After mending socks, reclaiming a lot of my Kidsilk Haze last week and updating my stash on Ravelry, I had a look at my bits and ends of sock yarn. Knitting a pair of socks never takes all of the yarn in the skein, even when I knit a pair for the mister. There’s always some left over. I have two afghans in progress with these bits – the older one is with sock yarn hexagons:

You can find the pattern for knitting these hexagons right here on my blog.

The second is with mitred squares, like this:

Sometimes I have a lot leftover – for example, knitting socks for the mister often takes part of a third 50g ball, leaving most of it when they’re done. I have some sock yarns that I loved in the skein but find less thrilling knit up. And there’s the issue of the mister walking through his heavier socks, which he wears in the house in the winter instead of slippers.

The Snowshoe socks look like a good answer. Here’s a link to the pattern on Ravelry. These socks are knit with two strands of sock yarn held together. Even better, part of the fun of the pattern is mixing more than two yarns together. If you haven’t looked at this book, btw, you really should – Knits About Winter is truly lovely, with many great patterns. (That’s a Ravelry link, where you can see all the patterns in the book.)

I added one more twist to this combination – I once knit a pair of bedsocks out of Kidsilk Haze with two strands of that yarn held together. They are the lightest, softest and warmest socks ever. I decided to add a strand of KSH to the two strands of sock yarn in these socks for the mister.

Here’s my first yarn combination:

Left to right, 78g of Viola Sock in Blot, 45g of Regia 4-ply sock yarn, 31g of Regia 4-ply sock yarn in a different colourway, 16g of Crazy Zauberball, 55g of Lichen and Lace Sock in Huckleberry, and 50g of Sugarbush Drizzle (which is like KSH).

In the end, I used all of the Viola Sock, 43 g of the purple Regia, 43 g of the Lichen & Lace and 40 g of the Drizzle. Here are his finished socks:

They’re wonderfully thick, soft and squishy. Now I need to make myself a pair!