We’re picking up where we left off last time and showing off more swatches for this year’s book (which is coming in, checks watch, um, about three weeks).

We’ll start with this one. Yarn is Signature Sock Yarn by OnTheRound in the color Robin’s Egg.

I am a sucker for cables. I like designing them. I like knitting them. I like wearing them. But…they can be sneaky little beasts. If you’re going to put them on socks, you need to have a plan.⁠ ⁠ For you see, cables make your fabric less stretchy than stockinette or ribbing. And you sort of need socks to be stretchy (they need to go over your heel and then stay up on your leg). So you need to to plan for that in socks (in anything really…but especially in socks). ⁠ ⁠

The way I like to handle it is to be careful with how they’re placed (you don’t need cables on every stitch of every row thank you very much), be careful how big they are (the more stitches are involved in a cable, the more it stiffens the fabric), and be careful about what the non cable bits of your sock are doing (putting in bunches of ribbing to give you some extra stretch helps balance them out). ⁠ ⁠ Sometimes you can even do sneaky tricks like use bigger needles for some spots of the project just to be safe.  But, if you keep that in mind, you can (and should) totally put glorious cables on your socks!⁠

The last ones were Big Dramatic Cables…these ones are Tiny Delicate Cables. Yarn is Apex by Seven Sisters Arts. There was a little color change there in the middle…the one in the front swatch is Heather, but then I went and changed my mind part way through so the one in the mini skein is Water Nymph.

You can try and have a favorite between big cables and tiny cables if you want, but I’ve decided my heart belongs to both and trying to pick just one would end in tears.⁠⠀And none of us want that, so there is room for all sorts of cables in your knitting bag!⁠⠀

If you want to hear from me when the preorder info goes live, the mailing list is the way to do that (and I just ordered a box of goodies for the preorder early birds, so I suspect it’s the thing to do)!