :-)

5 comments:

  1. Love the socks...where can I buy the wool for the best frugal price and pattern please.

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  2. Every now and then Aldi and Lidl do sock yarn but if you search online for sock yarn some sites sell off their end of line stuff as they're always changing their colours. Opal and Regia 4 ply yarns are the best as they're really hard wearing so are frugal in the sense that they last for ages. My first pair are now about 8 years old and still worn regularly.

    Regia do a leaflet with the sock pattern which is free with the yarn. That's the pattern I use

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  3. Your sock blanket is looking very good! I like that it is different from the typical mitered square option. What size needles are you using?

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  4. For this scrappy afghan would you knitted worsted N.M.4

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