I have a new favourite sock yarn: The Knittery Chubby Sock.

It’s cushy and soft and knits up beautifully. This was therapy knitting not just for the yarn, but I used my basic toe-up sock pattern and just added one easily managable cable. They match the Classic Slant Cardigan I knit way back before I had a blog, which is also dark green.

They were such a pleasure to knit, I’m going to rip out Firestarters and do something similar. Since the yarn is grey – called ‘smoke’ – I might do a rib pattern to go with the Ribbed Wrap Jacket I knit earlier this year.

What’s with the matchy-matchy? I dunno, but ever since I was a child there was something about having socks that matched something else I was wearing, even if you can’t see the socks, that really floats my boat.

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On Saturday I did my back in cleaning my old house ready for sale, and it’s taken days for it to heal up. I’ve been avoiding staying in any one position for too long as that seems to help. So lots of little tasks, or big ones broken into smaller ones, for me. Craftwise that means a little weaving, a little crochet, a little knitting, a little magazine reading, a little blog reading, a little Ravelry exploration, and a little shopping.

I ordered a bunch of stuff from Glenora Weaving and Wool. Some heavy duty warp cotton for rag rugs, some cotton for weaving tea towels, some shade cards for both, and the current and some back issues of Handwoven magazine.

I’ve also been flicking through issues of the latter I’ve already read. Every time I do, what I’ve learned through the internet or actually weaving makes the contents of the magazines suddenly seem new. A blanket project caught my eye:

I’d dismissed it before as too complicated, but on a second look I realised the method is simple. The colours are in the warp, but the weft is just the one dark colour. The weave structure is a variety of twills and basketweave, all done with 4 shafts.

It turns out that, thanks to Caroline’s bag of leftovers added to my leftovers and stash, I have a good range of colours in 8ply. All I need is a dark weft colour in enough quantity for a blanket.

But while I’ve decided to weave this blanket, I’m going to simplify the draft and make it all one simple twill. Not because I don’t think I can manage the patterns in the project, but because I’ve realised that I actually dislike the look of complexity in the blanket. The individual patterns are lovely, but get a bit lost en masse. My taste is a little more towards simple and geometric, though maybe there’ll come a day when I’d crave something more challenging.