My sock needles have been incredibly busy these last months. With so many tempting patterns out there and a reasonably sized sock yarn stash at my disposal, it sometimes is just too hard to control myself and not cast on yet another pair.

Usually it also doesn’t help that there is a sock knit along going on on Ravelry. So for the March challenge I cast on two pairs of socks. The first one is the gray pair of Tintern Abbey’s (pictured above, excuse my white pre-summer legs) in drops Fabel yarn. One of the challenge themes for the month March was architecture inspired socks, and as the name already gives away these socks are inspired by Tintern Abbey in Wales. This was actually my first time ever knitting socks toe-up. It was all a bit fiddly and I re-started the first sock a couple of times. The pattern called for Sherman toes and heels, and although I stuck to the toe I changed the heel to a fish lip kiss heel. I like that the sock looks so simple with only the lace part at the top, this way it really resembles the arches of the abbey.

The second theme option for the knit along was nature inspired, so I went for the Storm pattern. I still had this yellow and gray Lana Grossa Meilenweit Bronx yarn lying around which is suited for a simple pattern. I aptly named my socks Thunderstorm and was happy to cast them on. Unfortunately the pattern gets very boring very fast (could’ve known that) and after finishing the first sock I realised I made a mistake in the pattern. Instead of two ribbed rounds after each cable round, I had only knit one, resulting in a different (less lovely) looking sock. But since the sock was already finished I decided to match the second sock. But it made me a lot less motivated to get these done and it was a lot of last minute work to still get them finished in time. In the end I am happy with how they turned out though, and the yellow is a nice addition to my hand knit sock drawer.

And last but not least, for this months sock challenge I will knit a pair of The Scent of Lavender socks in this super pretty Araucania Ranco Multy yarn. Whenever I pick up this skein I just start squishing it instead of casting on. But I will cast on soon (I promise) and I’ll pretend that all these socks are the only WIPs I have lying around (subtly hides huge pile of other WIPs).

First of all I’d like go give major thanks to the designer of the Botanical Creatures vs. The Undead pattern and making it available for free. It is such a fun pattern 🙂 I highly recommend everyone to give it a try, especially if you’re a plants vs zombies enthousiast.

The yarn I used for this is Schachenmayr Catania which is 100% cotton and available in so many lovely colours. The plants do stay up by themselves but I thought it’d be a cute touch to put them in pots. So I bought some small pots, put in some foam (the kind you get for flower arrangements) and put a metal wire through the plants to keep them in place. As for the pattern, these guys are pretty easy to make! Leafs, stems and heads are knit separately and attached in the end. Required knitting skills are knitting in the round and some basic stitches (k, p, kfb, k2tog and yo).  Add some stuffing and eyes et voilà!

Starting with the Beekeeper’s Quilt has been a goal for me for a while now, and I am proud to say that I’ve finally knit my first Hexipuff! Since my feet aren’t that big I usually end up with a lot of sock yarn leftovers. Some of it will be recombined and turned into a new sock, but most just ends up not being used. So I figured starting this quilt would be the perfect way to make good use of my leftovers.

But I wouldn’t be me if I wouldn’t use this as the perfect excuse to buy even more yarn. So a while ago I purchased these lovely, super squishy mini skeins on Etsy. It’s 31 mini skeins of 100% Merino and each is enough to make one hexipuff. I really fell in love with the colour palette and it should give me a great start to my very own Beekeeper’s Quilt.

The pattern to make a hexipuff is wonderfully easy, so it’s a good project for on the go. My first puff is finished, now what? I’m not quite sure yet how big I want my quilt to end up or where it will end up (debating between living room and bedroom right now). I’ve set a goal of 400 puffs and then I’ll see if I think it’s big enough already. I’m not in a particular hurry to have this finished, but it would be nice if I could finish a couple of puffs each month. My main goal is to end up with a big and colourful quilt, but looking at my sock yarn stash that shouldn’t be a problem either.