Bamboo socks

I'm working on a large shawl for a friend, with lovely yarn, but it's a long project and occasionally I feel the need for a change in my knitting diet. Usually I knit from stash yarn, in the interests of saving my money for essentials and also with a notion to using what I have rather than buying new stuff (I have enough stuff to keep me going for years).

I ducked into the yarn shop on a whim, "just for a look". Um, yeah. I managed to resist buying on the day, but the pretty colours and luscious textures of the sock yarns niggled away at the back of my brain. Never having knitted with bamboo yarn, I succumbed to the call of the new, made a return visit the next time I was in the vicinity and came home with 100 grams of "Happy", 75% bamboo, 25% nylon. It looked more variegated on the ball and I wasn't expecting it to knit up into stripes, but I like the resulting socks. They feel rather cool to the touch, rather than warm like wool. The yarn itself tends to be a bit "splitty" and slippery, but I got the hang of it as I went along (the second sock is better than the first), and I have enough left to make a second pair, I think.

But not just yet. Back to the shawl for a bit.

I've also discovered that the viscose process used to make bamboo into yarn is not environmentally friendly, so while this was an interesting diversion, I don't think I'd buy bamboo again. I must stop thinking about the (non-bamboo) Kaffe Fassett sock yarn...