Home Our Blog Socktober at John Arbon Textiles

Socktober at John Arbon Textiles

04/10/2024 Written by Lauren News

If you’re new to the whole Socktober phenomenon, you might have seen the name crop up over social media and be wondering what all the fuss is about…

Socktober, occurring during the month of October, (I know, who would have guessed?) is a time for crafters to celebrate all things sock. Sock yarns, sock patterns, socks of all shapes and sizes. Throughout October folks all over the world will be making and sharing everything about their sock knitting and crochet journeys, and we wanted to be a part of it too.

Give us any excuse to celebrate a fibre-related holiday and we’re on board, bringing along our project bags and snacks for the ride.

Whether you knit socks for charity, for your loved ones, or yourself, we have some fun and exciting new woolly treats, to inspire you to get involved in this year’s Socktober.

‘Devon Sea Swell’ Yarn

If you’re familiar with the incredible work of Shadow of Felt Fusion, you’ll be as excited as we are about our Socktober collaboration.

Shadow is a hand dyer, based in the UK who often uses our Exmoor Sock 4ply to create her wonderfully rich and vibrant shades. This year we have worked together with her to create a deep and moody mix of blues, greys, and navy, with pops of brighter blue and white peeking through. Inspired by the darkness of wet rocks on a beach, combined with a lively Devon Sea exploding into fluffy white surf, Shadow has created something truly glorious.

Devon Sea Swell is available for our Mill Members, in 100g skeins, 400m / skein. It has been dyed on our usual trusty Exmoor Sock base of 60% Exmoor Blueface / 20% Corriedale / 10% Zwartbles / 10% Nylon.

Blathan socks, shown in a solid brown with pink embroidered flowers and Why Not, show with a solid grey main colour with contrasting dark green toes, heels, cuffs and short panels of colour work at either end. — Blathan and Why Not socks

Devon Sea Swell is stunning when shown off in its full variegated glory with a simple yet beautiful sock pattern. We love the idea of using it to knit up a pair of Blathan Socks, by Fay Dashper Hughes, or the Why Knot Sock pattern by Sonja Bargielowska (paired in this pattern with skein of highly contrasting yarn).

If you’re looking for contrasting shades to pair with your Devon Sea Swell, you’ll find some pairings we think will look fabulous and provide beautifully contrasting heels, toes and cuffs.

natural, solid, mid grey-brown — Exmoor Sock ‘Drizzle’

Drizzle – Our newest addition to our Exmoor Sock lineup

Exmoor Sock is our trusty workhorse yarn that never disappoints. It’s blend of 60% Exmoor Blueface / 20% Corriedale / 10% Zwartbles / 10% Nylon not only celebrates Exmoor, but is designed to be perfect for socks, whilst still having the versatility to suit garments and accessories that relish a hard-wearing, machine washable yarn.

Exmoor Sock is available in 50g skeins in a multitude of bright and subtle shades, named using local dialect from days gone by.

Creating ‘Drizzle’ has been on our wish list for a while, as you folks have been crying out for a darker version of our ‘Mizzle’ shade.

We just love the versatility that Drizzle gives us – a dark, moody grey is so handy in any colourwork palette, and a neutral, easy-to-wear shade also makes for a very useful, utilitarian vanilla sock.

We think Drizzle could work so well in any design, but we’ve chosen a couple of patterns to show it off in kits, including the Elizabeth Montagu Socks, from the Bluestockings book, by Kate Davies and Nicole Pohl.

We can’t wait to cast on and join in with all the Socktober Shenanigans, let us know if you’re taking part, with your own sock knitting/ crochet this month too.

If you still need a little bit of inspiration, here are a couple of other sock patterns we love that we just had to create a few kits for too… (clockwise from top left in the photo)