Based on the colours alone, I’d say this yarn was inspired by fall. But honestly, for me true sweater weather doesn’t fully assert itself until mid-winter — by late January, the worsted weight sweaters that earlier seemed more like jackets than cardigans are in regular rotation and another lighter needs at least one heavy-ish layer underneath it. (The temperature went up to -4 last week, and I got all excited and wore just a T-shirt under my Grace cardigan. When I got to work, I realized my  mistake and ended up wearing my emergency wool sweater over top. Turns out sweater weather is as much an indoor thing as outdoor).

Anyway. I can happily say that despite the very, very cold weather, my feet have been nice and warm thanks to my supply of wool socks. Given my feelings about sweater weather, then, it should come as no surprise that I decided to ignore the seasonal colours and knit these up in the dead of winter.

Although these were on my needles for a while, don’t read that as a lack of enthusiasm on my part. (I actually finished these a while ago and, really, I was just enthusiastic about an actual sweater.) When these were my actual focus, the knitting flew. I find that to often be the case with striped socks, but still. I actually added a bit of length to the legs of these socks, both because I wanted to minimize my leftovers and because it’s really cold out and a little extra protection from the draught is a good thing.

These are just my basic 68-stitch, top-down, tight-gauge (9 sts = 1 inch) socks, with 2×2 ribbing at the top and a slip-stitch heel. It’s a formula I use a lot, but in the last six months or so I’ve nailed down the fit of the foot to pretty much perfection, resulting in socks that fit so well I forget I’m wearing them (even at the end of a long day of walking there’s no sagging or movement).

What really makes these socks worth such a (now) lengthy post, though, is the yarn, Nomadic Yarns Twisty Sock. These stripes are so evenly dyed, with such nice blending between the colours, that with not a lot of effort on my part I ended up with a perfectly matched pair. I have another decidedly Christmasy skein of this yarn in my stash, but now that these are off the needles and seem to be wearing well, I think ordering a few more is a good investment. Goodness knows that, with winters like this starting to feel like the norm, more socks won’t go to waste.