2015 Indie Gift A Long

I’m so exciting to be participating as a designer in this year’s Indie GAL! What is the Indie GAL? Here is a quote from the front page:

The Indie Design Gift-A-Long is a 6 week long KAL/CAL of holiday gifts made from patterns designed by a rather extensive list of independent designers. From Thursday, November 19th at 8:00 pm US EST - Friday, November 27, 2015 at 11:59 pm US EST tons of indie designers will be discounting between 5 - 20 of their patterns 25% for this event.Use coupon code: giftalong2015.

There are KAL’s and CAL’s in the Indie GAL group that include lot’s of great prizes. I hope that you have a chance to check it out and participate. There are over 300 designers that are in the GAL this year so there are lot’s of fab patterns to choose from.

If you would like to knit one of my patterns for the GAL, here is a list of the one’s that are included in the 25% off sale using coupon code giftalong2015 beginning on November 19 and running through November 27.  If you would prefer to see them all at one time, click on this link to go to the bundle on Ravelry: GAL Patterns

Shark Bite

Stash Bash

Intersect

Sundance

Sugardance

Mother of Dragons

Spark

Eclipse

Frost Bite

Catching Katniss

Heat Lightning

The Outer Limits

Babalicious

The Lakes Cowl Collection

Lartha

Iridill

Untangling

Also included is my latest release Illumination

Knitscene

Photo credit: Knitscene/Harper Point Photography

It's been a dream of mine to have one of my designs published in a magazine and I am elated that it's become a reality.  In January I submitted my Hotpoint sock design to Knitscene and it was accepted for the Winter 2015 issue.  It's just hit the newsstand and if you haven't already gotten your copy, be sure to check it out.  

Photo credit: Knitscene/Harper Point Photography

Photo credit: Knitscene/Harper Point Photography

There are so many pretty designs in this issue.  Two of my favorites are the Trapunto Vest by Katya Frankel and the Chamei Pullover by Bristol Ivy.  I think I have some yarn in my stash that would be perfect for the vest and the sweater is just screaming for me to do a little retail therapy so I can knit that as well. 

Trapunto Vest

by Katya Frankel

Photo credit: Knitscene/Harper Point Photography

Chamei Pullover

by Bristol Ivy

Photo credit: Knitscene/Harper Point Photography

A long, boring, personal post

Sorry I have been absent for the last few weeks.  I've wanted to write a post and there has been so much going on in my personal life, that I just didn't know what to say and I felt like I had a bit of writers block.  Just before we left for our beach vacation, the company that Andy had been working at for the past ten years was abruptly sold.  We were very grateful that Andy would keep his job, but things were still in a state of flux.  After much thought and discussion, he decided to accept an offer from a new company that is coming to our area.  We are both really excited about his new position and I'm very relieved that some of the stress that has been in our lives will hopefully be lessened.

Around the same time of the job upheaval, we found out that a family member has skin cancer.  Since this person didn't want other family members to know, I'm not going to say who they are.  It's been a battle to get them to agree to see the doctor, and then to let the doctor do a full examination. Fortunately, the first biopsy revealed that the area is not melanoma and is a more successfully treatable form of sarcoma.  Please, get your skin checked every year by a dermatologist. Your skin is the largest organ on your body and if anything is found early, it is much more treatable.

I haven't been doing as much designing as I normally do this summer.  I have knitted several pairs of stockinette socks, which are one of my favorite things to knit. These are from a Gales Art stenciled sock black that I picked up at MDSW this year.  The color is "The Big O".  I love how they turned out and they colors are nice and cheerful.

My current stockinette sock project is with yarn from Neely's Knits. The colorway is "Thing 1 and Thing 2". I had to make a bag just for these socks!  I love the Cat in the Hat and the Things.

I also cast on for the Solitude Jacket that is in the Knitscene Fall 2015 issue.  I'm using Malabrigo Worsted in the Apple Green colorway.  It's quite a bit brighter than the picture is showing and looks just like a Granny Smith apple.  I haven't knitted a sweater in over a year, and I'm really enjoying the process.

