WYS Socks – the story so far…..! Blogtober 2021 : Day 15

Did you know that I’ve designed over 20 sock patterns for West Yorkshire Spinners?  I must admit that I hadn’t realised it was quite so many myself!

You may well know about the Winwick Mum yarn and patterns, but more about those later … I’ve actually been working with the amazing team at WYS since 2017 and have been using and recommending their fabulous Signature 4ply yarns for socks since before then.  Wow, now that I sit down to write about this – that’s incredible!  The time and the patterns do flash past, don’t they, and it wasn’t until Lucy reminded me about remembering to look back at my patterns instead of always thinking about the next one that I stopped, took a breath and rootled about in my computer files to make sure that I had remembered them all.

This was the first one I designed back in 2017 – the Simple Rib Socks.  I can still remember the day that I was asked if I’d like to design a pattern for WYS and I couldn’t believe it!  I thought all my Christmases had come at once!  My favourite yarn and such lovely people too … I absolutely didn’t hesitate to say yes!

It really is a very simple pattern – the rib columns are different sizes which adds extra interest to the sock and also when you’re knitting them as 2 x 2 or 3 x 1 rib can get quite boring after a while!  All of my sock patterns are based on my Basic 4ply Socks pattern so that if someone is new to knitting them but the pattern takes their eye, they can get help through the Sockalong tutorials.  Those lovely colours are Pink Flamingo which is the pink striped ball and Candyfloss which is the contrast colour.  The pattern works just as well in a solid colour and is shown on the pattern in a version knitted entirely in Candyfloss as well.  The pattern is still available from WYS stockists (in both printed and PDF forms) and from the WYS website as a PDF download.

Now, if you’re not sure if you have a West Yorkshire Spinners stockist local to you, have a look here at the stockists page which lists stockists both in the UK and overseas.  If there’s nobody local to you, I’m pretty certain that all of the stockists will be happy to post out, plus of course there are the online stores like Black Sheep Wools and Wool Warehouse.  The new yarn shop opening tomorrow (16 October 2021) in Warrington, Stitch Station, is also a WYS stockist but isn’t up on the list yet.  (If you want to come along to the opening, the shop is at 6 Station Road, Great Sankey, Warrington, WA5 1RQ and I’ll be there to admire socks and answer any questions you might have from 10am -4pm.)

I was beyond excited to have been asked to design these socks so you can imagine that everything went completely off the scale when WYS asked me if I would create another design for their new Christmas yarn in that same year.  And no, I didn’t think twice this time either!  I’d already seen the Holly Berry yarn the year before and thought it was lovely so I was really keen to see what was coming next.

It was Candy Cane!

This was another simple pattern, again based on my Basic 4ply Socks but with a difference.  I decided to try out an idea I had had for a new type of heel flap after seeing in my Facebook groups that lots of people found a regular heel flap a bit tight on their feet.  I couldn’t find any other patterns using this technique so I called it the Ribbed Heel Flap and the difference between this one and the regular slipped heel stitch flap is that you purl the stitches in between the slipped stitches and that actually makes it all much more stretchy.  I tried it out on a pair for big daughter’s boyfriend who has the largest feet I knit for and his socks fitted him extremely well so I’d recommend using this technique if you have wide heels.  You can read the blog post all about the Candy Cane socks and the new heel flap and you can still download the pattern for free from the WYS website.  Did I mention that some of the patterns come for free?  Well, let me tell you about it now!  Every Christmas, WYS very generously give away a new pattern with their latest Christmas yarn and you can get a copy whilst stocks last with the yarn, and later on by downloading it from the WYS website.

The next WYS pattern came out at Christmas 2018 and that was for Fairy Lights.  Oh, those colours!  The pattern was an updated version of Candy Cane and again, you can download a copy for free from the WYS website.

If you’re wondering what else I was doing with myself during 2018, I was actually writing my More Super Socks book and yes, I did use WYS yarn for my Zig Zag Rainbow socks which feature in the book as one of the exclusive patterns!  The blog post all about More Super Socks and the Fairy Lights yarn is here.

The other thing, of course, is that although these patterns are for Christmas socks, the process starts very much earlier than the festive season.  In 2019, the Christmas Robin yarn was the latest to join the growing stable of Christmas yarns – initially limited edition but so very popular that they have stayed in stock – and whilst this is the seasonal photo that accompanies the socks …

this was the reality of the design process!

Oh there are definitely worse places to be working on your Christmas socks! 🤣   The blog post that talks all about this design is here.  This pattern has been renamed Blizten and you can download your free copy from the WYS website here.

That wasn’t the only pattern that I designed using WYS yarn during 2019.  In February of that year, the first Winwick Mum collection of yarn was launched.  Oh my, even now I can still remember what it felt like to hold the first samples of those new yarns – yarn in colour stripes that no one had seen before – and it’s enough to make my eyes prickle with emotion all over again.

There’s a whole page dedicated to my Winwick Mum yarns and all of the blog posts that went with them, from choosing the colours to knitting up the samples, going to the photo shoot and to the Stitches trade show … wow, that whole process was something I never imagined I would ever experience and to have done it twice … well, that’s something I never take for granted.

The four colours in the first collection are (l-r) Hidden Gem, Brightside, Seascape and Wildflower.

and they each had their own pattern which told the story of the yarn inspiration.

