Knitwear is a cool-weather thang.  It just is, by nature, by assumption.  It's now August, and I know the last thing on most people's minds is Christmas, Hanukkah, or anything 'holiday'.

Well, for most knitters, preparation for The Season started months ago.  Ramping up on general shop listings, creating seasonal items, and moving back over to heavier knits and warm cuddly things.  Yes.  Knitting in August.  Yes.  Knitting when it's 105F outside.  It really is a special kind of madness.

My family celebrates Chrismukkah (my mom's Jewish, my dad is secular Protestant), and I planned on creating stockings for a few couples.  I started about a month and a half ago on this stocking, and finally sat down and knit it out today.  It only took me about two hours, so I have no idea why I've put it off for so long.  But there you have it.

As you can see, I changed tension after the cuff.  I'm going to try fulling it a bit before I work on the embroidery (holly leaves and berries), but will have to rip it out, if it doesn't tighten up any more.  I love it and plan on starting the second in a few hours.

I posted awhile ago about knitting some socks for my MIL's birthday.  I finished them last week and presented them to the lovely lady earlier in the week!

Black alpaca Simple Luxury socks done!  I would have finished them earlier, but we've had so much going on that they just kept falling behind.  I'm so happy with them, though.  The yarn is probably the nicest alpaca I've knit with in awhile, and they're delightfully silky soft.

I planned on making a green pair next, but realized that my mother-in-law's birthday is at the beginning of next week.  She mentioned that she'd like a pair for that, so I need to get cracking on that.  I have some fun self-striping sock yarn that's got a lot of red in it that I plan on using.

Anyway, here's the long awaited black socks.  You can find them listed here, in my etsy shop.

A few weeks ago, I got notice that a bunch of yarn that was backordered was on its way to me.  I've been waiting and waiting and planning, and it still hasn't arrived.

I called and it turns out that it won't be shipped...and they haven't refunded my money.  I've spent several hours trying to rectify the situation, and it's pissing me off more and more.  I'm itching to knit more alpaca socks, but I'm tired of making them in blue!

I'd like to make a black pair, definitely, and maybe I'll start on a green pair for my brother for the holidays.  I'm craving alpaca and I can't have it.  I'm even shunning a lovely yak blend that I was itching to use.

Gah!  The frustration.

I usually read while I knit; and, last night, as I was finishing up another pair of Simple Luxury Alpaca socks for my shop, I glanced upon a post detailing the number of stitches (estimated) that someone had knit into a sweater.  As I read, I thought of all of the people who've asked 'why are these socks so expensive?', 'why are they so much more special than a machine made, $15 pair?', or other similar questions, and realized I've never actually written anything the minute details of what's in a pair of socks.  

For the following example, I'm going to use numbers from a large pair of socks from my Simple Luxury line.  Many people glance at them and consider only the design.  They're not very flashy, compared to many of my tabi and carry a heftier price tag; and, though they're made of higher-end fibers, that's not the only justification for the price.

What is then?  Well, each sock is made up of over seventeen thousand stitches.  Yes, that's 17.000 with 3 0's.  Each one of those stitches is slipped from needle to needle by hand, not whirled around the gears of a machine.  A pair of socks has over 34.000 stitches -- about twice what a proportionally- sized sweater (on larger needles with larger yarn, of course) uses.

As for yarn, these socks take a little over 1/4 of a mile of yarn.  

That's a lot of stitches!

Forgot to post this yesterday!  I'm feeling a bit of spring fever, but it seems like everyone else is, too.  My primary job is with a small company my husband and I own, and we've got a lot to do this week so I'll be taking it a bit easy on twiddletoes.

What I need to do this week:

• Finish sewing up all of the sock sleeves I cut and folded yesterday.
• Cut some travertine to use as sock risers for my pictures.
• Finish the pair of blue alpaca socks I'm working on.
• Start another pair of Simple Luxury Cashmere socks.
• Make another attempt at felting last week's experiment.
• Try to decide whether to order more alpaca for socks or to wait until sales pick up again.

My stashbusting has been going pretty well, but I've spent a lot of time knitting up my 'favorite' flavor.  It kinda defeats the purpose of clearing things out, so I'm going to spend this week working on using up some not-so-favorite yarns that I've been ignoring.  I don't have a ton of it, but it's just going to sit in my craft room closet unless I give it away or knit it up.  Since it's a washable wool blend, it's probably not a bad thing to knit for the shop.  

I'm currently working on a pair of cut-off gloves for my husband, but I hope to have them finished by the weekend.  I've got two balls of alpaca that I haven't been able to find a use for, so the gloves count as stashbusting, too. :)  Woohoo!  Progress.

Since I've been doing so well with the clearing out, I decided to place a big order of yarn.  I'm reaching the bottom of the barrel on my stock yarns and it's the slow season for my stuff, so I figured this was a good time to make a big order.  I ordered plenty of my stock yarn, but I'm going to be introducing some cotton blends (they're amazingly soft) that will be more suited to warm summers than my straight wool blends.  

I recently ordered a test run of tags from nuvonova, and have decided I absolutely love them.  They wash well, the colors are vivid, and the fabric is sturdy.  

I decided to invest in some tags after someone contacted me about a month ago, overjoyed he'd finally found my socks again.  Apparently, he'd lost my business card, couldn't remember my name, and had been searching and searching (good thing I moved in to internet sales!) and finally found me.  He said that the screenprinting I used to have done on the bottom had worn off, which made me start considering my tags.  

I did some shopping and was really glad to find someone that could make small batches without me having to invest in plates, use stock fonts, etc.  So now I have tags!  They're located on the outside of the cuff on the left foot of my tabi, only.  They're sewn on and and easily and safely be removed, but I'm excited about them.  (Excuse the scraps of thread that i didn't remove before I took the picture, please! :))