When I bought the yarn for my Madewell cardigan, I slipped in a skein of Gingerbread Martini, just because it was pretty. It is a limited edition yarn, and sometimes makes an appearance at Christmastime in Birdstreet Yarns. I love the yarn, the colour, and these socks! I have made a pair of Vintage Fairy Lights socks before, but gifted them before taking photos. They have a nice combination of interesting pattern, and easy to remember/knit repetition....I have a feeling this won't be my last pair as they fit so well.
Yarn
Mentioned above, a fabulous colourway from Birdstreet Yarn, which makes an appearance in the lead up to Christmas, but is just perfectly autumnal and works well in contrast with lots of other colours. This skein is a 4ply/fingering weight 75% superwash merino 25% nylon mix, and the socks I made hold up fabulously. I've worn them a lot with no pilling or anything like that so far - the yarn is lovely to wear! These socks used 60g, so I still have some left over for another project.
I really like the speckles of red and green that delicately pop through the rest of the gingerbread colour, and I think remind me even more of Vintage Fairly Lights!
Pattern and Instructions
This sock pattern is by Helen Stewart of Curious Handmade. The Vintage Fairy Lights only come in one size, and I bought my pattern on Ravelry as a one off for £6, but it is available in an ebook too. They are top down, featuring a pattern after the cuff, then moving into 3x1 rib for the rest of the leg and foot, with a heel flap and gusset. I really enjoyed knitting these and the ribbing makes for a very comfortable fit. Helen has a way of writing her patterns so that you can keep track very easily, with a line for every round of stitches. She also includes a yarn usage estimate so you can keep track of how much you have left. The way she writes the heel flap and gusset elements is easy to follow, and I find ends up with a low likelihood of gaps in the corners.
It's a good balance of focusing on a pattern, and then relaxing into more rhythmic sock knitting, and I think the 'fairy lights' part looks quite good over the top of boots.
So, the pattern is available in one size only?
There are ways around this. You can switch to a smaller needle so that the gauge is also made smaller. I don't really like doing this as my gauge is often tighter anyway, and it's still a lot of stitches.
What I did instead was to just cast on 56 stitches instead of the recommended 64. The fairy lights pattern is worked over 8 stitches, so I just didn't have as many repeats as the main size. Worked out just fine.
Would I make this pattern again? That's a hard yes! Great pattern, fit brilliantly, lovely to knit.
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