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.

Before posting my new goals on Monday, I thought I'd go over my list from last week and sketch out what I accomplished.

So:

• I posted DLS #2
• Planned for DLS #3, but I don't know if I'll have enough ready to post.
• Finished my first listing for my Simple Luxury Cashmere socks.
• Modified my sock bands for my Simple Luxury line.  Not only did I mod the alpaca bands, but I also created some for my cashmere socks, as well.
• Started the pair of alpaca socks, but am only about 1/4 of the way finished.  I should have them finished, if I don't get distracted, by Monday or Tuesday.  I bet I'll get distracted! :)
• I didn't even touch the Shop section of the website.  Didn't even take a peak.  Bad me.

Not on the list, but I did:

• Finally retimed my sewing machine and finish sewing up a batch of sock sleeves.
• Worked on an experiment that has proven to be mostly successful.
• Finally got around to ordering some new size 1 double pointed knitting needles that I've been really needing.

A new week, another Dirty Little Secret!  In January, I started matching colors, trying to find a color combination that made me sigh, and I found it.  The yarns arrived at the end of February, and can you guess the season they're for?

Pretty obvious, isn't it?  I've been thinking about Christmas for three months -- ya know, the time when most people are paying bills and trying to forget about the holidays?  That's me, always planning ahead.

The project is actually a personal project.  I'm planning on making Chrismukkah stockings for my brother and his partner and my mom and stepdad, this year.  If I have time, I'll squeeze in two more for my dad and stepmom.  

Got a dirty little secret you'd like to share?  Tell me about it here -- I'd love to feature other crafters and artists!

It's funny, I always think I've updated 'just the other day', and I'm always surprised to see it's been 4, 5, 10, however many days since I last posted.  Time flies when you're having fun, I guess!  So, as an effort to combat that, I'm going to start doing a few entries a week from preplanned series.  I started the Dirty Little Secrets entries last week, and I'm going to try and keep that up and also add a weekly goals entry.  

So, for this week's goals:

• Add this week's DLS entry.
• Plan for next week's DLS.
• Finish my first listing for a pair of Simply Luxury Cashmere socks
• Modify my sock bands for my Simple Luxury line (a line about ninjas just doesn't seem appropriate...)
• Start and finish a pair of Simple Luxury Alpaca socks to replace the ones that sold this weekend.
• Start redoing the 'shop' area on my website.

That all sounds doable, but we'll see how well I do!  I'm almost half way finished with the SL Cash socks, so I'm pretty sure I'll at least achieve that.

I went up to my craft room yesterday after snapping a few pictures for my newest listing, and decided to take a picture of a dirty little secret of mine.

So?, you might ask, 'It's a pile of remarkably well knit artisan tabi socks! What's so dirty about that?'  Well, if you look a bit closer, you'll see bits of yarn hanging from the socks.  Some of these socks have been listed in my shop for months, and I still haven't gotten around to weaving in the ends!

So that's my secret.  I hate finishing my socks.  As much as I love to knit them, weaving in the ends is a torment.  Something takes over my brain right as I'm finishing a pair that says 'Hey! here's another idea for some more socks!  If you start that pair, you won't need to weave in the ends on this pair!'

The only problem with that is, almost always, a pair will sell before I get around to finishing it, and I have to sit down at midnight to weave them in to get them out in the mail the following morning.  It should be the slow season for knitting, but I hope airing these dirty little secrets will give me enough accountability to take action.

I'm imagining knitting away all summer and having to weave in the ends of my entire inventory as winter orders start coming in.  AAAGH!

Share your dirty little secret with me here!

Yup, this is what I feel like right now.  The mail came today and I took delivery of a delicious 20 lb box of yarn.  It's the largest yarn order that I've made in some time, and I'm completely overwhelmed by the new colors and textures.  I'm so distracted that the 'chai latte' pair of tabi that I'm working on now are being sadly neglected.  I could have them finished in a few hours, if I didn't keep running upstairs to confirm color combinations.

I've got a bunch of new blues, a new purple, some eye scorching reds, and more black so that I can make more sizes of the most viewed item in my shop: Chrome and Black Tabi.

Hopefully, I'll be able to sit down tonight and crank out this current pair of socks.  I'm close to halfway finished, but the colors upstairs are calling!  I almost wish that the delivery had been slower!

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! :))

Last night I was doing some reading on the computer (and shopping, I'll admit it), and I flipped over to craftcult to check my evening's views.  I noticed that they'd made a significant jump, when I got the statsy email saying that I was on the front page!  My chrome and black tabi were the featured item.

Anyway, I thought I'd share.  I was pretty excited!  I got a tidy amount of hearts and a number of views.  Maybe next time I'll get on in the middle of the day! :)