Socktober Once Again!

If you've looked at your calendar today, you should have noticed that it's Socktober!! (I know most calendars do not have it labeled correctly--let's work on that, shall we? Find your calendar. Grab a sharpie. Write a little vertical squiggle in front of "October" and it should now say, "SOctober." Problem solved. Well, unless you made your squiggle go the wrong way and then it will say, "ZOctober." I guess that would make it a German celebration of socks. In that case, problem zolved.)

Anyway, back to socks. Knitting a pair of socks would be the perfect fit for my current "knit small projects only" condition. I have selected a sock yarn from the stash:

(The name kind of looks German, doesn't it? "Jawoll." It might be, I suppose. The label says it was made in Italy for a company in Switzerland.) It is 75% wool and 25% nylon which means it should wear really well and last a long time. You can also see on the label that it is superwash. How convenient.

I purchased this ball at a yarn store in Bowling Green, KY, when we were there visiting friends last March. I searched out a yarn store and Troy and Isaac indulgently let me shop for a bit. They had a lot of nice stuff but this ball was the best thing that fell in the overlap of the categories of things I could afford, things I liked, and things I actually knew what I would do with. (And things I couldn't easily get at my LYS at home.) Now as I knit on these socks and eventually when I wear them, I will be reminded of the nice visit I had with my friends too. Like a memory book (scrap book) I can take with me.

But no wool is any good without a pattern to shape it. I have chosen Nutkin by Beth LaPensee. It is a very popular pattern on Ravelry and with good reason--I think it looks great!

I hope the colour changing properties of the wool don't overwhelm the stitch pattern. I looked up other projects using this combination of pattern and wool on Ravelry and many of them did not look great. But there weren't really good quality pictures in the batch so I am going to try it for myself and see what I get.

Automatic modification will be to work toe up and to start with a short row toe. I'm pretty sure I am going to mirror image the mock cables as well. Just not sure if I will mirror them within the sock (and thus each sock will be identical to its mate) or knit one sock according to the pattern and knit the second sock mirror imaged. So many choices...