Sock Yarn Candy Again

Testing away in Hill Country Yarns Superfine Superwash sock yarn (4 oz, 550 yd) in Raspberry Sorbet. This yarn is nice! I thought it would be similar to the JKnits Light sock yarn I started swatching the test pattern with since JKnits is also 4 oz/550 yds. However, the HCY seems to be slightly more tightly spun.

Because I was freaking out over the gauge, I ended up knitting the test sock a little too tightly for me to get it over my heel after I knitted the gusset, so I finished it to fit Monkey1's foot length. She gave me a thumbs up on the color and the feel of the sock, so how could I resist my kid asking for one my handknit items? Of course, I still need to knit the other sock. And I'll probably make another pair for me in the JKnits I started with, but I'm waiting to see if the designer will be tweaking the pattern or not.

Did I mention I am a lemming? After seeing Glampyre, the Yarn Harlot, and Cookie A extol the virtues of Dream in Color yarn, especially Cookie on the Smooshy sock yarn, I had to order a couple. Since there are no California vendors (gasp!) and being lazy on the google-fu, I e-mailed Dream In Color who recommended one of their vendors who would be willing to take phone orders (String Theory Yarn in Glen Ellyn, IL). (Of course, they're now available at Simply Sock Yarn Co.) I ended up with their Smooshy sock yarn in Cloud Jungle & Cocoa Kiss. I love Cloud Jungle in that STR Lunasea way and Cocoa Kiss, while much darker & grayer than I had anticipated, is still lovely to me, especially since the cool dark brown/charcoal section of my color palette is severely lacking in my sock yarn stash.

I don't have much in the cool dark brown/charcoal section in my entire stash either, despite a bunch of little trips to a lys closing sale (Creative Accents in San Leandro closed last Sat :( ). I did get some browns; they're just in the warmer & lighter end of the spectrum. No stash pics of those buys since they're mostly solid colors (and the pros like Cara & Brooklyn Tweed take so much more drool-worthy pics anyway). I do need to ease up on the sock knitting and get back to my non-sock knitting since I bought enough for a sweater each for the monkeys and me, not to mention a few balls of frou-frou Crystal Palace yarns for gift scarves. Hard to beat the 70% mark down on novelty yarns (the rest were around 50%).