Monday, February 05, 2007

Polar Bear Socks

For today's Monday customer project, I have a pair of lovely knee socks to share with you. Don't let the post title fool you. These are not polar bear themed socks. Rather, they are socks by Tess of Polar Bear Patterns.

Before I show you these grand socks, let me introduce the maker. Tess is the knitting instructor extraordinaire at my favorite LYS. She also designs, writes and sells her patterns under the name Polar Bear Patterns. Unfortunately, Tess is having technical difficulties with her website at the moment, so if you pop over to buy the pattern, you will find that the Polar Bear site is temporarily down and in its place for the moment is her local website with class information and such. You can, however, click on the "About Us" link on her site for contact information. I'm sure if you would like to purchase the pattern, Tess would be happy to provide you with information or notify you when the site is up and running again.

Without further ado, here is the lovely sock made with FF Superwash Merino Wool Sock Yarn in the Marrakesh colorway:



If this sock looks familiar to you, that's because it is a collaborative effort between Tess and me. Some months back, you may recall the similar knee socks I knit in the Deepest Forest colorway. I wore these socks to knit club one day and Tess fell in love with the elegant simplicity of the socks, which is very much her style. Since I'm no designer or pattern writer and also had taken very poor notes when knitting the socks, I passed along what I could recall about the pattern to Tess, who then reverse engineered them and turned them into this polished version, with one of her well-written patterns to boot. Tess is an engineer by training and this comes through in her patterns, which are known for being straightforward and easy to follow. As with most good engineers, Tess leans toward elegance and simplicity of design.

Wonderful job, Tess, on both the knitting and the design!

And to all of the rest of you: PLEASE E-MAIL YOUR PHOTOS OF FINISHED PROJECTS TO ME! The steady flow of photos I've been receiving for the past several months has suddenly dried up. I get so many notes saying how much you all enjoy seeing the finished project photos, but I need your photos to keep it going!

Before I sign off for today, I want to be sure to let all of you know that I have some exciting news to share later this week. Well, it's exciting to me anyway and I hope it will be for you too. Okay, okay! I'll tell you a bit more: It's a new type of yarn coming to my FF line! I am rather ridiculously excited about this new yarn and very much looking forward to the unveiling later this week. The first batch of colorways will be ready for listing in a few days, so tune in later this week for details.

Everyone have a wonderful week . . . and get some knitting done!

7 comments:

Mia said...

I love the socks!!!!

Anonymous said...

Great socks! Great color too.

Anonymous said...

New colorways? Can't wait to see them!

Anonymous said...

This are beautiful! In my browser, the colorway reminds me of a tiger, one of my favorite animals. I can't wait to get some FF yarn and try the pattern out.

Anonymous said...

Umm..I mean THOSE are beautiful. I knew I should have hit the preview button before I clicked publish. LOL!

Madge said...

Great socks! I just love the Marrakesh colorway...and will probably make a simple lace shawl with my skein. (I'm still a sock newbie, and don't want to waste it while I'm still learning what I'm doing.)

Congrats on your new yarn, too. I'm looking forward to seeing it!

~Tonia~ said...

Great sock! Can't wait to see and hear about the new yarn.