FO: Imperator Curiosa

I admit it.  I picked this pattern for my A-Z of Rachel Coopey socks, just so I could make a Mad Max: Fury Road pun.

But it also gave me the chance to use this brilliant steampunk-coloured yarn called Mazikeen, which perfectly matches the Mad Max colour palate of sandy desert browns.  The shade was inspired by the character from Neil Gaiman’s Sandman books, but principally from that character’s appearance in the Lucifer tv show.  In amongst the browns are little flashes of olive green, grey and even the odd purple hint too.

As you may be able to guess, this colourway is from Third Vault Yarns.  It was originally done by Lola for a partnership with Rhapsodye yarns around Lucifer, but Lola has dyed a few more skeins for sale since.  The base is her Librarian sock – my favourite BFL/nylon mix.  I love it for socks for the way it takes the dye, gives crisp stitch definition and wears like iron.

The Curiosa pattern reminds me quite a bit of Alonzo.  It features some of Rachel Coopey’s trademark twisted stitch designs over long pattern repeats.  There are lots of angular lines weaving in ways that you don’t see in traditional cable patterns.  There were a lot of charts to follow, and remembering which chart to do in which order was a bit of a feat.  The pattern was originally released as an MKAL, so there are no pictures with the instructions to help either – you are knitting blind.

I have to confess, I was glad to finish knitting this pair of socks.  Although Lola’s dyeing is beautiful, the unremitting brown combined with the complicated pattern made these a bit of a chore to knit.

FO: Budleigh

Second in my Rachel Coopey A-Z of socks is Budleigh.

I love the mix here of the double cables with the snaking twisted stitches.  The double cables are offset, giving a lovely slanted effect.  And in one of the designer’s signature features, the socks are perfect mirrors of each other. They were very quick to knit too, with the first one taking just a week from start to finish.

The yarn is a skein I’ve had in stash for a while. It’s Artists Palette Smoothie Sock in a bright semi-solid pink. The yarn is a blend of 75% merino and 25% nylon. It’s incredibly soft and quite fine.  I’ve been worried that the high merino content might make them prone to wear and felting, but they’ve been holding up very well so far, and the cheerful colour is just the thing on a dull day.

FO: Alonzo

I’ve been enjoying my A-Z of shawls so much, I’ve decided to start one for socks as well.  But just to make things a little more challenging, I’m going to try to stick to patterns by one designer: Rachel Coopey.  Her sock patterns are beautifully written, a joy to knit and always very clever designs.  Looking at Ravelry, I’m good right up to until I get to Q, with a choice of patterns to make.  At the rate I knit socks, who knows – maybe she will have designed a pattern beginning with Q by the time I get there.

First up, is Alonzo, a beautifully textured pattern with Bavarian twisted stitches.  It’s just complex enough to keep you interested while you’re knitting, but without being so complex tht you can’t concentrate on anything else.  This is exactly the kind of knitting you can take out and about, or do while watching the television.

I love how the faux cables and twisted stitches build up the pattern, and how it grows and evolves.

It’s just such a shame that the dark winter days make it so difficult to properly photograph the colour of this yarn as well as I’d like.  It’s a rich, mallard green, called Apollo, with a beautiful intensity of colour.  It’s from a dyer called A Little Bit Sheepish, and is one of those skeins where the colour just called me from across the aisle at a yarn festival.  It’s a mix of 75% Bluefaced Leicester and 25% nylon.  The stitch definition is amazing, it takes dye beautifully, it has a generous 425 metres per 100g and it should make some hard-wearing socks.