Handknit socks made with self-striping American Flag yarn from The Painted Tiger and royal blue contrasting heel made with Cascade Yarns Heritage yarn.

American Flag Socks: Michael’s Christmas Socks 2025

December 28, 2025December 26, 20251 Comment

It’s the first Sunday after Christmas, which means Michael’s wearing his brand new pair of socks to church for the first time. I made him a really great pair this year! He was completely surprised by them and has dubbed them his most favorite handknit socks EVER.

Handknit socks made with self-striping American Flag yarn from The Painted Tiger.

Details:

Pattern: #216 Beginner’s Lightweight Socks, by Diane Soucy of Knitting Pure & Simple

Yarn: Journey Sock Yarn in colorway “Grand Old Flag” from The Painted Tiger, and Cascade Yarns Heritage in colorway #5636 “Sapphire” from Simply Socks Yarn Company. There’s a fair amount of each leftover, but I haven’t weighed anything to give you specific numbers. I also used two spools of Lang Reinforcement Thread #290, purchased from Simply Socks Yarn Company.

Needles: US 2 (2.75 mm)

Modifications: None beyond the contrasting heel and toe.

We were discussing his growing collection of handknit socks last year after he opened his 2024 pair, and he mentioned that it would be really cool to have some striped USA socks, but it would probably be really difficult to start and stop with the red and white yarns and how that was too much to ask of me. I tucked that little quip away in my note-keeping app and when it came time to decide what to make him for this year’s socks, I decided to take a quick look on the internet to see if some self-striping Americana yarn already existed out there. I happened upon The Painted Tiger’s version and bought it as fast as I could. So exciting!

Handknit socks made with self-striping American Flag yarn from The Painted Tiger with contrasting heels knit with Cascade Yarns Heritage sock yarn in royal blue.

You know you’ve done a good job when you’ve been knitting for over twenty years and your husband opens his present, after squeezing it and saying, “This feels like socks,” and exclaims, “WHOA! Did you make these?!?!” He was so pleased with the colorway! I’m really happy with his enjoyment of how they look already!

I don’t know if I can top these ever. I’m not too worried about it at the moment; it’s just been great to listen to him fawn over this pair. Merry Christmas, my love.

Note: These socks were originally given the code name of “Cherry Twilight Socks” as I worked on them earlier in the year so I didn’t give away their very distinctive design feature. All posts tagged as “Cherry Twilight Socks” have been updated with the “American Flag Socks” tag.

Handknit socks made with red, green, and white self-striping yarn.

Stripey Christmas Socks

February 26, 2025February 22, 20252 Comments

Hurray! A beautiful finish that will now go live in a trunk for eight months. *groan* I’m really looking forward to debuting these on November 1st while decorating for Christmas while wearing my Hermey the Elf shirt. *happy smile*

Details:

Pattern: #216 Beginner’s Lightweight Socks, by Diane Soucy of Knitting Pure & Simple After all this time? Always.

Yarn: West Yorkshire Spinners Signature 4 ply Self Striping/Patterning, colorway #886 Holly Berry, Cascade Yarns Heritage, colorway #5607 Red, Lang Reinforcing Thread, colorway #60.

Needles: US 2 (2.75 mm)

Modifications: I saw a sock knit up with this colorway and did not like it, so I added the solid red heels and toes. Now that they’re done I realize that I probably would have liked it if I had also knit the ribbing in solid red as well. (I also would have preferred if I had done a 2×2 ribbing on BOTH socks, and not just one…whoops. Doesn’t the 2×2 ribbing look SO GOOD?!?! I’ve been a 1×1 forever, but I will be changing my ways from here on out.)

It’s a late finish, but I didn’t want to rush ’em. This is such a great colorway and I enjoyed knitting these so much! I’m very tempted to commit to the idea of new Christmas socks each year, but even I can recognize the insanity of such a pledge, so these may remain my only handknit Christmas socks (for a while…it’s loads of fun to knit Christmas socks!).

Michael’s Christmas Socks 2024

January 3, 2025Leave a comment

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to each of you, dear readers! December 2024 was a whirlwind of activity, mostly revolving around the constant of music in our family, so I wasn’t able to do a whole lot in the craft room throughout the month, but I DID finish up a pair of handknit socks for my sweet hubby to open on Christmas Day!

Details:

Pattern: #216 Beginner’s Lightweight Socks, by Diane Soucy of Knitting Pure & Simple (As always! It’s a great sock pattern!)

