Panda Silk Socks

Taken with Instagram

"Everybody tells me that they would love to knit, but they don't have time.  I look at people's lives and I can see opportunity and time for knitting all over the place.  The time spent riding the bus each day?  That's a pair of socks over a month.  Waiting in line?  Mittens.  Watching TV?  Buckets of wasted time that could be an exquisite lace shawl."  ~Stephanie Pearl-McPhee, At Knit's End:  Meditations for Women Who Knit Too Much 

 I finally finished knitting my socks. They feel like dress socks instead of hand knitted socks. That is actually pretty cool because I can wear them with some of my fancier shoes and be a little bit more comfortable in them. I really like how they pooled.


For this pair of socks I decreased the toes down to eight stitches on each side of the sock before finishing them off. I think this gives my toes more wiggle room and they feel more comfortable. My heel still keeps sliding down my foot when I wear them for some reason and the toe of my right sock has developed ladders already when I have just worn them for one day. This is getting really frusterating that it keeps happening. I believe that a pair of well-fitting socks should not be developing ladders on the side of the toe.

I have a theory about the ladders down the sides of my toes, but I will have to knit one more pair of socks to test out that theory. I always mess up one decrease round and I have to decrease on one side for two rounds in a row. This might be affecting the ladder problem and explain why I have it on one side of my sock.

Yarn Review: Crystal Palace Yarns Panda Silk Print

Panda silk is a merino/bamboo/combed silk blend. It is a very light fingering weight yarn bordering on the laceweight side of the thickness scale. 

While you are knitting with it, the yarn is a little slippery because of the high bamboo content, but if you are not bothered by a little slickness, it doesn't interfere with the normal knitting process. The yarn has a really nice sheen to it and when it is knitted up is very lightweight. The fabric is also soft even before washing it.

The only bad thing about this yarn is that it is a little splitty to knit with. If you drop a stitch it is a little difficult to pick back up if you start to panic because the yarn will run down the fabric pretty easily, but it doesn't automatically drop down if you accidentally drop a stitch.

Overall, I would knit with this yarn again. If I could find enough of the yarn in the same colorway, I would pick up enough for a sweater if I had the money. The only thing I would make sure to do is alternate skeins I was making a big project out of it because the yarn will pool. For socks, I don't really care about pooling because it provides visual interest.

Score: $$$$

Update: After a day of hard wear in the rain, this yarn will felt a little bit. The felting doesn't really seem to be that bad, but it will felt. I would probably want to hand wash and dry these socks.