This is the thread to chat about our socks. Share pictures of your yarn and pattern ideas here.
Our theme this month is: Creative ways to disguise “ugly” yarn.
Our color is: The ugliest yarn in your stash. Ugly is in the eye of the beholder so you choose which one you think is ugly.
Our prize is a skein of Debbie Bliss Rialto Luxury Sock yarn.
Can we start a list of patterns to use up ugly sock yarn. I know @lovestostitch mentioned one a while back, but it slips my mind. If you want to add, just comment. I can edit to add to the list.
PATTERNS FOR UGLY SOCK YARN
Monster Socks (helical or scrappy)
Ugly Duckling Socks
Drops Rocky Mountain Sunrise (two yarns held together knit with US#6 needles
There is no “ugly” yarn, just yarn that is misunderstood. 
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder!
I love the pattern “Ugly Duckling.” It’s a mosaic pattern. It works well with an ugly variegated or striping yarn paired with a contrasting solid color.
Who knows copyright laws? Is it illegal to share copies of a free pattern? I have Ugly Duckling and would share it if it is legal to do so.
@lovestostitch Generally, it’s a better idea to share the link to a free pattern, whenever possible, rather than sharing the pattern itself, but given that it is only available on the site many of us don’t use anymore, I’m not sure what the actual rules are. I did find a review of it and it’s really cute, so I hope someone knows if we can share it!
I got it from that site years ago. I looked to see if I could find it somewhere else but I couldn’t find it. That’s why I asked about sharing.
I downloaded that one a long time ago but never made it. I don’t have it printed out but i have it in a zip drive.
This is my “ugly” yarn for this month. I won a skein of yarn in the past and the donor let me choose a colorway. I chose a pink and burgundy mix. This is what she sent me. Not my colors at all! I especially have an aversion to yellow. My son loves the colors so he will be the recipient of this pair of socks.
Or in the eye of the beer-holder … depending.
That looks like a fairly common mosaic knitting pattern. Maybe some month we can do a design-your-own sock where we have to pick our own pattern from a stitch “dictionary” and incorporate it into a plain sock. This is something I’m sure many experienced sock knitters do out of boredom.
@PurlgirlButtons That’s exactly what I’ve done with the two lace sock designs I’ve done. I found a stitch pattern I liked and just incorporated it into a standard “vanilla” sock pattern. That would be a really fun idea to do some month. I’d love to see what people come up with!
@PurlgirlButtons - another good theme idea! I’ll add it to our schedule. You were the one who had ugly sock yarn to use up. What are you going to use this month?
@DJM is right! Cuz i actually love these colors. Lol Hard to say without seeing it knit up though… it might be a bit busy? I’ve had that happen before. Get a yarn with colors i live but then feel like there is just too much happening with the color patterning or there is pooling or whatever. In which case i usually combine it with a solid and make stripes or color blocks. If i get around to a third pair this month maybe i can do something like that. Have to do some stash diving.
@KnitsWithHorses - this yarn makes a pattern. I like the pattern and I would be ok with all the colors except yellow. I don’t know why I dislike yellow so much. My poor hubby always wants yellow flowers and I never planted them until I discovered Gazanias last year. The flowers are like daisies but each flower has multiple colors - yellow, orange, white and pink. They are so cheerful that I like them. One of my friends that I’ve known for a long time came over and said, “What’s with yellow flowers?” She knows me too well!
The good news is that my son loves yellow but I do need to show him the pattern it makes. He might not like that.
@lovestostitch, I do have some really not exciting yarn that I am thinking of using with the pattern I added to the list to make some hiking/winter socks.
I got past the heel and my son finally admitted he wasn’t sure he liked this yarn. He didn’t want to say it but I could tell. I told him I would rather stop now than finish them if he wasn’t going to like them. So he fessed up that he really wasn’t sure he would like them. I pulled out my bag of Opal yarn and told him he could choose what he liked. Then he told me his vision for socks he would like. He wants 1" stripes of colors and he picked what he liked. I tried to talk him into a brighter blue but it didn’t work. I said the idea was perfect because I thought it was an ugly combination of colors so it fit right into the theme. He loves the colors together! There is black on the left but you can hardly see it. Now to start over.
I think the colors will go perfectly for a man. It does however remind me of a shirt my MIL bought for hubby, it was a bright background with large dots on it. She could never understand why he didn’t wear it when we came to visit. Hubby likes primary colors and nothing that brings attention to him.
I can’t wait to see how these turn out.
@DJM - my hubby would wear only black and grey if I didn’t encourage other colors. Since I buy his clothes, I have introduced some other colors.
My son was so funny because he didn’t think the original pair was “manly” enough but then he asks for crazy colored socks.