Yarn: Paton’s Kroy Socks in colorway #55102 “Blue Striped Ragg”, 2 skeins with very little leftover. I also tried using a reinforcement thread in the heels and toes for the first time, and ran out of it halfway through the second toe. Note to self: He has big feet and needs two spools in the future. I used Lang Reinforcement Thread #23, purchased from Simply Socks Yarn Company.

Needles: US 2 (2.75 mm)

Modifications: The yarn skeins don’t stop and end in the same place, stripe-wise, so I did my best to match up the stripes, but had to split my second skein to start in the same place as the first skein, which meant I had to join in the last bit of yarn near the toe so it stripes a little weird in the second sock. Fortunately, no one will see it because it’ll be hidden by his shoes when he’s wearing them.

This is the first time I’ve pulled off making a pair of socks for Michael for Christmas two years in a row! Woot, woot! And I barely pulled it off—I finished these during the afternoon on Christmas Eve and got them wrapped and under the tree with only minutes to spare before Michael walked in the door from work.

I love the idea of a tradition of making Michael a pair of socks each Christmas. Back when I started knitting, I eagerly looked forward to the Yarn Harlot’s frantic pre-Christmas circus posts where she’d get through insane lists and spreadsheets of handknits to complete during the holidays, and I loved reading through the posts that featured her handknits in the hands of smiling recipients, Christmas tree lights twinkling in the background. I enjoy going to other people’s circuses from time to time, and her Christmas circus was such a delight to behold in all its urgency and anticipation that would then yield beautiful photos of a happy family and beautifully-knitted gifts and lovely words of love, joy and gratitude. (I miss the old days of blogging, they were really wonderful. Instagram is, really…was, great and all, but I miss the writing that we used to treat each other to back in the day.)

I envisioned the same future for myself, which has basically come true (except for the handknits part), and here we are today with us going through a Christmas circus every year that can only be managed with spreadsheets and to-do lists. It’s mostly all music-related for us Brookes, but I still endeavor to throw some handmades into the mix. These socks were created in all sorts of stolen moments in between putting together the band fundraiser, the Ward Christmas Sacrament Program, and our family’s own holiday celebrations and traditions. I like a little crazy.

Each stitch in these socks is a little bit of crazy, a little bit of peace stolen amidst chaos, a little bit of tradition. A little bit of the holiday experience over and over again. I love having these reminders throughout the year of another Christmas that has come and gone. Each Sunday, when Michael is putting on his church shoes and I see which handknit socks he’s chosen to wear that week, I’m inundated with memories from whichever Christmas and year that particular pair was created. It’s a lot of a memories, over and over again. We’ve been blessed to have so many Christmases together. I hope, twenty years from now, that I’m still making socks for him each year, and that I’m darning the older socks and reliving the glory days of Christmases past—days of our children in footed pajamas, mornings when they were teenagers in flannel pants and messy buns, to eventual days of their own children in footed pajamas and maple syrup-stickied fingers. I learned to knit when I was just starting out as a wife and mother, and I hope I’m still knitting and making memories that include handknit gifts with happy faces and twinkling lights for many, many years to come.

Click here to view this project’s Ravelry page

Feral Choir Concert Toddler

October 26, 2024October 30, 20242 Comments

Seeing how I posted my goals for the week on Wednesday, the chance that I’d make significant progress on them was small. It’s just been such a busy week, and with needing to still rest when I start feeling tired I just don’t have a lot of time for the extra things. It’s a frustrating place to find oneself, but nothing terrible will happen as a result. I would just like to be able to do all the things, is that too much to ask?! 😉

Top priorities this past week:

Processing the garden harvest
Ward Choir logistics
Band Booster everythings
Walks
Secret Christmas knitting

Caring

Rachel had her first choir concert of the year on Tuesday and it was really lovely. I love seeing how much kids can do after only a handful of weeks into the school year. Even the freshman choir sounded great!

Unfortunately, the family that sat behind us at the concert had a free-range toddler who pulled out some of my hair, and when I turned towards whatever the heck had yanked hair out of my scalp the offender wetly sneezed directly onto my eyeballs.

Zero stars. Would not recommend. It got even worse later on when the toddler tripped and smashed its face into the back of my seat and screamed their anguish into my ear. I was very glad when the concert finally ended and I got to go home.

Nathaniel had his last cross country meet today and he did SO GOOD. He placed TENTH in his race with a time of 20:00.0. He wanted a 19-minute-anything time so badly, but alas…ha ha ha. Considering that he ran his first race of the season with a time of 23:03.0, I think he can safely be pleased with his progress over the season.

