After knitting nothing but garter stitch for two weeks (and such a lot of garter stitch it was) I needed something entirely different. Naturally, my attention turned to socks. I actually cast on after finishing the fourth repeat of my shawl (so, okay, not two weeks of nothing but garter stitch, but pretty close). I didn’t yet have my copy of Coop Knits Socks, so I couldn’t start Willowherb, but I have had Cookie A.’s Monkey in my queue for almost a year now, so they seemed a suitable choice.

I’ve mentioned before that I wear socks year round. Not every day in the summer, of course, but if I’m wearing my Chucks, I’m wearing socks. Spring, especially, is sock weather, since although it’s warm when I go to work (averaging 20C these days) the temperature is still falling to around 8C by the time I leave, and that is too cold to not have socks and shoes on while waiting for the bus.

This weather is perfect for lace socks. All that pretty patterning that is impractical when there’s snow on the ground is ideal right now, and will continue to be for the next few months. For all the socks I’ve knit for myself, though, I really only have two pairs of lace patterned socks. Not enough, clearly, so for the next few months I’m going to work on that portion of my sock drawer, which means lots of fun new patterns.

These Monkeys were a great place to start. They’re pretty much knitting themselves (I knit half the ribbing when I cast on last week, the rest of the knitting has been in the last couple of days) and are a perfect canvast for this yarn. I’m knitting the classic, with-purls version of the pattern (from Knitty), and although I might knit no-purl Monkeys in the future, the texture of knits and purls is doing wonderful things to break up flashing and pooling, which I can see happening on the sole, where it doesn’t matter.

Summer socks – I guess you have to be a knitter to get excited about such a thing, but man, is it too nerdy to say I can’t wait?