Mountain climbing with Foothold socks

Last summer when Stylecraft launched their range of sock yarns, Head over Heels, I spent a blissful few weeks in August playing around with stitch patterns. I even took the new yarns for a holiday to Greece with me and worked on some designs in the sunshine! 

I was just at the point of publishing one of these patterns last October when Mr JK died and everything got put on the back burner. Fast forward to December when I was asked by Stylecraft if I had a sock pattern that they could use to launch two new colours in the range! Oh my word, what an emotional day that was! I was delighted to have had a pattern commissioned but also sad because I so wanted to share the news with Mr JK. He would have been very, very proud of me, I know it. Yarn arrived in the post and I spent the Christmas holidays knitting feverishly and working out the stitch counts for different sock sizes. The end result is my Foothold socks.

I love the little ridges on the leg and foot; they remind me of those ledges and shelves that climbers use to get a foothold when climbing. That's how the sock got its name. These photos (taken by Mr JK back in September) show the original sock design. The ribbing on the cuff has changed to a 1 by 1 ribbed cuff as I jiggled around with stitch counts for the various sizes, but I wanted to share these pictures of the very first design off the needles!

There are now eight colourways in the Head over Heels yarn range - all named after mountains. I love the happy yarny smile they're making in this photo, don't you? The yarn is super to knit with and washes really well. The socks I've knitted using the yarn are lovely and soft too. I'm not just saying that, it's true! I've knitted over a hundred  pairs of socks and believe me, life is too short to be knitting with nasty yarn! The two new additions to the range are in the middle - Sugar Loaf (the pastel coloured ball) and Etna (the deep bluey/pink ball.) Let's have a bit of a closer look at the colours...

So how do they look in the socks? Rather nice, if I do say so myself! My photos are not brilliant as I was frantically finishing off the socks when I went up to the last Stylecraft Blogstars meet up, so I had to take a few quick pics with the socks laid out on the bed in my hotel room! (I didn't manage to finish the third pair until I was back home in Norfolk!)

The photo above shows the three sizes, from left to right - small (in Everest), medium (in Etna) and large (in Eiger.) The pattern is a 12 row repeat and is simple enough for new sock knitters to have a go. Keep your eyes peeled as I'm planning to have a Foothold KAL in the coming months. It would be great if you were able to join me! 

I was sent some of the pattern leaflets last week - squee!! So exciting! 

I believe that the leaflet will be available at Stylecraft stockists, along with others for a cute baby cardigan and a shawl, and you can also download a copy free here! 

Here are a couple more photos of the ridged pattern - can you tell that I'm rather pleased with it?!

So, how would you like to win some yarn vouchers and other Stylecraft goodies to be able to knit your own pair of Foothold socks? Silly question! Yes, of course you would! I'm offering three prizes of 2 x £5 Stylecraft vouchers (which  can only be redeemed in a bricks and mortar yarn shop in the UK) along with an assortment of Stylecraft goodies. If you enter from overseas and are a winner, I don't mind going to my LYS and redeeming the vouchers on your behalf and mailing you the yarn. To enter, please take a look at all the colours in the Head over Heels range here and tell me which is your favourite. Make sure that you leave me your Ravelry name/Instagram name/some other way of getting in touch with you if you're a winner. The giveaway will run until midnight on April 2nd and then I'll use a random number generator to pick the winners. I'll be in touch with the winners soon afterwards and if I haven't heard back within a week, I'll pick more winners at random. Hope that's answered any questions you might have so I now declare this giveaway open! Good luck everyone! xxx

PS This is not a sponsored post.