What do you have on your needles this summer?

Shark Bite

Use coupon code: Amity for $2.00 off until July 5th. Don’t get caught with your socks in the water and have a Happy 4th of July!

Introducing Shark Bite! I cannot describe how much fun these socks were to design and knit!  JAWS is one of my all time favorite movies.  Just hearing the first note from the theme makes the hair raise up on the back of my neck.  I've been fascinated with sharks, particularly Great Whites, since I was kid.  When Shark Week starts, you are most likely to find me glued to the tv with my knitting.   

The Shark Bite socks were inspired by one of my all time favorite movies, JAWS. It’s a tradition for my husband and I to have a JAWS movie marathon over the 4th of July weekend every year. We hunker down in our den and watch the movies from beginning to end. 2015 is the 40th Anniversary of the original JAWS movie and I thought it was an appropriate time to design a pattern in homage to the movie.

Shark Bite is written from the cuff down. The cuff and leg portion of the socks are worked in the flat, and the joined at the ankle. The heel, foot and toe are worked in the round.

If you aren’t familiar with knitting colorwork, links to tutorials are provided in the pattern. While the colorwork details might look difficult to knit, they are really only over a small portion of the sock and some of them, like the swimmer and sharks teeth can be done in duplicate stitch once you are finished knitting.

The sample was was worked using KnitPicks Stroll unless otherwise noted. This is a perfect project to use mini skeins and left over yarn for the smaller details.

Color A: White 15 yards 
Color B: Blue Yonder 150 yards 
Color C: Black 50 yards 
Color D: Unplanned Peacock Peacock Sock, in Sun 5 yards 
Color E: Cork 10 yards, 
Color F: Thunderhead 345 yards

A very special thank you goes to Margi, whose help with test knitting and finding the links to the tutorials is so much appreciated!

da da, da da, Da Da, DA DA DA DA DA

A New Sock Pattern and Spoiler Alert

One of the things I love about working with variegated yarns is finding a stitch pattern that really shows off the colors in the yarn.  It can be a bit of a challenge sometimes, but it's something that I greatly enjoy.  Miss Babs is continually coming up with amazing hand painted colorways that catch my eye.  One of them was a one of a kind Babette in Yummy 2 Ply that I knew would be perfect for a pair of cabled socks.  I wanted something with a bit more interest then a plain cable and added a bit of lace to it.  It's one of those stitch patterns that is easy to knit and easy to remember.  I normally don't work on cables or lace while riding in the car because I tend to get motion sick if I have to read anything, but because these were so easy to knit these socks were the exception. I'm really excited to bring you Lartha and here is a little bit of background on the pattern and the name:

Several years ago Martha Stewart tweeted about how often her horses needed new shoes and I jokingly tweeted back to her that I didn’t see that as a problem because who doesn’t love new shoes, right? Well, she replied to my tweet and since then I joke that she and I are besties and our celebrity couple name is Lartha.

Maybe someday I will get to meet Martha in person and can give her a pair of Lartha Socks that I knitted just for her.

Lartha is a cuff down sock with an easy to knit lace and cable repeat that is given in both written and charted instructions. A modified modified short row heel adds a bit of interest while being simple to knit. These socks look great in both variegated and solid yarns.

The sample in the photos was knitted using Miss Babs Yummy 2 Ply in a one of a kind Babette. If you would like to use a similar colorwayPerfectly Wreckless or Soul Food would be great choices. Seriously though, any of the colorways that Miss Babs dyes would be fantastic with this pattern!

Lartha is introductory priced on Ravelry at $4.50 until June 15

Spoiler Alert!

Photo is © Miss Babs

If you are in the Miss Babs Knitting Tour and don't want a spoiler, please don't click on the link below.

