My poor little October self-imposed-sock-of-the-month club sock has been neglected, not in the knitting, but in the reporting. Allow me then, to take just a moment to introduce you. 
This is the second of a pair – I think I’ll easily finish by the end of the month. Yarn: STR lightweight in Tidepooling, and the pattern is "Cloning anemone". I’m rather fetched with them, as well as the patch of fallen horse chestnuts I found to photograph them in. (Hint: don’t try to rearrange those things. They’re pokey.) The pattern is way cooler than it looks here, but my ability to arrange the sock to show the pattern up amongst spikes in a parking lot was limited. I’ll show them off better tomorrow when they’re in a less tricky location.
Yarn Harlot
Nice! I like the pokey horse chestnuts 🙂
Lovely sock, but by the spikes I’d say those are real chestnuts. Are there any fit to roast?
What kind of DPNS are those? Do you have a favorite brand or does it depend on the project?
In the picture, they look a bit like tribbles.
Methinks I’ve done this one…it looks like RSC year before last perhaps? I love both the yarn and the socks. I just wish I’d made the leg a tad longer.
NEVER walk barefooted in that parking lot!
Mmmm…chestnuts. Mmmmm…sock wearing weather. Very clever pic!
Looks to be a very nice sock and nicish weather in Oregon. Lucky you.
Those are sweet chestnuts, not horse ones! Nice sock!
Lovely! Reminds me to get to work on my current socks – might get the first one done tonight… Especially if I work on it instead of Pathophysiology…. 😉
That is one delightful colourway! Thank you for the soft and spiky photo!
Beautiful sock pattern and fiber!
My grandmother had a chestnut tree in her backyard when I was a child. As I think back on those days, I can’t understand why we kids insisted on running through the yard barefooted! lol Ouch!!
And here I thought you’d discovered a patch of tribbles! Sock is lookin’ good.
Nice shot. I have these all over the backyard. The push mower is not impressed, but I believe the squirrels are.
I think that sock-to-be would look stunning no matter how you photographed it…but they look especially whimsical amongst those pokey little horse chestnuts, that in all agree-ance (not a word before? it is now!) with Diane, do look like Tribbles!
Do you call horse chestnuts conkers, in Canada?
a fall sport was to thread them onto a string, and make a bolo like weapon… (boys did this, and attacked each other..)
Sock would also look lovely beside a 6 pack of Black Butte Porter! Hope you get out to enjoy this wonderful autumnal weather.
Pretty!! Love to see the first!
Pretty pattern!
You talking about anemones???? Does that mean that you are also looking at water??? Are you in that gorgeous spot where we met for sock camp????
So jealous!!! Say “hi” to the Blue Heron – Iggy?!
oh. no. just read your tweet… ribbit. ribbit.
Ooh, I like the yarn and pattern match up. Those chestnuts do indeed look pokey! Did it pill the yarn?
The amazing thing about those chestnut hulls is that they are fur lined !!
The sock looks like it’s floating in a pile of little rolled up hedgehogs. The stitch pattern looks delightfully warm and thick.
You seem to be rockin’ the Signature Needle Arts DPNs. I have one set and I really like them (in all-purpose US 2). You’ve blogged before about liking metal and pointy. How have you enjoyed them so far? (I don’t work for the SNA people–I’m just curious)
You had me fooled. I thought those were sea anemones (and then sea urchins) for a moment.
It was all the nautical references, I guess.
Y’know, I was going to say something about tempting the knitting fates when you wrote, “I think I’ll easily finish by the end of the month.”
But I didn’t want to jinx you…
At least it’s a beautiful colour, so hopefully you don’t mind re-knitting it 🙂
cool nuts!
Yes, I agree, they look like tribbles to me too!
I’d like to hear about those signature needles you are using… review?
Dehydrated tribbles, Diane! The sock in progress looks fabulous. As for the chestnuts, I’m glad you said that is what they are, as I thought they were some kind of spinifex grass…..or something similarly desert-like!
Oooh, love TidePooling, love the socks, love the pokeys.
Stephanie, I’ve invoked your name in my blog post today — WWYHD! (What Would the Yarn Harlot Do?)
It’s a multiple choice answer, so you can’t go wrong!
http://creatingafamilyhome.blogspot.com/2010/10/im-having-yarn-dilemma-which-option.html
Horse Chestnut – isn’t that the tree also known as Buckeye? Does it have a smooth, dark nut inside? My father carried one of those in his pocket for years. It was his “worry stone”.
If your blog were a movie, “I think I’ll easily finish by the end of the month,” would have been accompanied by some eerie, ominous music, to be reprised during the “About to frog the sock on my blog today. Knit the first a medium, the second a small. I don’t care for myself right now,” tweet that came later.
I love that colorway, and I love your background for your picture. Sorry about your sock (read the tweet a little earlier). :sigh:
Guilty ! I have a couple pairs,ahem-half pairs, that have been sucked into the sock knitting time warp.
I totally just started knitting those exact socks (same yarn, same pattern) this weekend! How funny 🙂
I thought the chestnuts were sea urchins. Which would make since with the colorway and pattern, which are lovely btw. Another factor could be that I grew up on the coast of Alaska where there aren’t any horse chestnuts, but there are lots of anemones and sea urchins.
I too made those socks – my husband immediately took them and they are his favorite pair. I am sure yours will be as lovely.
Poor little tadpole… at least he got his 5 minutes before being RIPped.
Considering the accompanying tweet, hmmm…lovely yarn.
