A little bit of yarn love goes a long way. I've realised that part of the pleasure of knitting these socks is seeing the colours change as the ball unravels, and in turn, the sock grows. The turquoise/grey/brown in the post below is colour 2715 in the
Schafpate 1 range by Opal. Of course I fell for the colours first and foremost (on
Florrie's blog, I might add) , and then I discovered there was a bonus. The yarn is spun from wool from the Schafpate rare breed german sheep, and its production is a local all-german affair, from the sheep that graze at Nature Preserve BiosphäreAlb in southern Germany, to the processing, spinning, and finally, dyeing. I'm all for supporting local enterprise and rare breed animals, and if I get some beautiful socks in the process, even better. I think colour 2715 is sold out....I've had a good uk online search, and managed to nab what may be the last balls. Maybe try your local yarn shop? Most of the other colours are still available - try
here and
here.
Schafpate 2 is widely available, but doesn't do it for me. All this talk of rare breed sheep made me think of
Tracy. Maybe one day we'll be able to get our sock yarn from Scotland!
On the left, colour 2716, and on the right colour 2717
My wee circular needle is a 20cm
addi turbo. I have several - 2.5mm, 3mm and 3.25mm. I like to be prepared for anything! They are notoriously difficult to get hold of -
Kangaroo has occasional stock (and many other lovely things to tempt you, too. Be patient, they're in the middle of moving to France). My dpns are
Knit Pro Symphonies - the strongest needles, with a perfect point to the tips and a just-slippery-enough surface. I get mine
here.
Right, back to those toe decreases...