I'm so, so excited that the Miss Babs Knitting Tour pattern has been added to Ravelry.   This was one of the most fun patterns that I have worked on and the yarn is fantastic!  I'm really trying not to give anything away so I'm not saying much right now.  If you would like to check it out and see what it is along with pictures click on this link:  Miss Babs Knitting Tour

If you weren't in the tour the pattern will be available for purchase sometime in December.  

Winter is Here

Never mind that Winter is Coming, it's here!  The temperatures have been well below normal here for the past week, dipping well down into the single digits.  It was only 2 degrees here yesterday morning and barely got into the double digits.  I had all the intentions of blogging yesterday afternoon only to discover that we had a frozen pipe.  I spent a large part of the afternoon thawing the pipe with a heating pad and a blow dryer.  This doesn't sound really awful and normally I don't think it would be, but the pipe happened to be in between a wall in our basement and the foundation in a spot that I could barely squeeze through.  While I was squeezing in and out of this tiny space I noticed that where the main power to the house comes in had a large hole and was letting cold air in. No wonder the pipe had frozen!  I plugged it up with insulation and then insulated the pipes with pipe insulation.  So far it seems to be working. 

This was the spot that I squeezed into and yes, I was terrified I would either get wedged in there or attacked by spiders the entire time!

Because there was exposed insulation and god knows what else, I dressed properly for the occasion:

Now, onto some fun and much happier stuff!  

Last month Verity from Truly Hooked contacted me to see if I would be interested in having my Wentletrap pattern included in her sock club!  The mail has been really slow here and I sometimes wonder if our mailman likes to keep the yarn packages for a bit before delivering them.  After all,  they are really soft and squishy and hard to resist!  I can't tell you how delighted I was when I opened the lovely lavender package that contained Verity's yarn!  The colors are bright and cheerful, just the thing for the middle of a dreary winters day.  The yarn base is an 80/10/10 Superwash Merino/Nylon/Cashmere with just the right amount of twist to work well for socks, and soft enough for me to just want to wrap the skein around my neck and dance around the house for a bit.

As well as being a fantastic indie dyer, Verity also just recently had one of her crochet designs published in Inside Crochet. Verity also has a group on Ravelry and there are quite a few Wentletraps knit up in this colorway.  It's called Quirky, which suits it's cheerful colors perfectly.  Here is a link to this months yarn club: TruelyHooked

Here are Verity's Wentletraps in Quirky.  Don't they look like happy socks?  The colorway is perfect for them!

I've been working on a second Arya's Needle that has three of the lace panels and omits the sword in the center.  It's going to be used as a sample at the booth I will have at The Powhatan's Festival of Fiber in April.  I dyed up the yarn myself and will have some kitted up with the pattern at the festival. It was snowing again this morning and I wanted to capture a bit of it in the pictures without actually going outside. Even though they are a touch dark, I really like the way they came out.

Progress

I'm making progress for my goal of using 10 skeins of yarn before MDSW and have finished one Hearts in Owlantis sock.

I know a lot of knitters who are cold sheeping and not purchasing any yarn until they have knitted down some of their stash.  While I am trying to stick to the goal of 10 skeins, I'm not restricting myself from purchasing more yarn if I see something that I fall in love with.  Like this skein from Knitted Wit that fell into my Etsy cart:

It's pretty close to a Tardis blue and is even prettier in person - it has a lot more depth of color and is quite stunning.  What can I say?  I had to have it!

If you are cold sheeping and trying to get your stash down to a reasonable amount of yarn, a good way to do it is to go through your patterns and prioritize them.  Look and see which patterns you really want to knit and then pick the yarn to go with the pattern (if you bought the yarn specifically for the pattern already, then you are one step ahead of the game!).  Put both the yarn and pattern in a project or zip lock bag so that it's ready to go when you decide to cast on.  Give yourself a reward every time you finish a project that included stashing down.  It can be something small and simple like a special candy bar or a nice glass of wine.

