Just the thing for a stormy weekend …

As if we haven’t all had enough rain lately, Storm Claudia has arrived for the weekend with wild winds and torrential downpours.  These storms never arrive quietly with gifts of cake, do they?  It’ll depend whereabouts you are, of course, but I recommend wrapping up warm and take extra care if you are going outdoors … and if you can stay in where you’re dry, I’ve got plenty for you to read on the blog this weekend!

First of all, out on the blog tomorrow I’ve got a blog post written by not so small daughter about her time in Tanzania this summer climbing Mount Kilimanjaro and then spending a week on safari and on the island of Zanzibar.  As you might expect, she had quite a tale to tell and a LOT of photos, but she’s condensed it into a brew-length read so that you can see what she’s been up as you drink your tea or coffee.

Before she left on her travels, I knitted her some new pairs of socks.  This has become something of a tradition when she’s been away and this girl has been away to some far-flung places!  Two years ago, I designed the Don’t Be Koi socks for her fundraising efforts to go to Japan with Rangers (Guides), last year I knitted her two pairs of Sound Waves socks for her trek in Nepal and this year, I designed another pair for her climb up a Very Big Mountain.

Now, there is a connection between a storm raging in the UK and a sock design for walking socks – because if you’re staying in and hunkering down, then what better way to spend your time than to cast on a new pair of socks?!

The new pattern is called Well-Travelled Socks and it will also be out on the blog on tomorrow (Saturday 15 November) – and not just that, I have a second pattern to release at the same time so you’ve got a choice of socks to knit!

The Well-Travelled Socks are knitted in DK (8ply) yarn, but you can also knit them using 4ply held double – you can see from this photo that there are two pairs of socks in different yarns: the left hand pair is knitted in West Yorkshire Spinners Wool Revival DK yarn and the right hand pair is knitted in West Yorkshire Spinners Signature 4ply held double.  This means that even if the weather is too bad to go outside to a yarn shop, if you’ve got 4ply in your stash, you can still cast on!

The second pattern out this weekend is called Sloping Hills and it was first published in the Sock Knitting Bible written by my good friend Lynne Rowe a couple of years ago.  I have re-written the pattern in my own Winwick Mum style (if you’ve got the book, you’ll see that their style is different to mine but the socks work out the same) and I thought it would be nice to have two DK sock patterns available at the same time as it’s getting to that time of year in the UK when you need a good thick pair of socks!

There will be a separate post for each pattern so that will be three blog posts coming out tomorrow – I won’t send emails for them all individually but there will be another one tomorrow, and then we’ll be back to our usual weekly routine again.  Not on my mailing list and feel like you might be missing out? 🙂  You can click here to join.

I think these patterns will be brilliant if you’ve got socks to knit for Christmas and holiday gifts – you can whizz through DK socks at quite the pace compared to 4ply and that’s great if you’ve got big feet to knit for!  You can buy each pattern individually for £4.50 or if you like the look of them both, you can buy both patterns for £7.00 and save £2.00 until 30 November 2025 – there’ll be more details in the sock posts tomorrow.

That’s it for me today – I thought I’d better let you know what’s coming this weekend rather than spring lots of blog posts on you without warning!

I’ll see you tomorrow with not so small daughter’s Postcards from Tanzania post, and the sock patterns will be available at the same time, all being well with the technical interweb stuff behind the scenes!  Until then, stay safe and dry! xx