Sweet Dreams socks

Every year I go to a quilt festival in Malvern. Over the years I have perfected my strategy for seeing all the quilts, taking photographs of those that inspire me and browsing the stalls. So much so, that for the last few years I’ve managed to venture into Malvern early enough to visit some pretty special shops. The first I always visit is The Knitting Parlour on Graham Road. I love their window displays and their gorgeous yarn as well as beautiful fabric. On one visit a few years ago, one particular sock yarn caught my eye. It was the colour combination that appealed: mauve, red-violet, yellow, orange and pale blue. Somehow, even though I was in Malvern for a Quilt festival, I had bought sock yarn!

How I admired that colour combination! So much that I could not decide what to do with it. I didn’t want to knit plain socks, but it can be quite difficult to find a stitch pattern that works with a variegated yarn. I looked at the yarn and I looked at many patterns to no avail. Then one sleepless night, I started swatching and eventually I found some stitch patterns that didn’t disappear into the colours. This led to my design for the Sweet Dreams socks, which is not my first hand-knit design but is the first design that I am publishing.

The socks are knitted in the round from the top down. They start with an invisible cast-on followed by the garter stitch rib. The leg and instep are worked in a slip stitch cross pattern and the heel flap is decorated with a simple slip stitch. The socks are finished with wedge toes. Instructions are given for the invisible cast-on and for the Kitchener stitch which is used to finish the toe. The slip stitch crosses can be worked with or without a cable needle; instructions are given for both methods, as charts and in writing.

The original yarn was Regia Silk Colour (55% wool, 25% nylon, 20% silk) in shade 0188, Marokko. They have also been test-knitted in Regia Angora Merino (65% wool, 25% nylon, 10% angora), shade 07079, lilac, which is lovely and soft.

The instructions for Sweet Dreams socks are for two sizes (sock foot circumferences 18 and 21 to fit feet with circumferences of 21 and 24 cm).

The pattern is available written for knitting left-handed, as well as in the standard format for knitting right-handed.
A big thank you to MELee for excellent test knitting and Lucy HG for advice on pattern layout and design.
I hope you enjoy knitting Sweet Dreams socks as much as I did.