If you don't have a pattern in mind for some of the yarn you have, check out Ravelry's search feature.  Enter the type of yarn you have, then check out the suggested patterns for it and completed projects.  There are some great ideas to be had there!  If you have some left over fingering weight yarns, Stash Bash and Camberwell are both great projects to use up those left overs:

Yarn Snobbery

Pam MacKenzie wrote a blog post entitled "Being a Yarn Snow has it's Limitations" last week and it got me thinking.  In her post Pam talks about yarn snobs limit themselves to all natural fibers or just wool.  It really made me reflect on how I perceive yarn snobbery.  I had always thought that a yarn snob limited themselves to more expensive and fancier yarns and wouldn't be caught dead purchasing yarn from a big box store or a craft store.  I know some knitters who are like that, which was where my train of thought was coming from.  I also have considered myself to be a full blown yarn snob because I only knit with yarn that I really like and isn't that what knitting is all about?  Having a yarn that feels wonderful and is even prettier to look at, glide across your needles and produce something that you or someone you care about will enjoy wearing?   I think we are all a little bit biased when it comes to our favorite yarns.

When I go shopping for yarn, the first thing that always gets my attention is the color.  I think that's the case for most knitters, we are naturally drawn to colors that we like.  If I am shopping in person and not on line the next thing I notice is how the yarn feels.  I have a really hard time putting a skein of yarn down if it is really soft and luxurious to the touch.  The final decision maker is how the yarn smells.  Yes, I know it's weird, but I smell the yarn.  I have no idea what the ladies at Maple Creek Farm use to wash their yarn with, but they really should sell it.  It's fragrant but not overpowering and smells nice while I'm knitting.  It's a little bonus feature that I think is pretty cool. 

Of course we all have our favorite fibers to work with, and mine happens to be wool or a wool blend.  I really enjoy the softness of cashmere and silk and when added to a nice merino it's like the icing on the cake.  Cake is good by itself, but put some icing on it and now we are talking! 

There are so many different types of yarn and fiber out there that to limit yourself to just one is like only eating one food for the rest of your life.  I like to try different yarns and fibers because you never know what you might like or how they will knit up.  A friend once gave me a skein of yarn that had been made from recycled bottles.  Sounds weird, I know.  It was kind of a boucle' and I wound up making a reusable market bag out of it.  

There are some yarns that I really don't enjoy knitting with and tend to avoid.  They tend to either be scratchy, contain a large amount of soy which makes me itch like I have poison ivy,  or just don't feel good when I fondle them.  It doesn't make them bad yarns, or yarns that shouldn't be used.  They just aren't right for me. 

Are you a yarn snob?  If so, what makes you one?  

Seasons

I got an email from Carol at Rivers Edge Fiber Arts this week telling me to keep my eyes out for a package.  The mailman now thinks I am some sort of yarn crazed lunatic because I have been meeting him at the mailbox every day! When you are waiting for something exciting like yarn it really feels like time slows down and this week was no exception.  I was only a few moments too late to meet our mailman today and it makes me wonder if he has started speeding up his route to avoid the yarn stalker?  When I opened the mailbox, the package from Carol was there!  I opened the package up right away, and am so delighted at the amazing fall colors! 

This is Seasons, a blend of 70% Royal Baby Alpaca and 30% Tussah Silk.  It's so soft that I just want to wrap the skeins around my neck and wear them just like they are!  The colorway is Riverstone and can be found at RiversEdgeFiberArts.com  This is the same yarn that my Juliet pattern is designed for.  I was going to knit another Juliet in Riverstone, but when it arrived all I could think is what a fantastic cowl this yarn would be!  If you are heading to SAFF this weekend, be sure to stop by the Rivers Edge Fiber Arts booth and pick up a set of Seasons so you can make your own Juliet.  I have to warn you though, if you pick it up you will not be able to put it down.  It's that soft!