Garden

I think all we managed to work on after all the work at the beginning of the week was to get the last pumpkin roasted and pureed. I did go to the store and purchase ingredients to make Green Tomato Mincemeat, but the excursion made my incisions hurt, so I decided to rest a bit before continuing with my plans. Unfortunately, I started feeling crummy that evening, and I woke up Friday morning feeling awful and ended up sleeping most of the day away. I think I was fighting off whatever the Choir Toddler sneezed into my face. I needed to do a bunch of other stuff today, so I still haven’t gotten to the mincemeat.

Community

The church Halloween party was last night and Rachel and Renaissance helped out with the face painting. Renaissance also took over getting our van ready for trunk or treating once it became obvious that I would not be attending the party due to feeling so yucky, and she did a delightful job!

Ward Choir logistics were dealt with this week and we’ll have sheet music to sing from tomorrow as long as I remember to make copies in the morning. I also ordered all of the Christmas sheet music and expect it to arrive next week, and I could cry over how much it all cost, but if I can get everyone I want to help out with the Christmas program it will be amazing. I am very excited about the possibilities.

I did not get to Band Booster stuff, but it’s high on my list of priorities for next week. The fabric for the table runners should arrive Tuesday afternoon, so I guess I’ll start sewing up table runners on Wednesday or Thursday. (Boring! But needed.)

Health

I went on zero walks this week. Between getting over the cold from last week and dealing with the Choir Toddler flash illness this week I just haven’t had the energy to do much more than some halfhearted office-y work from the couch. I’m doing my best, folks.

Healing from my surgeries is feeling good. One of my incisions is healing a little slower than it should so I have to do some extra care for that three times a day, but it looks like it’s working and the wound is finally closing up. Grocery shopping really tired me out on Wednesday, so I’m still working towards having more energy. It’ll come back.

Creativity

I worked on my not-secret knitting for a little while before Rachel’s choir concert. Emily and I went on a little yarn crawl together in July and I saw a skein of self-striping yarn in perfect Christmas colors and I had to have it. I’m making some adorable Christmas socks for myself from it and adding in solid red heels and toes because it’s perfect. I’m almost done with knitting up the heel flap of the first sock. I love that you can take the downtime of daily life (like waiting for a concert to begin) and use it to get further along on a project, rather than wasting that time looking at a phone. More crafting in public is needed! Join the cause!

I didn’t work on anything else due to the aforementioned ickiness that prevailed all week. I’m falling so far behind! Fingers crossed for a healthy new week!

Highlights

When Nathaniel came running over the crest of the hill before the finish line in his race, way before I expected to see him.
The huge smile on Rachel’s face when we handed her the bouquet of flowers after her choir concert.
How cute the van looked after Renaissance finished decorating it for the Halloween party.
Emily brought me Panda Express for lunch one day as she came home from running errands because she thought I’d like it.

Lowlights

The Feral Choir Concert Toddler :::squinty side-eye:::
Two illnesses in one week

Despite all the illnesses, I AM getting stronger and feeling better each week, so that’s good. Michael and I both are really excited for how much better I could potentially feel in my daily life once I get all healed up. Ugh, the amount of pain and lost days I’ve had to deal with for the past ten years is gobsmacking. And it could just be over now. Maybe. That’s incredibly exciting. We shall see…

I’ll leave you with a photo that Nathaniel texted me while he was out on a run this week. I may not be getting out a lot to enjoy this beautiful autumn weather, but my kids send me pretty pictures of it, for which I’m grateful. There’s always happy little glimmers to make one smile…

FINISHED: Building Block Socks

February 22, 2022February 22, 20222 Comments

They’re so finished that he’s even worn them to church already.

Details:

Pattern: #216 Beginner’s Lightweight Socks, by Diane Soucy of Knitting Pure & Simple (my favorite sock pattern!)

Yarn: Knit Picks Felici Fingering Weight in “Building Blocks” colorway (colorway discontinued), 2 skeins with very little leftover.

Needles: US 0 (2.0 mm)

Modifications: I used the wrong needle size somehow. It should have been a US 2 (2.75 mm).

These were supposed to be done in time for Christmas, so I had to enact the “public shaming” method of pressure to get myself to work through to the end despite missing my original deadline. I will say that this method definitely works for me.

I did use the wrong needle size somehow. The last pair of socks that I made for him, I didn’t write down what size needles I used, and just looked at the picture of them to guess what needles they were and then hunted down a similar-looking set and got knitting. I think I may have a set of gold-colored US 2s and a set of gold-colored US 0s, and…there you go, mistake made. As a result, these are a dense fabric and a little on the snug side, but he says they work well in his church shoes, which are a snug fit, as most church shoes are.

