These are knit using the Oma's Sokken pattern - a nice, simple pattern, good for self-striping yarns. I used an Opal yarn for these, one of the fairly-new Monet-inspired colorways.
I have a new respect for Opal yarns after my mom showed me some of the socks I knit for her down through the years. The Opal ones - after 10 years or more of use - are still bright and unpilled; some of the more "luxury" yarns have pilled badly or faded. Opal isn't the softest yarn ever, but it holds its shape well and it seems to stay bright through many washings.
The Oma's Sokken pattern is based on the socks someone's Dutch grandmother knit. They have ribbing on the front for fit, and plain knit on the back for simplicity:
These socks, though. THESE took me months. At first I couldn't keep the knits and purls straight (had to rip out most of the cuff of the first sock and restart it) and finally I wrote on the pattern, next to each row, which stitches in the 12 stitch repeat have to be purled. That helped, but still
These are Socks for the Deputy Headmistress. (Harry Potter themed).
My other issue with these is that the glittery Stroll I used split like whoa, and so that made it harder to knit. (Opal does not, in my experience, tend to split)
Still, they are pretty:
But yeah. In the future, if I want solid yarn for something I'm going to see if Opal Solids are still available, or at least choose a more tightly-spun yarn.
Also, for what it's worth, a "shelfie" of the Barbie dolls I have (with bonus baby Pony photobomb):
From left to right - the Wonder Woman "hidden sword dress" doll (so her name is Diana). Gabby, Camille (the standing doll - an African-American skin toned "Curvy" in a fancier "collector grade" dress), Ginger, Olivia, Hermione (Mattel but smaller scale, more like Skipper sized), Sam, and Cinnamon. Both Gabby and Ginger are wearing new-vintage dresses from my most recent Etsy purchase; Cinnamon has an asymmetrical-hem denim skirt and knit top that....well, when I saw them at the wal-mart, I laughed and said "those are kinda tacky...oh, they're perfect for Cinnamon!" and I bought them.
Because yeah, I have little headcanoned backstories for most of the dolls (I'm still not sure about Camille's; she seems a little "remote" compared to the others, and she's one of my more-recent purchases. Diana seems similarly remote. And Hermione is, well, just Hermione, like in the books).
Cinnamon is a little bit of a wild child. She doesn't have really great taste in clothes, so often her outfits are kind of thrown together. She's a trust-fund kid so she's kind of a dilettante without any real fixed career. She does some art, she works at a food co-op, but what she really likes to do is dance.
Sam is an ER nurse. She's also pretty athletic, which is how she copes with the stress of her job. She's also good at mindfulness and meditation. She likes pastels (even though she's wearing mostly navy blue right now). She plays on an over-25 mixed-gender basketball team (as does her boyfriend) and does long-distance running (she was on Cross Country in high school and college)
Olivia is very precise and a little picky. She's also artistic and works as a jewelry designer for a living. She likes ladylike clothes and always tries to look her best. Purple is her favorite color.
Ginger is shy and quiet. She does legal research and is a librarian at a law library. She tends to dress kind of old-school preppy. On her weekends off, she volunteers at a dog rescue facility.
Gabby (whose sculpt is based on Gabby Douglas, but whom I have headcanoned into a whole different person) is a high school junior. She's smart and earns good grades but is also kind and funny and so is fairly popular (and justifiably so). She wants to be either a veterinarian or a zoologist so most of her classes are science and math classes.
and a tiny thing I hesitate to say, but, given Knitting News of the Day and the fact that it's hit some online news sites where people who know jack squat about knitting saw it and are feeling free to comment on it, well...two things. One, it's a private company so it can do as it pleases within the law (and this is within the law) and second, I'm really hoping some of the people who are not knitting-related but are upset do not decide to make fake accounts and "grief" people on there, necessitating whack-a-mole by the moderators. I am a mod at the place in question and when things get heated it is Not Fun. I resigned being mod of one group because of some interpersonal stuff....
My understanding is that some of the decision came about because there were people who were being beyond ugly to others on there, and while maybe my preference is for actively ugly people to be banned, rather than some discussion be discouraged....well, I'm not the boss of them
Anyway, I hope it doesn't happen, because it will be another datapoint for my growing Humans Are The Worst, Actually file that's growing in my mind. And I've had to mute most discussion of it elsewhere because the whole endless rehashing of this kind of stuff does me a discomfort
And I'm already unhappy and uncomfortable enough; word came today that Sharon, the wife of my parents' minister, who had been fighting cancer for more than a decade (beat it once, it recurred, she had a spinal stroke while undergoing treatment) passed away late this week. And you know, that makes all the back and forth sniping feel very petty and very small and I admit sometimes I just want to scream SHUT UP at people who are sniping about things when I am sad because of someone who was a good person dying too young.
Edited to add: dinner is pizza muffins (English muffins with pizza sauce and cheese). Because my Mickey Mouse cookbook suggests these are Piglet's recipe, and "Something like this can be awfully cheering when you're feeling Very Small and rather sad about it."
And while I'm not PHYSICALLY small (if anything, I am too big and ungainly), right now I do feel rather small and rather sad.
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