I love Cookie A’s socks. I knit Thelonius earlier this year, and Monkey, Pomatomus, Sunshine, Hedera, and BFF in the past, so it’s really no surprise that there was another Cookie pattern on my list of socks to knit this year.
Clandestine first appeared in Knitty a couple of years ago, and most recently in Cookie’s latest book, Knit.Sock.Love. I’d immediately added them to my queue when I saw them in Knitty, and just waited and waited to figure out which yarn would be perfect for these socks.
At first, I was a little bit iffy about the yarn I chose. I used Malabrigo Sock in the Persia colorway, which I’d loved loved loved in the skein but was afraid it would obscure the pattern a bit. Once I started knitting, though, I completely fell in love with the combination of pattern and yarn.
Some of these repeats turned out looking like dark mottled shells I remember seeing on the beaches of Florida as I was growing up. The colors in the yarn are perfectly matched hues, so the pattern is not obscured at all.
As complicated as this stitch pattern looks, it was actually fairly intuitive, in that way that Cookie A’s socks generally turn out. I had it memorized by the end of the first sock, so the second sock was a zip to knit on the go. This stitch is really stretchy—I used the size 1s that the pattern called for, and the only thing that saved these from being too big is the fact that Malabrigo sock is a lighter fingering weight yarn. Anything heavier and these would have probably been a smidge on the larger size (so if you have loose tension like me and you’re knitting with a heavier yarn, I’d recommend you go down a needle size).
I knit these in seventeen days from start to finish, with detours to work on my sweaterdress and on a shawl for a friend’s belated birthday present (more on that soon). And in theory, detours to pack, though that didn’t work out as well as I’d hoped, given the extreme heat that we’re experience and the lack of central a/c in my apartment. For general information purposes, if you have to knit something while staying in one place (in front of the wall unit a/c) and watching TV (lately it’s been Sons of Anarchy), Clandestine is not a bad choice of patterns.
love the look of those. Think they’re in my queue, too, but it’d probably be wiser to be more familiar with the sock knitting progress before attempting anything as fancy as that 🙂
You know, they’re really a pretty straightforward sock construction. The bigger thing here is to understand how lace patterns work; the sock part of it is simple. 🙂
These are so pretty! You did such an amazing job! I love the color in this pattern 🙂 cookie a does amazing socks and they are all so incredibly stretchy too! She’s quite brilliant I think. I wanted to get in her advanced sock design class @ Sock Summit this year but was too late in my registration 🙁
Thank you! I’m in complete agreement about Cookie’s sock designs. Sorry to hear you couldn’t get into one of her classes! I imagine that they would be chock full of amazing information.
these are gorgeous!!!! i think they’re my favorite of all the socks youve done. also, i also lovelovelove the yarn & the colorway. but then, i’m pretty much in love with malabrigo.
Aww, thank you! Yes, Malabrigo Sock is pretty scrumptious, I love it for everything. I’m a little miffed that this particular colorway doesn’t come on other bases. 😀
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