If you are reading this blog, there's a good chance you feel very strongly about hand knit socks and, more specifically, the most efficient, effective and morally superior tools and techniques for knitting these socks. For example: toe-up or cuff-down? Magic loop, two circulars, or dpns? Two-at-a-time or one-at-a-time? These are loaded questions, my friends.
Here's another one: how closely do pairs of striped socks need to match? Identical twins or fraternal?
And another: how satisfying is it to knit the heel in a different yarn so that the stripes are undisrupted along the front of the foot?
To the untrained eye these are small details, but the seasoned knitter knows the smug satisfaction of pulling on a pair of socks that worked out exactly the right way.
Which brings me to the point of this post: I've just added accent skeins to the shop. An accent skein is a 28 g (1 oz) mini-skein that can be added to any regular-sized skein. They are listed in the store as a drop-down option on every colourway. The picture above is pretty and also slightly misleading because I actually dye the accent skein as part of the larger skein, like you see below. This means it will always be from the same dye lot and match well. You can wind it into a separate ball if you like.
These mini-skeins are perfect for knitting the heels and toes of your socks in a solid colour if you are like me and that's something that makes you feel clever and accomplished. They come in handy on all sorts of other projects too - I just knit a striped baby hat with a solid-colour brim (it is beyond cute and I have good intentions of sharing a picture soon). And in my thinking-about-knitting-but-not-actually-knitting time, I imagine mitts with solid-colour cuffs, and scarves with solid-colour fringes.
Basically, I think they're just the thing for adding my own touch to basic patterns so that they turn out just the way I like them.
(And just for reference, my answers are: toe-down, dpns, one-at-a-time, identical, very.)