We all have our little coping strategies, and shopping therapy is by no means a rarity. I also like to indulge myself when I’m feeling stressed, and hand dyed sock yarn is my guiltiest of pleasures. I think it’s fair to say that the final stages of a PhD is a stressful period, which might be somewhat reflected in the quantity of new yarns that have been entering my life.
Just to speak in my defence; it helps. It sounds absolutely silly, and many non-knitters will not understand buying yarn that you surely won’t be able to use up in the near future, but this makes me SO excited. When a pretty new skein comes in I squish it, I sniff it, I admire it, I dream about its possibilities. It makes me so happy!
This modest yarn mountain (let’s call it a small hill) is what has been added to my stash in the last 2 months or so. I’m completely driven by bright colours and pastels at the moment. Most of these will be socks (duh), but some of them are reserved for shawls or will even be incorporated in garments.
I’m also happy that these yarns are a lovely representation of what European indie dyers have to offer. On the top left we have a skein from Spectrum Fibre based in the UK (the neon might look familiar as I made a pair of socks from the same dyer earlier this year). Top right is a skein by Craftfulness, a dyer located in the North of the Netherlands. The two stunning skeins in the middle are from Baerenwolle from Germany, which is a yarn I’ve been dying to try for ages but I kept missing the shop updates. Bottom left is a skein I picked up when visiting Sticks and Cups in Utrecht and it’s one of the shops own dyed sock yarn. The YELLOW skein on the bottom right is by Cosmic Strings, and if that sounds familiar it might be because I knit a fantastic pair of socks out of their yarn last Summer. And then the two lovely minty green skeins are by another Dutch dyer called Zazu yarns.
To somewhat justify all of this I have been knitting a lot lately too! I cast on a Your Victory Jumper and am already working on the back panel. I do sense that I am in a very lazy knitting mood, which means I’m kind of half-reading the pattern/half improvising my way through this. It’s the first time I’m knitting a vintage pattern, which is only written for size 34. Instead of making calculations etc. I’m just doing things that kind of look like it will fit me. It’s such an odd way of making a garment but it doesn’t seem to bother me at all right now. Even if it wouldn’t fit in the end I don’t think I’d be devastated. For now I’m simply enjoying the process.
In addition I am of course working on another pair of socks. Yellow and purple is a combination that has a special place in my heart, so the contrasting in this sock is magical to me. The yarn is actually a really deep purple, but somehow wants to portray itself a bit more blueish on camera, so you’ll have to trust me on this one. The pattern is Girl on Fire by Cookie A.
So that is what I am up to at the moment. Is there anyone else out there that uses sock yarn to cope with stress?