Yes, those look like sweet chestnuts, not horse chestnuts. Go foraging!
lovely. Colour-matched. For a minute i thought you had been making bootie pom-poms for the socks.
good grief. System refused my post twice. Error, it said. Had no idea triplets would result. So sorry.
I am using tidepooling for a pair of socks right now! I struggled to find a great pattern for this yarn. I ended up with a 2×1 rib with a side cable. It works. Yours look great!
At first look I thought you had decided to treat yourself with a jaunt out to the desert southwest. That’s a bang-up lookalike of a Phoenix cactus garden you have going there……>:-)
Fetched….love the way you used that word. The sock is pretty cool too!
Love the chestnuts and we do thread them up and call them conkers here in Canada and try to break each one…last one standing is the winner…but try to find them. The colour of that yarn is magnificent…I haven’t been taken to doing socks (bad experience when I was young)but this makes me want to knit socks!
I’ve never heard of pokey Horse Chestnuts before… they are cool looking, I bet the tree looks pretty cool right before they all fall off!
Is that the yarn or the pattern (or maybe just perfect harmony of both) that makes the yarn not stripey at all and perfectly random?
I love it! Perfect combination and I think that colorway is brilliant.
Nice sock! Blue Moon do know their stuff.
Not horse chestnuts there, by the way – not conkers. You’ve got Spanish chestnuts there, the edible sort – they are also called sweet chestnuts. Yum!
I really need to try some of the Blue Moon yarns. I really want to make Laura’s sweater from Twist Collective, and it uses those yarns but I’d like to try them before plunking down so much money even for a sweater I would wear to death!
What a fabulous image. Those chestnuts are the perfect backdrop. It almost looks like a cactus garden with the sock as the bloom.
Those are Spanish Chestnuts, not Horse Chestnuts, and perfectly edible. You can also used the hulls to dye with.
Thank you for showing us the October socks. I was going crazy! Asking questions like “is she even knitting a sock this month, and if so what is it” and “What does this sock look like” ect
I think you get the point. I was almost going to email you and ask “Where is the October sock??” 😀
Love the yarn and pattern, and please remember to keep us up to date.
This is my 4th year in the RSC. The Cloning Anenome socks and the Holidazed socks are my favorites – quick, easy and oh so comfortable!
Beautiful image. I came across same (horse chestnuts) along the road in Petaluma, CA, last Satursday, near the Luther Burbank Experimental Farm. He was a big breeder/geneticist of California fruit trees and flowers. Quelle coincidence!
What a cheerful little sock it is!
My sock mojo has got up and left… The poor sock that is about 1/2 done is gathering dust.
I love these socks. I happen to be wearing mine today; same pattern, same yarn.
Love the colorway!
What a great shot! The squirrels and bluejays here have been known to wait to let the cars run over the neighbor’s chestnuts to help smash them open for them.
The pattern looks plenty nifty as photographed! I’m always so impressed with the way your yarn selections accentuate your projects! Is there a selective art to this or is it an artistic eye sort of thing?
Question: What happens to the furnace wars when you are out of town? Does Joe secretly cave? Or are the rules suspended? Do you sleep outside? 🙂 I thought of this last weekend when we were lodged in a hotel and had very little control over how warm our room was. We’d immediately turn the heat off or down when entering the room, but the cleaning people would turn it up while we were away and it’d be back up to a decadent 72F when we returned.
sweeeeeeet! although at first i thought the pokey things were bits of fur from a disembowelled squirrel!
I wore my Tidepooling cloning anemone socks yesterday! Love them!
Geography is everything.
I looked at the photo and admired your bravery for laying your sock amongst a number of cacti.
Then I wondered if native cacti exist near PDX.
Having never eaten roasted chestnuts I don’t think I will in the future either, Picking those suckers must be a trying time. Love the colour and pattern of the socks
Just a comment about SS11 class for kids tweet- I took my then 5 y.o. to the marketplace at SS09 and she was really excited about learning to knit after that. She told me she was going to the next SS and taking a class. It would be really great if she could actually do that next year!
Uh those are sweet chestnuts…
love the sock…
Ummmmm! Very pretty – and the sock is, too!
Another one saying they look like edible chestnuts. They’re not too bad to shell, actually; and it’s hilarious (when you’re six) if you put some of the nuts on coals without pricking the shells first!
Sorry to hear about the sock pattern disaster – which one will the correct size come out looking like?
I can’t join in identifying the chestnuts, but they definitely don’t look like what we call horse chestnuts down here. (Back in Pittsburgh, where I grew up, we called them buckeyes. When the hull splits, revealing the dark nut with a light colored round patch, they look like the eye of a deer–buck eye). Ours have less downy looking spikes.
Very cool socks!
I made these socks…and I love how the sock pattern and colors of the yarn work together to make a lovely pair of socks! I wear them all the time!
You are my favorite knitter ever and you crack me up! I have a question though. Where did Ken’s hat pattern go?
I made these and they’re lovely; in fact I’m wearing them at the moment… I really need to make another pair with that pattern.
Lovely socks but I’m really chiming in to agree that yes, those are the edible kind of chestnut. The spiky part of horse chestnuts looks more like a tennis ball with bumps.
Thank you for sending the hat pattern! I’m working on it right now!
Do you have another page a day calendar coming for 2011?? I would like one. I have my coffee and your calendar every morning, and my hubby loves the the way knit was about war times!! who da thunk it!! I hope you have one coming!!