Yesterday I went to link the projects in the sidebar to the blog posts explaining what they were, but it turned out I had never written an entire blog post on the Socks For Others Club. So I’ll write one now.

Early this year I started reading posts on other knitting blogs about an idea called the Personal Sock Club. Knitters, frustrated with not getting into sock clubs (where yarn manufacturers or dyers send out a skein of sock yarn at regular intervals) and that they weren’t using up the sock yarn in their stash, decided to set up their own club. They packed their own yarn into bags or parcels, without or without a pattern, and selected one lucky-dip style at intervals.

I did the same, and flew through six pairs and the last of my ‘fancy’ (not plain Patonyle) sock yarn. I was keen to do it again, but I had one big problem.

I have too many pairs of handknit socks. So many, I’ve started a stockpile.

Somehow I came up with the idea of knitting socks for other people instead. I put the word out on my private LiveJournal, and within a day I not only had six people lined up, but a waiting list for the next round.

One of the amusing twists to this was that I had to then buy sock yarn. I wasn’t prepared to use the (old) Patonyle. It tended to go fuzzy and felty with wear. My very first pair of 4ply socks were still going strong, however, and they were knit from Opal yarn. So I did a bit of looking around on the internet and noted which yarn brands were observed to wash and wear very well, then bought colours that the recipients requested.

So far I have three out of the six pairs of socks knit. I’m running a bit behind on getting them knit by Christmas, but one pair is for a child so they’re fast to knit. (The other is for a man, so that may cancel out the advantage.) And I’m not knitting anything else at the moment.