He likes that they’re bold and peppy. I wasn’t expecting that. He’s more of a “dark, monochrome colors” for his socks kind of guy. I was trying to use up stash and I’d had this yarn since 2013.

Progress: Building Block Socks, and Notes on How Long it Takes to Knit a Pair of Socks

February 9, 2022February 7, 20221 Comment

Getting close to the end of these, which is good because I may or may not have fallen prey to a yarn store-closing sale that is now shipping seven new skeins of sock yarn to me as we speak…sorry/notsorry.

As I’ve been knitting on these, my brain keeps trying to make me feel bad about how far behind I am on these, and it occurred to me that I might have a faulty sense of how long it actually takes to knit a pair of socks, thereby dooming myself to always feeling like a failure whenever I knit a pair of socks. As it stands, it feels very comfortable to knit a stripe’s worth of yarn each day on these, and so I counted up the stripes in the completed sock, and it’s 23 stripes. That’s a little over three weeks’ worth of knitting at a comfortable pace. Multiply that by two (because two socks in a pair) and you get 46 days, which equals 6.5 weeks to make a pair of socks for Michael.

In my head…I thought it took four weeks. So of course I always feel like I’m behind when I’m knitting socks for him. It’s good to figure out the numbers on stuff, because numbers generally don’t lie, and I like knowing exactly how things are going to go and numbers are the way to figure that stuff out. It takes seven weeks to knit up a pair of socks for Michael. No wonder I can never finish the “started in December” pairs I always try to make for Christmas. This timetable has been noted in my Christmas preparation notes.

Progress: Michael’s Building Block Socks

January 26, 2022January 25, 2022Leave a comment

Now that the Nereid Mitts are finished for my bestie, I’m moving on to the pair of socks I had hoped to gift to Michael for Christmas. I really love the idea of knitting him another pair of socks each Christmas, it seems so homey and cute. This/last year’s socks are a little more bold than I normally go for him, but I unearthed this yarn in my stash, and, eyeing the atrocious shipping times on everything last autumn, decided to work with the yarn I already had on-hand.

(A little funny: I was in the midst of deciding whether or not to use the stash yarn or order new yarn, and I mentioned it over lunch with the kids. Nathaniel said I should definitely use the stash yarn because it would “make your husband glad you didn’t spend any more money, which might feel like another gift.” Which made me laugh, but then also made me wonder what’s going on in that kid’s head regarding husbands and wives and their money?)

Socks-in-progress for the husband, made from KnitPicks’ *Felici Sock Yarn* in “Building Blocks” colorway

So, this is my hand-stitching project for the next little while, and I’ll update you with its progress each week until it’s done! I’ve got one sock already finished, so I just need to power through this one.

The real question is: What hand-stitching project will I work on next? This is the last hand-stitched overdue Christmas project, so I can kind of do whatever I want after this. Work on a UFO? Start something new? Decisions, decisions. Maybe I need to dredge up the list of knitting UFOs and my Ravelry queue, so I can make an informed decision. I am monstrously green-eyed as I scroll through my IG feed and see the many oh-so-lovely knitting WIPs going on at the moment. Hmmm…there’s also EPP and historical sewing to consider, so there’s a lot of potential projects to choose from. What’s a girl to choose?

Randomly in November

November 19, 20152 Comments

I saw the sign-ups for the Bee Hive Swap in time this year, and got in! :::happy dance::: So excited!
My own swap group that I’m running liked it so much that a bunch want to do it again next year! So, busy with setting that up at the moment.
Yeah, two year-long swaps…talk to me at the end of next year. 🙂
I wrote up an exhaustive inventory of the many works-in-progress taking up space in my craft room, and then hammered out a plan to plough through almost all of them in the next year.
The first WIP that will reach completion as a result of my awesome new plan is probably a pair of socks that I started back in Australia.
A newly-finished pair of socks right now is kind of perfect, given that the snow has started. I was actually thinking the socks would be a Christmas present for someone dear to me, but my feet are freakin’ freezing, so I’m going to keep them. Mwa ha ha.
The second WIP that will probably get finished is a baby boy quilt I started almost eight years ago.