Hidden Gem was the very first Winwick Mum yarn and inspired by an amethyst tumblestone …

Brightside – always looking for the positive and just like the blog, the extraordinary in the everyday …

Seascape, inspired by childhood seaside holidays …

and Wildflower, a story of dog walks and Spring blooms.

These patterns come in a book, the Winwick Mum Collection, along with an extra pattern called Mix and Match Heels which gives you a pattern for a basic sock with four different heel versions, each of which are used in the patterned socks in the book.

The pattern book is still available – in fact, it’s just been re-printed and now has a spiral binding.  You can get it from WYS stockists as mentioned above, and WYS have recently released the patterns individually too so that you can download one or all of them if you want to.  You can see more information on the patterns in this blog post and it’s worth asking your local yarn shop if they have the patterns available to download – alternatively try Wool Warehouse (UK) or Eskdale Yarns (NZ).

The plain sock pattern from this book was published separately as Seeing Stripes.

Oh my life, this post is turning out to be a bit longer than I expected!  Can you cope with more socks?  Well, I’m going to show you anyway! 🙂

In 2020, West Yorkshire Spinners had their most fabulous Christmas sock yarn year yet.  Yes, there was a brand new yarn called Silent Night but it was a bit different and special because it was sparkly!  And because there had been such a demand for it, the limited edition yarns of Candy Cane and Fairy Lights were brought back – and Fairy Lights was sparkly as well!  It was almost too much for an over-excited sock knitter to take … especially as new patterns were needed and I was so very happy to be asked to design them.  I don’t think we’ll ever forget what a strange year 2020 was, and there’s nothing stranger than sitting in your own back garden on a ridiculously hot Spring day knitting Christmas socks – as peculiar as knitting them on a beach!  There were seven patterns released in total, and all named after Father Christmas’ reindeer which means I can never remember which is which 🙂

Comet is the free pattern for 2020, still available as a download from the WYS website.  It’s a lace panelled sock which looks really pretty in the yarn that is, for the first time, not distinct stripes.

The rest of the patterns came as a book, again spiral bound as West Yorkshire Spinners have made the inspired move to publish all of their pattern books like this now.

There are actually three versions of this sock in the book – this short sock version, a longer version which has calf shaping so that it can be worn as a knee high sock and a slouch version without shaping.  This photo is of Vixen, the knee high version.

The other patterns are Blitzen, which you saw above …

Dancer, which is a new cable pattern for the sparkly Fairy Lights yarn …

Dasher, which is a new pattern for the Holly Berry yarn …

and Prancer, which is the new mock cable pattern for the Candy Cane yarn.  (I did warn you that I could never remember which reindeer was which, I don’t think these are in the right order according to the famous poem at all! 🙂 )

There’s a whole blog post dedicated to these socks and the Christmas yarns here.

2020 turned out to be pretty busy as a sock designing year because in April of 2021, this happened!

Yes!  Another Winwick Mum collection, this time called Seasons as all the yarn colourways were inspired by the seasons, and once again there was a pattern that told the story behind the inspiration.

Fresh Shoots in the Spring Green colourway, cables which were inspired by a local farmer …

 

Sizzling Rays in the Summer Sunset colourway, lace socks inspired by summer evenings and the setting sun …

 

Falling Hues, lacy leaves in the Autumn Leaves colourway …

 

and Frosted Ice, another lacy design, this time in the colourway Winter Icicle, inspired by the Ice Hotel in Sweden and delicate swirly frost patterns.

Oh, I so enjoyed designing these socks!  All the while they were on my needles, I could see the memories as clearly as if I were standing in them again, and because we all experience the seasons, I know that the colourways will bring up all kinds of memories for everyone who knits them as well.  My post on designing them is here.

The Seasons patterns are available both in a spiral bound book and also as individual patterns – stockists are as above for the first Winwick Mum collection.

This year’s Christmas sock yarn is Vintage Tinsel and there was another new pattern (oh, how I love those “Now, about the Christmas socks for this year …” conversations with WYS!) which arrived in the shops a couple of months ago – Twinkle Toes.  You might guess from the name that the yarn is another sparkly one and you’d be absolutely right!

Once again, the paper pattern is free with the yarn whilst stocks last and there’s a free download from the WYS website here.

These socks are inspired by tinsel and the twisted stitch panel in the centre actually looks like a length of the sparkly tinsel that you would wrap around a Christmas tree!  The blog post all about these socks is here.

And that’s the story nearly done for now … but not quite!

There’s a brand new collection available from West Yorkshire Spinners which has just been launched, a collection with an iconic British designer which features socks …

You might just recognise the design style of Lottie …

Kelly …

and Tiia (complete with flowers!)

It’s quite an experience to create a pattern from someone else’s drawings – it’s quite different to asking someone what they would like and then thinking the design up for yourself.  I’ll write more about it in another blog post so do look out for that one.

You know, I think it really is a good thing that we don’t know what’s ahead of us – both good and bad – because although it’s unbelievably amazing to think that I have created the patterns to Dame Zandra’s designs for this stunning collection, if you’d told me that I’d be doing this way back in 2017, I think the thought of it would have frightened the life out of me!   Now, though, it feels like the most natural thing in the world and wouldn’t change it for anything.  I am truly blessed.

So that’s it … the story so far … and is there more to come?  Let’s just say we’re not ready to close the book just yet!