Another Good Turn

Remember the Marshlands Lace Rib socks I knit, intending them for myself but realizing after they were done that they were better suited to my sister? I shipped them off to her in New Orleans, and despite the fact that temperatures there were on the verge of rocketing out of the comfort range for closed-toe shoes and wool socks, she's gotten some good wear out of them.  

In a funny twist of fate, she found herself in a similar situation. This time it was me who lucked out because these beauties

arrived in my mailbox as a result!

On April 2, as she had just finished the toes of her April challenge socks, Beth called me to talk about my toe-up adaptation of Cookie A's Monkey pattern, which she intended to use. You'll note from the picture that these are not Monkey socks. We talked about the decorative stitch and the particular qualities of her yarn for awhile, and she decided to switch to the decorative stitch used by Christine Walker in her Zigzag socks (published in Vogue Knitting: The Ultimate Sock Book). It's a lovely pattern -- wonderful stitch movement but very light, without the usual density of cables.

Three days later I received the following text:

"I'll be sending u the socks I'm making now. Seem too small for me. Funny. The yarn is better suited for u anyway."

And she's right. The yarn is better suited for me. What's funny is that I never would have selected it myself if I were treasure hunting at the yarn store, but the finished socks undeniably look more like something I would wear than she would. 

It's a Brown Sheep Lamb's Pride Superwash in sport weight.  The colorway, SWS162 Green Envy, inspired her to name the socks Jealous Zigzag -- which I love! (Before I knew the name of the colorway, I thought she called them that because she was jealous they ended up being more right for me than for her -- which is, admittedly, how I felt about sending off the Marshlands.)

You'd think that a yarn called Green Envy would be more . . . green. This yarn is a mix of very pale green and very pale lavender -- and the effect, overall, in the finished socks is silvery. But it's not flat color. It's very, very cool.

She worked the entire day after sending that text. And just five days after casting on had the socks off the needles and blocked. What's more, she had them in the mail the next day! I don't know about you, but it can take me weeks to package up an item and actually deliver it to the post office. She'll deny being an over-achiever, but I can't think of what else to call it! 

Best of all, these are the mushiest, softest, most deliciously wearable socks. They spent the entire last weekend on my feet. I have declared them the best jeans socks ever. Honest to goodness!

And having shared my adoration of them with Beth, I'm pretty sure she actually is jealous now.

I need to reevaluate my sock yarn purchasing choices. Left to my own devices, I wouldn't have had a clue how wonderful this Brown Sheep yarn is.

Ravelers can link to the project page here.