It's gotten chilly here and we had a bit of frost on the car's this week.  I thought it was time that Iggy had a proper hand knit sweater.  I don't really have much worsted yarn in my stash and wound up using left overs from the two Intersect projects.  Iggy doesn't seem to mind and I think the stripes are cute on him!  I made it on the large size so that he has some room for growing.  I also skipped blocking it since the yarn is superwash and I can get a bit of stretch to it if needed in a month or so. 

 

Just before we left for Florida I had a moment of panic and thought that I would run out of things to knit on our trip.  It happens every time we go away and not only have I yet to run out of something to knit, I can't remember finishing a project while on the road!  Back to the moment of panic...I went digging through my stash, skeins were flying everywhere, and I found a lovely skein of Miss Babs Yummy 2-Ply in Perfectly Wreckless.  I wrote up a little cable and lace sock pattern and stuck it in my carry on bag.  Of course I didn't have time to work on it while we were on vacation!  Now that we are home and settled back into our routines, I have cast on and am really enjoying the yarn and creating the new design.

This has been such a busy week!  Andy and I have been spending every free moment working on the deck to try to get it finished.  The majority of the construction is done, which is a tremendous relief.  We still have the stairs to put in and then can begin work on leveling up the ground under the deck so that we can have a cement patio poured. 

Andy and I sat outside this afternoon, put our feet up and had a beer.  It was so nice to be able to take a moment to relax and enjoy the deck and the beautiful day.  The new wood needs to cure for six months before we can paint the deck.  We plan on painting it, along with the house this spring.  It's going to be fun to choose a color and we are really looking forward to it!

I haven't had as much time as I would like to knit this week and am still working on the Bethesda's Socks for the Sock it To Me KAL.   I also have a new cowl design on the needles that I plan on taking with me next week while we are on vacation. Yep, that's right, we are taking a vacation!  This one doesn't include construction, cooking, laundry or anything of that nature. 

I have a blog post scheduled for next Friday which will have a BIG surprise and announcement which I think you will like.  If you follow me under Lara Smoot Designs on Facebook there will be a few hint's there during the week as well. 

Happy Friday!

It may seem strange that I get excited for Friday since I'm self employed and wind up working most every day.  Even if I am working, the weekend is still the weekend.  On Friday's I usually cook something more involved than pizza for dinner.  When Andy get's home from work we have a cocktail and kick back a bit before dinner.  Tonight I'm making Carnita Pork and will serve it will a corn salsa, black beans, avocado's and rice.   I can never get enough avocado in any form - sliced, in guacamole or fried.  I will eat it any way that it comes!   Andy has been working a lot.  Between his day job and building our deck (pictures next week!) I haven't seen as much of him as I usually do.  Since a large portion of the deck was rather high up and I am terrified of heights, I wasn't able to help out.  Now that the decking boards are mostly done I've been able to give him a hand.

I've been working on a pair of Bethesda's Socks in the Sock It To Me KAL in my Ravelry group.  If you haven't joined in, there is still plenty of time to get a pair of socks knitted up.  The holidays are right around the corner and socks make a great gift!  This is my sock in progress.  The yarn is from the Murder on the Moors yarn club that The Natural Dye Studio did earlier this year.  The club was a lot of fun, reasonably priced and came with a short mystery story in each shipment. 

Next week I have a new pattern set in Bare Naked Wools Ghillie Sport/DK coming out!  It's called Sugardance and will include a cowl and mitt pattern.  The pattern will be released on Monday and Knitspot will be having a pattern giveaway on their blog, so keep a look out there. It's a super easy knit and would make a great gift for a friend for the holidays!  I know, I know the leaves haven't even fallen off the trees yet.  Isn't it better to get started on that holiday knitting now, rather than to wait until the last minute and have to block a project in your hotel room or at your in laws?

Two Fun Fall KAL's

Fall is almost here and we have two fun KAL's on Ravelry beginning on September 12! 