The kid in this photo is Penguin, who is now nine years old. She’s drinking from the mug I received after giving birth to Junebug, who is now seven-and-a-half years old…
It’s funny how you can start a project with so much excitement, but with each passing year of not completing said project how much that excitement turns into resentment and shame. So much so that I definitely don’t want to keep the quilt when I’m done, but fear the repercussions of giving a new life an item infused with so many negative feelings from myself. The act of giving wipes off all the bad juju, right? Right?
I’ve also fleshed out a “Baby Gift Flowchart” to help me decide what to make for tiny humans on my radar. In this age of social media, I find that I’m inundated with the awareness of many a pregnancy, and the baby-lovin’ crafter part of me really wants to make something for every one of them. However, given the physical limitations of time, I can’t. So I came up with a way to shrink the pool a bit and ease my conscience. A line had to be drawn somewhere, or I’d never be done with making baby gifts.
I’m currently aware of nine pregnancies, and of three women trying to get pregnant. That’s twelve impending births in the next year. My flowchart narrows the gifts down to five recipients, which is still a lot, but gives me back a bunch of time. I am raising four children of my own…
My son broke the teeth off of the zipper of his winter parka the first day he wore it. Of course. Even better, he broke off enough teeth that the actual zipper pull fell off, too. So, instead of working on WIPs, my time is needed to repair a zipper in a parka.
Once again, making plans is a dumb idea.

Autumn Socks

September 22, 2015September 22, 20153 Comments

The upside of having a broken foot and not being able to use your sewing machine, drive a car, or basically do anything is that it gives you more time for handwork-style crafting like knitting, which I’ve neglected for the past year during my sewing obsession. I started these socks while we were living in Australia last year, hoping that they’d be ready for Thanksgiving; but they weren’t and it was OK. They’re ready for this year’s feast.

I finished the first sock while we were in Australia, but didn’t get around to casting on for the second sock until July of this year. Our family went to Lagoon, and seeing how I was still recovering from back surgery and banned from all the rides, I set up camp and watched over all our stuff while my husband escorted the kids around the park.

I then worked on it mostly at physical therapy appointments for the rest of the summer, and finished it up on a lovely autumn day spent doing archery amongst the changing colors of the leaves in the mountains. These are the autumn-est of socks.

I’ve procrastinated writing up a post about them because I haven’t wanted to model them–I’ve got a boot on one foot for my stupid broken metatarsal, and I had to have something done to a toe on my other foot because my feet are just whiny little pansies right now. But I know, from previous experience, that I’ll just never get around to writing a post if I don’t do it when the finish is still fresh in my mind, so foot modeling with a broken foot it is!

Fabulous.
Just fabulous.
Limp down that runway.

I roll my own eyes at myself. 🙂

Hopefully, next week’s check-in appointment will find me wholly healed and then I can ditch the boot. *fingers crossed*

The yarn is Manos del Uruguay’s Alegria in colorway “Ceibo.” I knit these up for my US Size 10 feet and have quite a bit leftover. I may even weigh the leftovers at some point so I can really know just exactly how much is left over.

I used Diane Soucy’s “Beginner’s Lightweight Socks” pattern, which is my go-to pattern, even though I really wish I could get the Yarn Harlot’s “Sock Recipe” to work for me…I mess that one up in some little way every single time, so I went with my tried-and-true pattern.

Pretty autumn colors. Yay!

Click here to view this project’s Ravelry page.

Two of a Kind

November 17, 2014February 1, 20151 Comment

Oh, my knitter heart is very happy. Not only do I now possess a new pair of handknit socks, but they’re made from yarn sent by my wonderful best friend, AND the self-striping matched up perfectly! Winner, winner, chicken dinner.

I busted out an old pattern for these–the first sock pattern that I ever knit, actually: Diane Soucy’s “Easy Lightweight Beginner’s Socks” pattern. I made my first socks with it, three years ago. Sadly, that pair of socks wore out earlier this year, after many, many times of wear. These replace those.

The yarn is ONline’s “Supersocke 4-fach” in the “Neptun” colorway. The thing I’ve enjoyed with people sending me sock yarn is that they choose the colors, and the colors are different than what I would choose. It was fun to knit these up in a colorway that I probably wouldn’t have chosen myself simply because I tend to choose other things. I really liked this colorway, especially how the turquoise-y part ended up on the heels. Mmm, turquoise heels. It made me smile both times it happened while I was knitting them.

Of course, I won’t be wearing these in any regular fashion until we return home, because it’s wicked hot here in Queensland. (Summer has a way of being hot, doesn’t it?) However, I couldn’t resist the urge to take a quick photo of my newly-finished socks against the palm tree backdrop of our backyard, even though it’s kind of ridiculous to wear wool socks for any amount of time when it’s 93 degrees (F) outside. This finish is far more suited for my permanent residence, which saw its first snowfall this past week.

Whatever. It’s 90-something degrees in November, I have palm trees in my back yard, and a fresh new pair of handknit socks. Life is good.