Recently in Indiana Jones Socks Category

Thanks for the sympathetic comments and emails, everyone. I am back on the dress-making horse, having fought and eventually won a gruesome battle with alteration math, and almost ready to cut out in my fashion fabric (about time). In addition, I'm feeling quite a bit more cheerful today, partly because of a couple of exciting packages that arrived on my doorstep this afternoon. One of them? Charlene Schurch and Beth Parrott's Sock Club: Join the Knitting Adventure, which happens to be the first printed book featuring a pattern from yours truly!

You've seen it before, of course: the Indiana Jones socks (here on Ravelry), which were originally a sock-club exclusive for Kate over at Knit it up!. Non-members of that club interested in knitting this pattern have been super-patient, and now it's available to the general public in lovely, paper-and-binding form, along with 22 other sock patterns. A couple favorites of mine:

"Low Country Light" by Beth Parrott (click on the photo for a larger view) makes beautiful use of a Gradience colorway from The Unique Sheep. I've been drooling over these unique color-spectrum yarns for quite a while, but was having trouble visualizing something to do with them that would be interesting to knit. I think Beth does a great job here developing a stitch pattern that provides some visual interest but doesn't clash with the gradience colorway. I even like her use of dropped stitches, of which I'm normally not a fan. Now that I've seen it can be done, I'm more anxious than ever to try my hand at designing something in a Gradience yarn. Maybe even a sweater! Wouldn't their Cafe au Lait or Herb Garden colorway make a gorgeous cardigan?

And look at this pretty and unusual heel construction on Charlene Schurch's Havana Lace pattern (neither of these are in Ravelry yet; sorry for the lack of linkage):

Love it! So cool and retro. I dig the idea of these in a dark, smoky charcoal or black-green; there's a skein of Sundara's "Irish Laughter" sock yarn in my cabinet that may want to become a pair of Havana Lace socks.

Those are my two, somewhat idiosyncratic, faves, but I suspect that Terry Morris's Cozy Cable Socks and Debbie O'Neill's Ariel Socks will appeal to lots of folks, and Adrienne Fong's Tea Time Socks are full of charm. Want to see for yourself? It's for sale at Powell's and Amazon, and hopefully at your local yarn shop, as well!

I just got the go-ahead to share a new project with you, which, perhaps appropriately, was under construction during the Cold of Doom:

These socks were commissioned (I love the sound of that) by Kate over at Knit it Up! for her sock club, Sock Yarn Cinema. They're an homage to everyone's favorite heartthrob-professor-turned-rogue-archaeologist, Indiana Jones, and I'm quite pleased with how they turned out.

The process on these was super-fun. Kate had already developed the custom-dyed "Dr. Jones" colorway, and we talked about concepts over email before she overnighted me the yarn. The base is pretty different than the sock yarns I usually use, but it knit up into a lovely, velvety fabric that is cozy but still lightweight.

I knew I wanted to channel Indy's tweedy professorial side with some kind of simple slip-stitch pattern, and the one I lighted on is very simple indeed: a de-textured and lightly modified version of a more rustic tweed from Barbara Walker. Although the finished product looks sophisticated, the yarn does much of the work. The knitter works from both ends of the center-pull ball, knitting with only one color at a time in an easy-to-memorize slip-one-knit-one pattern. I can't claim that I foresaw the exact fade pattern of the colors, but I'm pleased that they ended up mirroring the gradient of the classic Indiana Jones title logo:

I found it so enjoyable to put this project together! If anyone out there is looking to commission other knitting patterns based on popular fictional characters, especially ones from the 1930's and 40's, I'm your girl. In fact, this whole experience has got me thinking about large-scale projects for after the Family Trunk Project is complete, and a knitting-pattern survey of my favorite novel and film characters would be an amazingly fun idea.

The pattern has been distributed with the Sock Yarn Cinema's October mailing. It's not available elsewhere just yet, but keep your eyes peeled; I'll let you know when you can snatch it up. And a big thanks to Kate for getting the ball rolling!