Pictured is Frost in Bloom


The Cowltastic Knit Along 

Fall is the perfect time for cowl knitting. They are fun and easy, plus make great holiday gifts. If you are a last minute gift knitter (like me!), then you know how nice it is to be able to have a gift made ahead of when you need it (instead of finishing it up in the car and trying to block it in the hotel room).

Guidelines:
Cast on no earlier than September 12.
Use any of my cowl patterns.
Post a picture of your finished cowl by October 19 midnight your time to qualify for prizes.
Tag you project with LSCowltastic.
Use coupon code: Cowltastic for $1.00 off of one pattern for the KAL. The coupon is good through September 12.

I can’t wait to see what you guys make! Spark and Camberwell are perfect for using up stash left overs if you are on a yarn diet.

Spark

 Camberwell

The Sock It To Me KAL

Pictured are Frost Bite


Socks are one of my favorite things to knit and I can’t seem to get enough of them. They are great for gift giving - to those who are sock worthy of course! I owe a pair to a friend who hand washes the ones I made for her a couple of years ago so I am going to join in on this one.

Guidelines:
Cast on no earlier than September 12.
Use any of my sock patterns.
Post a picture of your finished socks by October 19 midnight your time to qualify for prizes.
Tag you project with LSSockItToMe.

Modifications? Of course! If you prefer toe up and want to alter one of my patterns to knit them toe up, sideways, or any other mod’s feel free to do so. I really love seeing what you make from my patterns and love seeing the mod’s too!

Use coupon code: SockIt for $1.00 off of one pattern for the KAL. The coupon is good through September 12.

Sock it to me??? Why this name? My maiden name was Toomey and when my mom was pregnant with me she was a teacher. She told me that her students wanted her to call me Sockit Toomey. I always thought this was really funny :)

I'm working on the prizes for both KAL's.  If you would like to donate a prize, please let me know!

Fun things are just around the corner!

May has really flown by and it's hard to believe that next week June will be here.  It's been exceptionally hot here with temp's in the low 90's for most of the week.  The evenings are cooler and it's given Andy and I a chance to do some work outside.  We have decided to expand our outdoor living area by replacing our two smaller decks with one large one that will go across the back of the house.  Before we start the two overgrown Cypress trees that are encroaching on the house had to be removed.  I think this picture really shows how insanely large the Cypress trees are!  The trees are gone now and Andy has started removing the deck on the patio level of the house.  Building the new deck is going to be pretty involved so I think a lot of of free time this summer will be spent on that. 

While Andy has been working hard on taking apart the deck, I have been having fun with a few new designs.  I have two that will be coming out in June and I am really excited about both of them!  I'm only going to give you a little hint for the first one:

It's going to be released during the second week of June.  I will be putting up another hint here and a few on my Facebook Page so be sure to like my page if you want to get all of the hint's. 

I also have a new sock pattern that will be released in June too.  We have been so busy with working on the house that we haven't had a chance to take pictures of the socks.  I took this picture to send to Margi and Beth so they would know what their test knits should look like.  It shows the sock really well, but I am not as talented with the camera as Andy is.  I really love the colors of the yarn.  It's called Aquaman and is from Gnome Acres. 

If you are working on your Mother of Dragons shawl and haven't joined in on the KAL in my Ravelry group, be sure to.  Miss Babs has donated a skein of Yummy 2-Ply in Biker Chick as one of the prizes that we are giving away.  All you need to do to enter is to post a picture of your finished shawl.  The drawing will be on July 1.
 



Tomorrow Beth and I are going on the Virginia Knits Yarn Crawl.  We are hoping to go to five out of the six shops in one day.  I'm bringing the camera and will have lot's of yarnie goodness talk about next week. 

Continue in Pattern as Established

Sometimes a pattern will have the term: Continue in Pattern as Established used in it.  A couple of my patterns have it in them and I recently had someone ask how to do this.  Regardless of the type of pattern - hat, mitt's scarf, etc. Continuing in Pattern as Established will have the same principal and work the same way for any pattern unless the designer has made a note indicating that it will be done differently.

