Holiday Gift Eye Candy :)

In my last post, I mentioned I was going to be the designer of the November Mystery Sock for the Sock Knitters Anonymous Group on Ravelry.

Well the month is almost over and I'm happy to say the design was a great success! Have a look at all these gorgeous socks! (Ravelry link)

Now I couldn't forget my faithful blog readers, could I? (hello, is anyone out there, heheh)

So if you're not on Ravelry or Groups just aren't your thing, have a peek at these......

This pair was my "prototype". The name of the sock is Mad About Plaid which, when I considered taking on this challenge is what came to me before anything else....you see I've never even knit a mosaic/slipped stitch design before so designing one was a real challenge!

The name Mad About Plaid came to me so I set out to figure how I could replicate "plaid" in a sock. I think I came pretty close, huh? :)

It was also important to me that the sock have appeal for a man or a woman.

When I swatched the designs I actually purposely chose colors that I would never use together (try camo, pink/orange striped and a navy/green variegate - yuck!), yet they worked!

I discovered as long as the three colors have very different values and strong contrast, they worked! So I decided to test my theory with my "prototype socks" you see above. Not for the shy and retiring sock wearer, right? (as an aside, I was going to give them to my 20-something cousin until my hot and groovy WAY older than 20-something Mom decided these socks were HERS. PERIOD. In fact, she can't wait to show them off to her canasta group! hehe)

Next, I wanted to make sure they were appealing to the Y chromosome set too....

Mad About Plaid, Manly version

Hey, big boy....new in town?
Lastly, I wanted to try a "negative" version, reversing the light and dark values....

Nothing "negative" about these babies!
I'm really proud of these and the experience has been mostly wonderful! And while I recognize that, yes, I am far too thin-skinned to put myself out there as a "designer" full time, it's nice to reach for the stars every now and again!

So if you have a hankering for some plaid, there's a non-Ravelry link on my sidebar here or you can find my pattern on Ravelry here.

It's a simple pattern so don't fear the colorwork! If you can slip a stitch, you can knit these patterns - there is no stranding or floats so it's easy peasy and quite fun to knit!

Oh and in case you have a hankerin' for plaid but not into socks so much right now.....

I designed some matching Mad About Plaid Mitts too :)

Whether you knit em for yourself or someone on your holiday list, I hope y'all enjoy my gifts to you!