A herd of unicorns

I left work today in a bad mood, huffing and puffing to myself about the difficulty of having to work with people. I caught myself doing exactly what I had just told a colleague not to do - let it bother me. So I huffed and puffed a bit more and took a deep breath and cheered myself up with showing off my sock yarn drawer.

I've been trying to add up how much sock yarn I have. Would you believe, I've actually tried it twice already and still can't figure out how much I have. So I've gone back to the beginning and tried again. I've had to set a few rules to help me as there are some issues when it comes to what is stash:
1) Only full hanks can be counted
2) Only hanks that have not been wound into cakes can be counted
3) Anything on the needles does not count
4) 100g is considered one pair of socks unless they will be super long stockings in which case 150g is one pair
5) Yarn has to be specifically marketed as sock yarn. Other 4ply yarn does not count.

So this is the list of the pure, untouched sock yarn that I have.

Here is my little herd of unicorns:

The two on the left came from The Natural Dye Studio and the other three are from Fyberspates. I'll own up to having another skein of this that has already been used to make a prototype for a new design but as per rule 2) it doesn't count, although it will almost certainly end up as a pair of socks. The idea of the Unicorn Sock Club is to buy yarn each month, from either of the two shops and solve all the riddles that are included. At the end of the club run, you use all your answers to solve the biggest riddle - what are the Unicorns made from?


The two Unicorn sellers also sell lots of other lovely sock yarn including the ones below:

100grams of Tangerine Sparkle Sock from Fyberspates and 100g of Mirage (Merino/Tencel) from TNDS. I was put off buying the sparkle sock yarn for ages at the thought of cheap, scratchy glitter socks I bought from Topshop years ago. However, I finally caved on the advice that the sparkles aren't scratchy, they are lovely. Mmmmmmmmmmmm. It's entirely possible the Mirage will not be made into socks but I'm following the rules so it's included here.

Here's a shot of the other guys hanking out in the sock drawer:

From top to bottom there is Pink Artyarns Ultramerino 4, Blue, Rainbow and Grey Stripe Koigu, Purple/Red Plushness by Skein Queen and Blue/Grey Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock. I like to think of Koigu and Lorna's Laces as the big boys of the sock yarn world as they are well established, readily available unless you live somewhere uselesss (like the UK) and have a ton of year round available colourways.

Hello little bag of leftovers. Per the rules, the leftovers don't get included even though there may be enough for more than one sock. Rules is rules.

And there's everything packed neatly away with a smellybag of sandalwood. Just because.
So what's the tally?
Unicorn - 500g = 5 pairs
Sparkle - 100g = 1 pair
Mirage - 100g = 1 pair
Big boys - 450 g = 4 pairs including some stockings in the LL
Plushness - 100g = 1 pair

So I have enough to start 12 new pairs of socks. Phew. Wasn't so hard. The rules really helped. I started off with only three rules but added two more in the name of transparency. I'm not cheating here. Just because lots and lots of 4ply alpaca could be made into socks doesn't mean it has to be included in the tally. I have three pairs of socks on the needles at the moment but one of those will probably get ripped (again) as it's just not working for me.

My sister guessed I had enough for 20 pairs. Pah! I guessed 15 which is about right as I was very sneaky and finished a pair then cast on a new pair inbetween counting attempts.

Well that yarn therapy was very successful. I feel ready to go away and face the world again...and knit some more sock.