When you see Continue in Pattern as Established it means to work the stitches as you have been on the previous rounds or rows.  It can be confusing at first, especially if this comes in the middle of a round or row.  I have created an example on how to do this below.

Let's start with a simple ribbing that is being worked in the round over 20 stitches:  

Pattern:
Rounds 1 - 5:  [K2, P2] 5 X
Round 6 - 10: K 7, continue in pattern as established

The brackets [  ] indicate a repeat, the number following them: 5 X, indicates that what is in the brackets will be repeated by that many times.  In this case it will be 5 times.

Our pattern says to work the ribbing for 5 rounds, then on rounds 6 - 10: K across the first 7 stitches, and continue in pattern as established.  This means that on round 6 we will knit the first 7 stitches,  then P1, [K2, P2] 3 X.  The chart below shows what the stitches will look like:

The important thing to remember is that when you see Continue in Pattern as Established that you need to work the stitches that are indicated in the same manner that they have been worked on previous rounds/rows.  It does not mean that you are starting from the beginning of the round or row.  This is one of those times that stitch markers come in handy, especially if one of the sections you are working has stitches that are hard to see or you are working with a darker color yarn.

I hope that this tutorial helps you to understand what to do when you see Continue in Pattern as Established used in a pattern.  If you have any questions, please email me or leave them in the comments section.

Bethesda's Sock

 Shown in The Plucky Knitters Plucky Feet in the Chlorophyll colorway.

On one of our trips to Yorktown last year, Andy and I stayed at the Hornsby House Inn.  It's a lovely Bed & Breakfast within walking distance of the Pub and beach.  Our first night there we met John Warley and a few of his classmates who were in Yorktown for a class reunion.  John is one of those people who when you meet them you know you want to get to know them better.  He has a great sense of humor and within moments of meeting him began to banter with us.  I was knitting on the porch of the Inn when we met and John almost immediately asked me to knit him a pair of socks.  I kind of blew him off on the socks.  Anyone who knits knows that socks take a while and this was someone I had only just met.  Socks are usually reserved for family members and close friends, right?

When we were leaving for home, John gave me his email address.  I sent him a few pictures that I took of his friends at the reunion and thought that would be it.  John and I had gotten to know each other a little bit better through email and Facebook when the public shaming started he so nicely asked for a pair of socks again.  He promised that he would wear them and take good care of them so I finally gave up putting him off as he is quite relentless agreed to make him a pair.  I had just finished reading John's first book, Bethesda's Child when the design for John's socks came to mind.  I worked up the chart and cast on. 

True to his word, John has worn the socks and it looks like they are being well taken care of.  Here they are in front of an fire enjoying an evening libation.

 

And later on when John was taking a break in South Carolina.  It's not everyday that you see wool socks with palmetto's! 

 

John just released his new book: A Southern Girl. If you have a chance, be sure to check it out!  I can't wait to get started on it.

Bethesda's Sock is available on Ravelry and Etsy.  Use coupon code: Warley for 25% off of Bethesda's Sock on Ravelry until 5/19. 

From the pattern: 

Bethesda’s Socks were inspired by John Warley’s book: Bethesda’s Child: a compelling story that takes place in Washington DC and centers around the prevention of genetic engineering, a presidential campaign, and a tangled love interest. The simple to knit cables twisting down the sides of each sock represent the complex structure of DNA and the twists and turns that take place in Bethesda’s Child.

These fun socks begin with cuff down construction and the pattern includes both written and charted instructions. The cables are simple enough to knit on your summer road trip, while adding enough zip to the pattern so you won’t get bored along the way. No one wants to hear “Are we there yet?” when you are just leaving the driveway!

Instructions are given for using four double pointed needles, but can easily be converted for using the magic loop method, two circular needles, or your preferred sock knitting method.