A quick diversion.
I have way to many projects on the needles right now. But I had to put them on hold for a little while as I absolutely had to start knitting socks from this yarn the moment I got it in my hot little hands.
Click pic for skeined view.
It's Fly Dyed Monarch Knit Paints in the "Plum Trees in Full Bloom" colorway. I found it at a store in Seattle that I never knew existed BR. (That would be "Before Ravelry".) Little Knits is a lovely little shop in West Seattle that is only open to the public two days a week, although it's always open online. They have an amazing assortment of yarn at great prices, including some sock yarns I'd never seen before, such as the one above.
The Knit Paints yarn is especially interesting to me because of the way that it is dyed. The dye is painted onto a pre-knitted tube, then the tube is unravelled and the yarn is re-skeined for sale. It is very pretty stuff. Intense dappled colors and a tightly plied and springy yarn base make for a very pleasant sock knitting diversion.
Pattern: Uptown Boot Socks by Jennifer L. Appleby in the "Favorite Socks" book published by Interweave Knits. I did make a slight change to the pattern in that I knit them toe-up with a short row heel in order to maximize the height I could make the cuffs. This was my first foray into toe-up sock knitting, and while I still prefer the cuff-down method I would like to try toe-up with a reverse heel flap and gusset sometime in the near future.