Mmm... New Socks

Pattern: Spindle Socks from My Fashionable Life

Yarn: Looped Back Cascades colorway, DK weight (colorway best represented in top picture)

Needles: Knitpicks Sz. 2

Dates: March 2007 - Project Spectrum blue

Notes: The only good thing about the return of winter is the chance to wear thick socks for a bit longer. I enjoyed knitting these and found them very fast. I finally got cabling without a cable needle, yay for new skills! My only modification was to make all the cables go the same direction on the second sock. So, they technically don't match, but hey, I'm no stranger to non-matching socks.

Insert random story - In college, I was not exactly a frequent visitor to the basement laundry. There was waaaay too much to do to be bothered with such nonsense, especially when underwear was cheap at Wally World. When I came home, I'd load up the car with all my dirties and put mom's machine to the test. (Sorry about that, mom. And sorry I was still doing that when I was in grad school and living five states away...) My first semester I returned from Thanksgiving with what I thought was enough clean laundry to make it to Christmas. My sock supply ran dry just before finals and at that point, I was too freaked out with studying to even bother buying more. Luckily, my packrat ways came to the rescue and I was able to pull out all those mismatched socks that were lingering at the bottom of the drawer, waiting for their long-lost mates. I took, and aced, every final that semester wearing socks of two different colors. Being the superstitious student, I washed those mismatched socks and saved them for every finals week for the rest of my college career. I may have looked like a complete fool taking that advanced linguistics exam, but the A was worth it!

Back to the socks... I've got another pair of these in white on the needles, awaiting a visit home to measure my grandmother's foot. My original intention was to do both for Project Spectrum pieces, but we'll have to extend that white/grey/blue deadline a bit. I have a tentative goal to do a pair of socks for each color group, but we'll see how that holds up. Goodness knows there's stash yarn for each color group! Here's where I need some help though.

I bought this yarn from The Lone Knitter's etsy shop, Woolly Boully, and am not sure what pattern to use. It's gorgeous stuff and such a unique colorway that I want to really show it off. How do you match up your sock yarns and patterns? I'm leaning towards something fairly plain to make the colors the focus. I'm also thinking non-lace but maybe that's just because it's cold here and I fear having to march through the snow in July with holes in my socks. Any suggestions?